Partly cloudy. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 84F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph..
Partly cloudy skies during the evening will give way to cloudy skies overnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low near 65F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.
Jeremy Shepherd, 24, of Bluemont, sings “Overcoming the Trials” Tuesday evening at the Sinclair Health Clinic on North Cameron Street in Winchester. Shepherd, who grew up in foster care and later became homeless, used the song to share his feelings about seeking happiness during the darkest of times.
Jeremy Shepherd (from left) and Shenandoah University music therapists Bronwen Landless and Allison Terrell perform Shepherd’s original composition, “Overcoming the Trials,” on Tuesday evening at Sinclair Health Clinic in Winchester. Landless is conducting an academic study to determine if songwriting can improve the self-worth and outlook of people who have experienced homelessness.
Jeremy Shepherd (left) and Allison Terrell perform “Overcoming the Trials” on Tuesday evening at Sinclair Health Clinic on North Cameron Street in Winchester. Shepherd, a former foster child who has experienced homelessness, wrote the song’s lyrics and melody while Terrell, a music therapist at Shenandoah University, composed the guitar track.
Jeremy Shepherd, 24, of Bluemont, sings “Overcoming the Trials” Tuesday evening at the Sinclair Health Clinic on North Cameron Street in Winchester. Shepherd, who grew up in foster care and later became homeless, used the song to share his feelings about seeking happiness during the darkest of times.
Jeremy Shepherd (from left) and Shenandoah University music therapists Bronwen Landless and Allison Terrell perform Shepherd’s original composition, “Overcoming the Trials,” on Tuesday evening at Sinclair Health Clinic in Winchester. Landless is conducting an academic study to determine if songwriting can improve the self-worth and outlook of people who have experienced homelessness.
Jeremy Shepherd (left) and Allison Terrell perform “Overcoming the Trials” on Tuesday evening at Sinclair Health Clinic on North Cameron Street in Winchester. Shepherd, a former foster child who has experienced homelessness, wrote the song’s lyrics and melody while Terrell, a music therapist at Shenandoah University, composed the guitar track.
WINCHESTER — Jeremy Shepherd has endured a lifetime’s worth of pain in just 24 years. He was bounced among 13 foster homes, slept on the streets in 17-degree weather and even survived a knife attack.
Through it all, his contagious smile and upbeat attitude made others believe he was handling life’s pitfalls without a problem.
“I’m so good on the outside, people don’t see the broken pieces inside,” Shepherd said this week. “I was lost for most of my life.”
Things started to change for the better a few months ago when Shepherd visited some old friends at the Winchester Rescue Mission shelter on North Cameron Street, where he had stayed for a few months while he was homeless. That’s when he learned about music therapist Bronwen Landless and her theory that damaged people can start to heal by expressing their innermost thoughts, fears and dreams in song.
Landless, an assistant professor of music therapy at Shenandoah University, is conducting a study as part of her doctoral dissertation to determine if people who have experienced homelessness can boost their self-worth with therapeutic songwriting.
“We’re curious to see what this can mean to them,” Landless said. “Sometimes when we’re dealing with people who have experienced homelessness, we think about meeting their basic needs but forget a whole person exists.”
On Tuesday, Shepherd debuted his original song “Overcoming the Trials,” a folk-tinged, mid-tempo piece he wrote as part of Landless’ program. The lyrics were intensely personal, designed to inspire listeners to find hope amid hopelessness.
“You’ve already been through hell and it’s just heaven left,” Shepherd sang. “Every day is a battle between dark and light, and every single day I will win this fight.”
About a dozen people tuned in to a live stream Tuesday evening to hear Shepherd’s song and share comments with him afterward.
“That was awesome!” raved Alicia Vann, a staff member at Winchester Rescue Mission.
“You did a wonderful job,” said Marc Jaccard, executive director of the Henry and William Evans Home for Children in Winchester, which is one of the places Shepherd stayed in between foster homes.
“The pieces of yourself that you poured into that music stand to inspire others,” added Erin Bonham, an adjunct assistant professor of music therapy at Shenandoah University.
Shepherd beamed, saying that sharing his song with others was the happiest moment of his entire life.
“Writing this was my experience and expression of how I see people and things,” he said. “Maybe I can lift some kid out of their darkness.”
Shepherd is no stranger to life’s harshest realities. He was raised as a foster child, then was homeless for a short period of time after he became an adult. He managed to stay in touch with his birth mother, who is mentally ill and lives in New Mexico, but the last time he visited her she was off her medication and tried to stab him with a kitchen knife, he said.
Throughout the nightmare of his young life, Shepherd said he found solace in singing. Music brought him joy, and he wanted to share that joy with others.
In recent years, though, Shepherd stopped singing. Life’s challenges were too daunting to hold at bay with a simple song.
A visit to the Rescue Mission a few months ago put him back on a musical track. Shepherd saw a flyer at the shelter seeking participants for Landless’ new study, “Therapeutic Songwriting with People Experiencing Homelessness: Exploring the Impact on Participants and Their Surrounding Communities.” He reached out to Landless and her partner in the project, Shenandoah University adjunct assistant professor of music therapy Allison Terrell, and said he would like to sign up.
“We met on a weekly basis,” Terrell said of her musical partnership with Shepherd.
It took Shepherd a few weeks to finalize the lyrics to “Overcoming the Trials.” When he was ready, Terrell recorded and produced the song on a MacBook and also wrote and played the song’s guitar track based on chord progressions reminiscent of works by two of Shepherd’s favorite performers, singer John Legend and rapper NF.
“It’s been a real honor to do this work,” Terrell said. “I’ve seen its value firsthand every single week with Jeremy ... and there’s so much potential for this kind of work in this setting.”
Shepherd is just the third person to participate in Landless’ songwriting program, so it’s too early to say if the experience will have long-term positive effects on its subjects. The study is ongoing and at least three more people are expected to explore their emotions through song in the coming weeks.
The experience has clearly had a profound impact on Shepherd.
“I moved to Bluemont, Virginia, and I’m in the midst of starting my own small landscaping business,” he said. “I work hard all day long, and I just got a new 150cc bike to play on.”
He even built up the courage to call his birth mother last month shortly after Mother’s Day.
“I told her I forgive her,” he said.
You can hear “Overcoming the Trials” by Jeremy Shepherd on YouTube at youtu.be/AK1XTEpUmDQ.
— Contact Brian Brehm at bbrehm@winchesterstar.com
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