Objective A. A sense of belonging—the subjective feeling of deep connection with social groups, physical places, and individual and collective experiences—is a fundamental human need. Although the importance of social relationships, cultural identity, and — especially for indigenous people — place and belonging have long been apparent in research across multiple disciplines (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Cacioppo, & Hawkley, 2003; Carter et al., 2017; Maslow, 1954; Rouchy, 2002; Vaillant, 2012), the year 2020 — with massive bushfires in Australia and elsewhere destroying ancient lands, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S., amongst other events — brought the importance of belonging to the forefront of public attention. Belonging can be defined as a subjective feeling that one is an integral part of their surrounding systems, including family, friends, school, work environments, communities, cultural groups, and physical places (Hagerty et al., 1992). Most people have a deep need to feel a sense of belonging, characterized as a positive but often fluid and ephemeral connection with other people, places, or experiences (Allen, 2020a). Current social challenges amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdown have created a much more disparate, disconnected and socially isolated community than we once experienced. No longer do we have the work based friendships, the micro and macro geographic connection (knowing everyone on your street and knowing all the shop keepers in a town) or the breadth of active VCFS (voluntary, charity & faith sector) organisations that were once relied upon to protect emotional and mental health at a grass roots level. This protection was provided almost subconsciously by the membership of a group, a sense of belonging, shared objectives and unifying characteristics. Our groups create a sense of belonging, a space to talk and share thus creating informal circles of socioemotional reciprocity and a reduction in perceived social incongruence. This, both research and anecdotal evidence tells us, leads to a reduction in mild to moderate mental ill health such as anxiety and depression. It also increases our sense of community safety and of wider community engagement. The World Federation of Music Therapy (WFMT) produced the first common definition in 1996, and the most recent version from 2011 reads as follows: “Music therapy is the professional use of music and its elements as an intervention in medical, educational, and everyday environments with individuals, groups, families or communities who seek to optimize their quality of life and improve their physical, social, communicative, emotional, intellectual and spiritual health and wellbeing. Research, practice, education and clinical training in music therapy is based on professional standards according to cultural, social and political contexts” Negative symptoms of schizophrenia have gone from being described as the primary feature of schizophrenia to being a secondary phenomenon. Negative symptoms have been correlated with a lower quality of life, lower overall social and global functioning, as well as being associated with a decline in cognitive function. Despite the correlation between negative symptoms and key areas of living, few studies have investigated possible treatments for the symptom cluster, and even fewer have showed an effect in the treatment thereof. Since 2014 it has been recommended as a treatment method for patients diagnosed with schizophrenia in the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidelines (UK) to promote recovery. It is stated that “...art therapies should be recommended to all people with psychosis or schizophrenia, particularly for the alleviation of negative symptoms.” The NICE guidelines justify their recommendation by stating that people with schizophrenia should be enabled to experience themselves differently, to be offered new ways of relating and expressing themselves and organizing their experiences into a satisfying aesthetic form. Three Cochrane reviews [ Gold C., Heldal T.O., Dahle T., Wigram T. Music therapy for schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like illnesses. Cochrane Database Syst. Rev. 2005;18:CD004025.4, Mössler K., Chen X., Heldal T.O., Gold C. Cochrane Database of Sustematic Reviews. The Cochrane Collaboration. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.; Hoboken, NJ, USA: 2011. Music Therapy for people with schizophrenia and schizophrenia-like disorders. Geretsegger M., Mössler K.A., Bieleninik Ł., Chen X., Heldal T., Gold C. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. The Cochrane Collaboration. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.; Hoboken, NJ, USA: 2017. Music therapy for schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like disorders. Cochrane Schizophrenia Group.7] have shown the positive effect of music therapy in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, with an improvement of several general symptoms (among others, attention and motivation) and a reduction of negative symptoms. Structured rehearsal routines, learning new skills, the acquisition of improvisational / writing and expressional skills coupled with the distractive capabilities of music making all have been demonstrated to reduce or assist in controlling the negative symptoms of psychosis.