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- Volume 15, Issue 1, 2022
International Journal of Community Music - Volume 15, Issue 1, 2022
Volume 15, Issue 1, 2022
- Editorial
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- Articles
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Community music interventions, popular music education and eudaimonia
By Bryan PowellThe fields of community music and popular music education have expanded rapidly over the past few decades. While there are many similarities between these two fields, there are aspects that set these two areas of practice apart. This article seeks to explore the intersections of community music interventions and popular music education to explain how they are similar and in which ways they are unique. This discussion centres on examinations of facilitation, ownership of music, training and certification, inclusivity, life-long music making, amateur engagement, informal learning and non-formal education, and social concerns. The Greek philosophy of eudaimonism, understood as ‘human flourishing’ is then used to explore the opportunities for human fulfilment through popular music education and community music approaches.
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‘Becoming the song’: Alice Parker, community singing and unlearning choral strictures
More LessThis article conveys research about participatory community singing that I explore through various lenses. I present thoughts and reflections from my interview with Alice Parker, who has many years of experience leading community singing events as well as ethnographic data collected from a monthly community singing event in the American Midwest. I analyse these data through the lens of a ‘traditional’ choral conductor who, prior to undertaking this investigation, had little knowledge about participatory singing traditions; I also utilize scholarship on the differences between participatory and presentational music activities. In our interview, Ms Parker drew on many years of experience in both areas to provide touchstones for facilitating community singing events and also the differences between these events and more traditional choral settings. Perhaps in reflecting on this dichotomy, facilitators of these two important forms of music making might learn from one another.
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A new typology of community music groups
Authors: Adam Hardcastle and Jane SouthcottIn this article, we offer, through a new typology, a way to portray and understand the diversity of community music’s organizational foundations and purposes. Typologies are a common descriptive and interpretive device for understanding patterns of activity. Some researchers of community music have, explicitly or implicitly, developed a number of typologies of community music organizations. Our new typology is systematically aligned to capture the social and musical variability among community music organizations. It then puts the typology to work by providing brief examples, drawn from Australian research, of each of its proposed types. This new typology is intended to allow researchers and practitioners to understand how different community music ensembles are similar or dissimilar, and make comparative discussions clearer and more systematic, offering give a clear frame for understanding present and possible future community music-making groups and organizations.
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A qualitative study of an online Makaton choir for individuals with learning difficulties
Authors: Hannah Quigley and Raymond MacDonaldThis qualitative study investigates the experiences of individuals with learning difficulties who participate in Makaton choirs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with five choir members and a leader. Thematic analysis revealed that participants reported increased opportunities for social connection with others. Participants also reported that performing sign language to song supported the acquisition of Makaton, leading to improvements in communication. Through providing a space for the development of communication and increased social interaction, Makaton choirs present opportunities for creating social relationships and for accessing and participating in new social contexts. In addition, an improved ability to use and understand Makaton sign language allows participants to access the lyrical content of songs, leading to an enhanced understanding of the experience of emotion through music. It is argued that participation in such a group may promote health and well-being by providing participants with a number of psychological and social benefits. Directions for future research are also presented.
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Creating a Makaton Mass: A composition for unison voices and piano to be sung and signed using Makaton
More LessThis article charts the composition of the Multitude of Voyces’ Makaton Mass, commissioned by Multitude of Voyces. This is the first Mass of its kind, devised to be simultaneously sung and signed using the communication programme Makaton. In this article, I propose that to be inclusive, music for worship needs to be all-embracing: straight-forward, but not simplistic, and easily memorable without being twee. Opportunity for congregational participation for both those with special educational needs and disability (SEND) and those without is at the heart of a successful composition of this sort.
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Group music making in nursing homes: Investigating experiences of higher education music students
Authors: Paolo Paolantonio, Stefano Cavalli, Michele Biasutti and Aaron WilliamonA significant number of studies suggest that engagement with music, in its different forms, can play an important role in terms of health and well-being for a diverse range of people, including older adults. Research focusing on the impact of these activities on the practitioners, namely the musicians carrying out the interventions, is at a more preliminary stage. This study investigated how tertiary-level music students experienced group music making with residents in nursing homes. A music team delivered ten weekly music sessions in four nursing homes, focusing on singing, rhythm-based activities with percussion instruments and listening to short, live performances. The team was composed of an experienced workshop leader, a researcher and nine student musicians enrolled in an elective seminar. Qualitative data were collected from the students through semi-structured interviews and oral diaries and analysed using thematic analysis. The results show that the overall experience had a positive impact on students in both professional and personal dimensions. The findings are discussed using the lenses of mutual recovery and the PERMA model of well-being.
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Hidden voices: Towards a trauma-informed framework of community music practice
More LessAs the field of community music scholarship continues to evolve, opening up a dialogue around music making with trauma survivors and implementation of trauma-informed practice is both timely and critical. Whilst there has been an acknowledgement of the presence of trauma connected to specific contexts, community music literature has not yet begun to respond to the potential prevalence of trauma within any community music setting. As a field in which music projects will often be operating with groups of vulnerable people, trauma-informed practice is beginning to be acknowledged, but without a broad base of research to support training and implementation. As a community musician working with known trauma survivors, it is my assertion that the question of whether pedagogic frameworks should be developed in order to promote safe and appropriate practices needs to be addressed, especially where traumatic experience can remain hidden, but still be profoundly impactful. This article explores the origins of trauma-informed practice as well as providing an example framework from the York St John University Prison Partnership Project. A literature review of community music scholarship explores the potential benefits of music making for those who have experienced trauma and emerging themes are examined through the lens of trauma-informed practice. This article also suggests that trauma-informed practice could be integrated more widely within community music in order to: (1) acknowledge that in any group or context, statistically, a number of participants are likely to have experienced trauma; (2) acknowledge that because trauma is often hidden, having an understanding of manifestations of trauma responses will better equip practitioners; (3) understand that trauma-informed practice enables practitioners to work reflexively and responsively within their groups, thereby building solid foundations on which to develop safe and secure environments in which music making can flourish.
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