International Journal of Community Music - Practitioner Perspectives, Sept 2025

This article considers how community music practitioners can conceptualize and describe the dynamic relationship between micro- and macro-outcomes in their work. Building on Bartleet’s framework for social impact in community music, we consider how the small- to large-scale outcomes in community music practices exist in deeply interrelated ways. As this article is in a Special Issue on practitioner perspectives, we offer insights from a four-year Australian project that explored the role community music practice can play in creating greater social equity. We share the analytic device we used in this project – a Möbius strip – to explore how community music can simultaneously work at both individual and collective levels to create greater social equity. Drawing on insights from our project’s case studies, we highlight how the personal, relational, community, structural, spiritual and cultural dimensions of community music all operate in a dynamic and continuous relationality. We hope the insights shared in this article will inspire further critical thought from other community music practitioners and scholars seeking to reflect upon and articulate the outcomes and social impact of their work in more nuanced ways.

This article explores the adaptation of Miami Jam Sessions, a music therapy socialization group and mentoring programme, through the frameworks of the neurodiversity paradigm and community music therapy. Rather than following traditional deficit-based therapeutic models, the programme adopts a strengths-based, relational approach grounded in the social model of disability and neurodiversity paradigm. Central to this approach is an emphasis on shared musicking, community inclusion and reciprocal social learning. This article highlights how the programme evolved to meet the unique needs of its community, transitioning from a social skill acquisition programme to one that emphasizes the authentic application of social skills through collaboration and genuine social engagement. Framed within community music therapy, the programme moves beyond clinical goals to centre on building meaningful relationships and fostering social connections through music. This approach not only benefits neurodiverse individuals but also educates and transforms the broader community and exemplifies how music therapy can be reimagined to affirm neurodiversity, dismantle barriers and cultivate inclusive, joyful spaces for all.

This arts-based research study explores the lived experiences of 2sLGBTQIA+ individuals in community musical theatre. Conducted through auto-ethnography and four semi-structured interviews, culminating in a full-length musical production, the research uncovers themes of friendship, identity, exclusion and systemic power imbalances. Contrary to popular belief, these community spaces are not always inclusive or safe. Nevertheless, they still offer the closest thing to refuge for many who seek a place they can belong. This study challenges the assumption of inherent safety in theatre spaces and calls for more research and reform to ensure truly inclusive environments for every community member.

As a community musician seeking performance opportunities in Edmonton, I undertook a systematic exploration of the city’s 162 community leagues to understand their musical potential. What began as a practical curiosity about finding venues evolved into discovering an extensive but largely hidden musical ecosystem embedded within neighbourhood infrastructure. My environmental scanning revealed surprising results: 108 leagues demonstrated clear capacity for musical programming, yet most musical activity operated below the radar, woven into community events like volunteer appreciation dinners, seasonal celebrations and fundraising gatherings rather than existing as formal cultural programming. Music functioned as an enhancement to community life rather than as isolated entertainment. This discovery led me to develop a ‘performance ecology’ framework – a way of understanding how musical opportunities exist within interconnected networks of institutions, musicians and community members. Community music scholars helped me recognize that this ecological approach aligned with broader theoretical frameworks, particularly cultural democracy principles and social capital development, demonstrating how musical activity builds both bonding capital within neighbourhoods and bridging capital across different community groups. The systematic methodology I developed is transferable to other communities regardless of their specific infrastructure. By documenting over thirty-five types of community events with musical potential and identifying patterns across demographic groups and ongoing programmes, I found that most communities already possess both musicians and venues – what is often missing are the connections between them. This practitioner-led exploration offers concrete strategies for musicians, community organizations and cultural advocates seeking to enhance musical engagement. The key insight: community music is not something you add to community life – it is something you discover within it and help flourish through attention, connection and strategic support.

The Participatory Creative Music (PCM) Hub is a digital platform that showcases and supports participatory music practitioners by providing project examples, activities and resources in healthcare, schools, community, carceral settings and more. The Hub was established by the Canadian New Music Network in 2019 and, since then, has provided visibility for the work and connected participatory artists who usually work in isolation. The two authors, one practitioner and one researcher, describe the personal and institutional histories leading to their collaboration through the PCM Hub, including some of the tensions and learnings to date, particularly around the different terminologies and negative associations with community music. They also describe the need for ongoing outreach and relationship-building in addition to the online platform, and their current efforts to build a national network that integrates research and practices towards a vibrant national PCM practice that is responsive to diverse cultural and social contexts led by practitioners who are supported in their work.

Many adults with musical skills struggle to find outlets for their musical interests. Despite the ubiquity of the internet, it can be difficult to find community music groups unless one knows what one is looking for. This article documents the inventorying and cultural mapping history and development of the Canadian Community Music Group Database, a non-commercial, online resource with over 1600 entries that allows for various forms of data visualization. The author shares his struggles with sustaining the database, while challenging community music researchers in other countries to emulate the aims and purposes of this project in order to better support those who may benefit from a consolidated music participation database and to help advance community music research generally by surfacing issues related to what is and what might be in community music.