International Journal of Community Music - Volume 4, Issue 3, 2011

This article describes a music project that took place as part of a bigger project, entitled the Music for Life Project that explored the social and emotional benefits of music participation for people over fifty. The intergenerational project was led by two music leaders from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. The participants involved were pupils from two primary schools in East London and seniors from two housing schemes, also in East London. The project culminated in a concert at the Pit Theatre, the Barbican Centre. Interviews and written responses from pupils and senior participants, as well as one music leader and teaching staff from the two schools highlighted many benefits of the initiative that brought different generations together through music such as opportunities to socialize and collaborate, enhanced well-being, enjoyment in being challenged and in developing new musical skills and appreciation of each other's role in the group.

The HONK! Festival of Activist Street Bands (honkfest.org) is an independent, grassroots, non-commercial weekend festival held each autumn in Somerville, Massachusetts. It is a moving spectacle of colourful marching bands, gigantic puppets, creative bikers, jugglers, hoopers, flag twirlers and stilt walkers, interspersed with unions, activist organizations and community groups. The deep history of HONK! derives from the role of military brass and drums in colonial conquest and religious conversion. As empires crumbled, these military and religious ensembles gave rise to community-based civilian bands that incorporated local popular musics to create new transcultural hybrids. HONK! represents one visible tip of a substantial underground of alternative street bands that encompasses large parts of the globe. The processes by which these bands operate provide an alternative model (or complement) to traditional music education. This research represents an embryonic attempt to articulate the values and techniques that comprise what I call HONK! pedagogy.

The noted African American soprano Emma Azalia Hackley (1867-1922) abandoned her concert career in the early twentieth century and began travelling throughout the United States, organizing community choruses and promoting community music making. She spent the remainder of her life engaged in what she called 'musical social uplift', which entailed teaching voice culture to hundreds of thousands of African Americans. To accomplish her goals, she formulated a unique pedagogy especially suited to black citizens in times of racism and segregation. Because of her commitment to music education and community activism, she became famous as the 'National Vocal Teacher' of African Americans.

This article aims to make explicit the evolving ecology of ideas in the field of community music and higher education that are particular to a context yet transferable across respective fields of enquiry - music education, community music, music therapy and community music therapy. This is contextualized in two ways: (1) through a consideration of what learning through 'community music' might represent in terms of 'knowledge' in higher education, and (2) a case study of community music within one university setting. The research draws from a series of research projects, including a community music focus group comprising undergraduate and postgraduate music students. It adopts a reflexive research approach between participants and researchers. The findings present a set of considerations for community music in higher education and five emergent themes from the student perspective. By applying Barnett's theory of knowing and being, the discussion leads to a reconsideration of what might be considered 'legitimate' knowledge in community music in higher education to include dispositions of engagement and qualities of emotional learning.

This interview explores the thinking and work of US music educator and lifespan music advocate Roy Ernst. Ernst's pioneering work with the New Horizons Bands programme embodies his convictions that the window of opportunity for musical expression and learning extends far beyond childhood; people of all ages can be musical.

Christopher Small's (1927-2011) concept of musicking provides community music researchers and practitioners a theoretical framework that directly supports our work. With ideas based in Gregory Bateson's writings, Small argues that music is an activity, all people are capable of music-making, both individual and social components are key parts of his concept, and both sonic and social relationships occur in musical performances. This brief memorial about Small's writing highlights key themes in his concept of musicking.