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- Volume 6, Issue 2, 2013
International Journal of Community Music - Volume 6, Issue 2, 2013
Volume 6, Issue 2, 2013
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From dabbler to serious amateur musician and beyond: Clarifying a crucial step
More LessAbstractDabbling is casual leisure, a hedonic activity common in music as well as in a number of other free-time interests. In the past, dabbling has been inadequately conceptualized, one result being some misunderstanding about its nature and its contribution to leisure and even to professional work. By way of clarification we look first at the contemporary explanation of dabbling as set out according to the serious leisure perspective, a main analytic framework in the field of leisure studies. This explanation proceeds from two related articles written by Gates and Jorgensen. Next, dabbling as a leisure activity in music is considered in detail, particularly as it relates to children. This includes an examination of its nature and its role in initiating a leisure/work career in music, as experienced in the passage from dabbler to neophyte amateur and on possibly to professional.
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‘Without U, it’s just kulele’: Expressions of leisure and ‘ohana in an intergenerational ukulele club
More LessAbstractThe purpose of this intrinsic case study was to examine the musical and social underpinnings of the Dallas Ukulele Headquarters (DUH). Specifically, this research explored the impetus and evolution of DUH, the appeal of ukulele culture as expressed by club members and the members’ perceived sense of identity within a diverse community group. Data were collected over a seven-month period through participant observations, interviews with six participants, photography and e-mail correspondence. Findings revealed that DUH served as an inclusive and accepting family (‘ohana), which engendered a sense of nostalgia and therapeutic value of music among members. While the Internet most likely served as the conduit that allowed DUH to flourish, rehearsal venues were not always fulfilling due to growing membership in limited spaces. Future considerations for research include the potential in facilitating ‘ohana in community music settings, the therapeutic attributes of the ukulele and the longevity of the current ukulele renaissance.
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Healthy ageing: The Get a Life Marching Band
More LessAbstractThis article features the Get a Life Marching Band, an American adult marching band in Portland, Oregon formed in 1994. My study began during Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans in 2010 and involved observations, interviews and a survey of members. The primary themes that emerged from my investigation were that band members strive to have fun, spread the joy of music and share their energy with the audience. In this report I discuss the organization’s history, mission, purpose, activities, people and impact.
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They came for the kids and stayed for the teacher: The Desert Winds Community Steel Orchestra
More LessAbstractThis descriptive report examines the motivations of adult beginners’ participation in a leisure activity, the Desert Winds Community Steel Orchestra (DWCSO) based in Phoenix, Arizona. The initial adult ensemble was formed in 1983 based on interest created through the Desert Winds Steel Orchestra, a sixth grade steel band. This study examines the second iteration of this ensemble that began in 1997. Motivational factors are divided into factors that contributed to joining the group and those that motivated members to continue participation. DWCSO participants noted children’s influence and musical curiosity as their impetus for joining the ensemble. They continued participating due to a desirable curriculum and methodology, socialization and enhanced sense of well-being.
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A multitude of people singing together
By Si WeiAbstractAmong other things, city parks are places for people to relax or go for a walk in a natural and beautiful environment. Usually removed from the chaos of the city, parks often satisfy the desires of many city-dwellers for a place of natural beauty. Quite often, they are an integral part of a community. In Chinese parks, people do various activities freely in this natural space, such as physical exercise, tai chi, chess, dancing and singing. When music comes to this environment, it can bring cheer and laughter, and can give people precious opportunities to express their feelings and consider the meaning of life. Recently, singing has become a familiar phenomenon in Chinese parks. More and more people go to the park with their singing books. They spontaneously form chorus groups, organize singing activities and have even attracted the attention of the government. The Jingshan choir is the earliest and most influential extensive music group to meet in Chinese parks. Studying this group has helped me to gain a clearer understanding of why so many people in the community choose singing as their music activity.
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Sympathetic chords: Reverberating connection through the lived leisure experiences of music listening
Authors: Joseph A. Pate and Corey W. JohnsonAbstractInformed by a larger post-intentional phenomenology on those who self-disclose deep and significant experiences of connection with and through music listening, this work highlights glimpses and manifestations of the listening act. Interviews with one participant from a larger study afford insights into experiences of a music listener. Philip described moments of resonating and reverberating connection expressed through the manifestations of embodied resonation, sympathetic chords and the found mirror. For Philip, listening to music created spaces and opportunities for leisure that yielded feelings of deeply meaningful and personal affirmation, validation and connection. Through music’s ability to speak to, and thus speak for Philip, he experienced leisured moments of receptivity, vital engagement and a re-sensitivity to his sense of self and place within a larger community.
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Finding healing through songwriting: A song for Nicolette
More LessAbstractThe purpose of this article is to outline one person’s lived-experience of songwriting. Using data from an individual participant as an archetype of a larger Post-Intentional Phenomenological project, this songwriter’s experience is understood as both cathartic and transcendent. Illuminated by the phenomenological description of ‘gravitating-levitating’, songwriting served as a form of healing for both the participating songwriter and listeners of the resulting music. Salient intersections of community music and leisure are explored. Findings offer a glimpse into the complexities and insights of these phenomena as a lived-experience.
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The Rise of the Amplified Elephants
More LessAbstractThis project report charts the shift from leisure to an emerging vocational practice for the Amplified Elephants, a sonic art ensemble for people with intellectual disabilities based at the Footscray Community Arts Centre in Australia. The transition from sonic art making as recreation, then to leisure and then on to an emerging professional sonic art agenda for the Amplified Elephants has led to several insights regarding the role of music as leisure in the artistic development of people with an intellectual disability. The report discusses the creative processes of the group against a number of high-profile public outcomes that the Amplified Elephants have presented.
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Community music and urban leisure: The Liverpool One Project
More LessAbstractThis article reports on research that aimed to understand, through a collaborative music-making studio project, how young urban musicians might build a community that could transgress perceived cultural and racialized boundaries and ‘reclaim’ the city centre through their lyrics and performances. The Liverpool One Project involved sixteen weeks of studio-based activities with 23 young people (ages 18–25) to create an urban music (e.g., rap, hip hop, soul, R&B, grime and dubstep genres) digital mixtape. Drawing from participants’ lyrics and my ethnographic descriptions of studio conversations, I highlight the participants’ grasp of their sociological imaginations (Mills 1959): their ability to locate music and leisure at the intersections of biography, history and society. The sociological imagination further allows the crucial differentiation between individual ‘personal troubles’ and broader, structural ‘public issues’. The Liverpool One Project illustrated this critical ability, as participants (re)constructed and contested where they and urban music more generally ‘belong’ in Liverpool’s newly regenerated city centre.
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