International Journal of Community Music - Volume 9, Issue 1, 2016

This article is based on a version published over ten years ago in the Handbuch Musik in der Sozialen Arbeit/Handbook of Music in Social Work (Theo Hartogh and Hans-Hermann Wickel, 2004). The international discourse about Community Arts/Music was then still largely unknown in Germany. Nationally, the subject was classified as Soziokultur/social culture within which social work was the mainstay. The opening hypothesis of the article, which has since been updated, proposed that developments in national Soziokultur and international community music were running a similar course and pursuing similar goals. In the following text, the developments in the musical sub-division of German Soziokultur are reconstructed and presented in relation to the observations of Higgins in Britain. It will subsequently be examined, whether the term community music is appropriate to describe the theory and practice of social music-making in Germany.

Which concepts come into play in the context of music and pedagogy? Why do German institutions tend to favour English terms such as ‘education’? Why does a concept like ‘Community Music’ have no simple German translation – and why does it evoke irritating associations of ‘music abuse’ in 20th century German history? How can we characterize the tradition and profile of music education in German youth work today? What would we achieve by introducing ‘Community Music’ as a theoretical, musical-pedagogical concept to discourses on cultural education? And how can we define ‘Community Music’ in the German context? Why is the more artistically/aesthetically, pedagogically oriented Kulturelle Bildung of central interest in Germany? Does a new concept like Community Music threaten to crush the achievements of music-based children’s and youth work? This essay is an attempt to untangle German and English concepts in the context of music and pedagogy. The author predicts that the term ‘Community Music’ will establish itself in Germany – similar to how ‘education’ has already established itself. This term will put a new label on old knowledge, strengthen or endanger established fields of practice, initiate new musical-pedagogical discourses and projects, but also evoke a host of vague associations.

Older people have shown a growing interest in cultural activities in recent years. In Germany, the disciplines Music Geragogy and Elementary Music Pedagogy have reacted to this trend and started to integrate the topic ‘Music making in old age’ into (further) education programmes. This article presents these initiatives and their links to Community Music. As for the future, the international discourse concerning these three approaches should produce important stimuli for the didactic and methodological fundamentals of the topic ‘Music making in old age’, in both theory and practice.

Though Sound Work was developed in the field of psychiatry, its characteristics proved to comply widely with the philosophical paradigms of community music, a fact that encouraged the development of Community Sound Work as a new interdisciplinary and culturally sensitive concept. Sound Work was developed on the basis of comparative psychiatric case studies identifying four main clinical problems: traumatization and pathological symbolization, psychosomatic loops and somatization, loss of inner balance and social disintegration, energetic maladjustment and inadequate energy expenditure. Clinical application has shown that rhythm and sound are deeply involved with human characteristics and life-determining conditions. This led to various applications of Sound Work in medical, preventive, pedagogical and sociocultural fields. Consequently, the philosophy of community music could benefit greatly from a fresh view of psychiatric Sound Work, because while psychopathological traits require therapy, authentic personality features require empathetic inclusion.

Prevention of violence is one of the major social responsibilities of the twenty-first century, requiring effective preventative measures at many levels. Music as a non-verbal and emotive medium provides general and specific means for promoting aggression regulation, social integration and empowerment. Different music therapeutic procedures seem to be useful and the ideas of Community Music Therapy can expand the methodical approaches in German Music Therapy. This article presents a specific music therapy programme for the prevention of violence in school classes, which has been scientifically elaborated upon over the past few years in Germany. After describing the programme, called DrumPower, the article will conclude with the question as to what extent the different approaches can be useful to each other in the future.

In light of the scarcity of the term ‘community music’ (CM) within German academic discourses, this article tries to unfold probable reasons for this from the viewpoint of music education. It questions the accuracy of previous statements on the relevance of CM and spurs on a more precisely conducted debate in Germany.

The present article considers the (non-)relationship of German educational institutions with the field of community music, a field of work currently without an independent designation in Germany. Beginning with the philosophies of its Musikschulen and Musikhochschulen, the article goes on to describe teaching traditions and funding structures in Germany. Originating from the ideal of superlative artistic performance, the quest for excellence has spawned the so-called ‘Meisterlehre’, that is to say the teaching model in which the tutor as ‘master’ passes on all his knowledge and expertise to his apprentice. For the vast majority of students, a performing career is their defining goal, in spite of the increasing precariousness of the profession. Other forms of artistic communication are often perceived as a failure in this respect, and receive accordingly less recognition. This situation has contributed to the fact that community music in Musikhochschulen has so far garnered little attention.

In Germany there are a large number of activities on offer, which come under the heading of community music, and a demand for specifically trained musicians is indeed discernible, but as yet no awareness has evolved of the opportunity that a career in community music represents. Neither the remits of educational establishments nor students’ goals are in line with this, and perspectives often change only when confronted with the harsh reality of the profession. Related fields of work, such as arts education and arts-based social work, may seem to cover the domain; yet community musicians work primarily as performing artists and not as educators – a distinction that is difficult to fathom, given the prevailing artistic attitudes. In order to professionalize community music, a structured form of professional development would seem to be the most appropriate way forward at this point. Questions arising in a professional context could be properly dealt with, and a platform to achieve more recognition for community music as an artistic endeavour could be built. Once an artistic identity is established, the ensuing possibilities for a community musician to take effect in society are manifold.

Although community music is slowly gaining popularity in Germany, it is still largely unknown, both as a term and as a concept of practice. Consequently, it has so far been understudied: there has been no primary research to specifically explore the concept of community music in Germany. This journal issue is a first step in exploring community music from a variety of academic disciplines: music education, music therapy and social work. It is the first publication solely dedicated to community music in Germany. The purpose of this article is twofold. First, to analyse and locate the concept of community music in the German context and in relation to the disciplines of music education and social work. Second, to provide a local, practice-based example of the potential and resonance of the concept of community music in the German context. The example I provide is the Munich Community Music Action Research Group (MCMARG), which shows how community music in Munich developed as a result of the group’s work. The group consisted of eight policy-makers, practitioners and academics and worked for over two years (2013–2015) to develop community music in Munich. The process and developments of the MCMARG led to local developments in community music practice, to an international community music conference and finally to this journal issue. In both parts of this article I will show first, that community music has intersections with a range of contexts and disciplines in Germany, and second, the relevance of the community music concept to many areas of music-making practice in Germany. This will hopefully provide a point of reference and identification for community musicians and researchers in this field as it develops in Germany.