Annotated bibliography of community music research review, AHRC connected communities programme

This research review, consisting of a 90-entry annotated bibliography, was produced as part of an AHRC Connected Communities programme project entitled Community Music, its History and Current Practice, its Constructions of ‘Community’, Digital Turns and Future Soundings. It supports a 2,500 word report written with this same title for the AHRC

A manifesto for the creative economy

The UK\u27s creative economy is one of its great national strengths, historically deeply rooted and accounting for around one-tenth of the whole economy. It provides jobs for 2.5 million people – more than in financial services, advanced manufacturing or construction – and in recent years, this creative workforce has grown four times faster than the workforce as a whole. But behind this success lies much disruption and business uncertainty, associated with digital technologies. Previously profitable business models have been swept away, young companies from outside the UK have dominated new internet markets, and some UK creative businesses have struggled to compete. UK policymakers too have failed to keep pace with developments in North America and parts of Asia. But it is not too late to refresh tired policies. This manifesto sets out our 10-point plan to bolster one of the UK\u27s fastest growing sectors

Developing music improvisation workshops for preschool children through Action Research

Improvisation in music is an important skill, which is increasingly valued, and an essential part of curricula at all educational levels. However, understandings of improvisation are conflicting and contradictory approaches exist within improvisation pedagogy. Creative and learning processes from free improvisation are used in Higher Education, and with Secondary and Primary children, but there is scarce research with young children. This is despite potential alignment with preschool curricula, which emphasise creativity and social skills. The aims of this PhD were to investigate and improve a novel method of delivering music education to preschool children through improvisation, emphasising personal creativity and socio-musical responsiveness. The research questions were as follows: How can children’s creativity and engagement in group improvisation be appreciated and evaluated? This question had two further sub questions: What are parents’ and teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about the children, creativity and music?, and, What are the children’s conceptualisations of the workshops? The second research question was: Do the workshop programme, teaching approaches and methods change through two cycles of Action Research? A Pragmatic theoretical stance supported Mixed Methods within an Action Research design, providing a suitable model for enquiry through action, analysis, and planned change. Workshop materials were designed for two 6-week cycles of Action Research for different groups of preschool children (seven in cycle I, six in Cycle II; aged 4-5) in 2016. Prior to the workshops, two original theoretical constructs were proposed and then refined through the process of analysis: Creative musical agency (CMA) and socio-musical aptitude (S-MA). CMA is instantiated when a child creates and executes novel musical material independently in a group improvisation. S-MA is instantiated when child creates a musical response in relation and with reference to, another child’s musical idea in a group improvisation. Video data of the children’s improvisations were sampled and analysed using multimodal video analysis, to gain a rich, nuanced picture of social and musical interactions and expressions of creativity during the children’s improvisations. This involved coding for instances of CMA and S-MA in different musical parameters. In-depth interviews with the children’s parents and teachers and children’s talk from the workshops were subjected to Thematic Analysis. Two experts rated 39 clips of the children’s improvisations as showing CMA, S-MA or neither and were interviewed to explore their views further. In parents’ and teachers’ interviews, the types of strategies they employed were shaped by whether or not they perceived a child as confident and able to share. Their conceptions of children’s creativity were through descriptions of their art activities as well as making up stories and role play. In contrast, music was not readily conceptualised as a creative activity and being musical was understood as possessing technical skill on an instrument. All of the adults identified as non-musical, even though they participated in musical activities with the children. In children’s talk, their understandings of improvising were mediated in distinct ways: previous musical experiences, expressive descriptions of their improvisations, and combinations of these with musical terms. Video analysis indicated that for 10/13 children, the number of CMA and S-MA events increased over the workshop programme. The range of musical parameters for improvising increased through the workshop programme. Between the experts’ video clip ratings there was a slight agreement for CMA (Kappa 0.21 and moderate agreement for S-MA (Kappa 0.5). They accounted for this by proposing that the teacher mediated some children’s CMA events. Video analysis showed children looking at the teacher before 57% of CMA events. The workshop model changed from a linear succession of tasks with a talk section at the end to iterative cycle of playing and talking, as the original model was not effective in facilitating the children’s discourse. This study is the first to use improvisation with a group of this size and age. Two novel constructs of CMA and S-MA offer a promising means to apprehend and evaluate young children’s creativity and engagements in group improvisation. Children’s perspectives in creative tasks are under reported; the distinct understandings of improvisation that emerged here are important in appreciating conceptual as well as musical development at this age. Parents and teachers value music and creativity but their own musical identities may affect how they create music with children. The refined workshop model offers a flexible and responsive template; by capturing children’s understanding of their playing, informed pedagogical choices can be made. Recommendations for future research include creating more CMA and S-MA based activities, and investigating effective teacher training for future delivery. More qualitative studies could investigate children’s cognitive processes in group creativity. Music is a collection of skills, therefore, developing conceptualisations of music education as improving creativity, social skills and critical thinking, presents a powerful argument for teaching and appreciating music in these ways from the start of young children’s education

Assessing Canada's Copyright Law in the Digital Context: Digital Locks, Open Licenses, and the Limits of Legislative Change

This dissertation examines Canadas copyright law reform in the information age. The overarching theme of my research underscores the importance of considering the purpose(s) of copyright law and the public interest while navigating the copyright law reform process. Additionally, I advocate that in regulating the influence of technology in the copyright system, the default approach should aim to objectively balance the interests of stakeholders to the extent possible. Ultimately, recognizing that stakeholders will continue to develop pragmatic responses to the changing landscape through private contracting and technological measures, I suggest that embracing regulatory pluralism is the most promising path towards achieving balanced copyright in the digital age. I develop these arguments over six chapters

Assessing Canada\u27s Copyright Law in the Digital Context: Digital Locks, Open Licenses, and the Limits of Legislative Change

This dissertation examines Canadas copyright law reform in the information age. The overarching theme of my research underscores the importance of considering the purpose(s) of copyright law and the public interest while navigating the copyright law reform process. Additionally, I advocate that in regulating the influence of technology in the copyright system, the default approach should aim to objectively balance the interests of stakeholders to the extent possible. Ultimately, recognizing that stakeholders will continue to develop pragmatic responses to the changing landscape through private contracting and technological measures, I suggest that embracing regulatory pluralism is the most promising path towards achieving balanced copyright in the digital age. I develop these arguments over six chapters

Arts-Based Methods in Education Around the World

Arts-Based Methods in Education Around the World aims to investigate arts-based encounters in educational settings in response to a global need for studies that connect the cultural, inter-cultural, cross-cultural, and global elements of arts-based methods in education. In this extraordinary collection, contributions are collected from experts all over the world and involve a multiplicity of arts genres and traditions. These contributions bring together diverse cultural and educational perspectives and include a large variety of artistic genres and research methodologies.The topics covered in the book range from policies to pedagogies, from social impact to philosophical conceptualisations. They are informative on specific topics, but also offer a clear monitoring of the ways in which the general attention to the arts in education evolves through time

What we say and what we do an examination into the discourse of community music and its interrelation with cultural policy

Ownership, empowerment and transformation are three concepts that have gained prominence in the discourse of community music. As a collective group of concepts, they represent a myriad of interpretations, possibilities and influences. Community musicians and music organisations now rely on using these three concepts in evaluation reports to demonstrate the value and impact of their work to funders and policymakers. However, as buzzwords, their usage has become interchangeable, and the meaning and knowledge of how they manifest in practice have become unclear. This research aims to critically explore the relationship between community music and cultural policy by examining how ownership, empowerment and transformation are used in community music discourse. A range of research methods are employed to undertake this study. Firstly, conceptual analysis, where I develop three conceptual lenses, language, practice, and policy, to explore how the use of these three concepts has changed and developed in alignment with social and cultural policy agendas and the fundamental theories underpinning each of these domains. Secondly, through focus groups, interviews and participatory observations, a case study design helps reveal how community musicians operationalise these concepts. In conclusion, this research provides a lens through which to explore the discourse of community music and its interconnection with cultural policy, examining the effects that policies have on the language and practices of community musicians and how they recognise the impact and value of their work

SPARC 2017 retrospect & prospects : Salford postgraduate annual research conference book of abstracts

Welcome to the Book of Abstracts for the 2017 SPARC conference. This year we not only celebrate the work of our PGRs but also the 50th anniversary of Salford as a University, which makes this year’s conference extra special. Once again we have received a tremendous contribution from our postgraduate research community; with over 130 presenters, the conference truly showcases a vibrant PGR community at Salford. These abstracts provide a taster of the research strengths of their works, and provide delegates with a reference point for networking and initiating critical debate. With such wide-ranging topics being showcased, we encourage you to exploit this great opportunity to engage with researchers working in different subject areas to your own. To meet global challenges, high impact research inevitably requires interdisciplinary collaboration. This is recognised by all major research funders. Therefore engaging with the work of others and forging collaborations across subject areas is an essential skill for the next generation of researchers

The New Orleans Museum of Art: Fostering Change through Acceptance, Openness, and Community Engagement

The internship report that follows this is the result of my time interning with the New Orleans Museum of Art. During my time at NOMA I had the unique opportunity to work with both the department of Interpretation and Audience Engagement and the department of External Affairs. Through this duel departmental internship at the Museum I began to understand the history of the Museum where it came from and what makes NOMA the institution it is today. Throughout the country museums and cultural institutions are having to adapt to today’s arts economy. Meaning institutions must become adaptable, transparent, and more engaged with their communities. This report is my attempt to delineate ways in which NOMA much like the city of New Orleans can become a truly unique institution through community engagement