Community Music Practice: Intervention Through Facilitation

A community musician facilitator’s toolkit of skills enables them to engage deeply with musicians on both an interpersonal and musical level. This distinctive approach to practice has developed in response to cultural environments in which the ever-increasing commercialization and commodification of music practices has resulted in people’s widespread disengagement from active music making. The purpose of this chapter is to explore community music practice as an “intervention” under the guidance of a music facilitator. Four case studies are used to illustrate the central notions of this approach. Underpinning these four case studies is also the concept of musical excellence in community music interventions. This notion of excellence refers to the quality of the social experience – the bonds formed, meaning and enjoyment derived, and sense of agency that emerges for individuals and the group – considered alongside the musical outcomes created through the music making experience. The chapter concludes by reflecting on the ways in which community music opens up new pathways for reflecting on, enacting, and developing approaches to facilitation that respond to a wide range of social, cultural, health, economic, and political contexts

Music as a determinant of health among First Nations people in Australia: A scoping narrative review

Issue Addressed: While social determinants frameworks are still popular in research about First Nations health in Australia, a growing body of research prefers cultural determinants of health models. Cultural determinants models provide a holistic, strength-based framework to explain connections between health and contextual factors, including the potential role of music and its impact on social and emotional well-being. Given the growing international recognition of links between music, health, and wellbeing through bodies such as the World Health Organisation, this article examines whether and how music practices are acknowledged in First Nations determinants of health literature. Methods: We conducted a scoping narrative review of literature from five databases: Scopus, PsycInfo, CINAHL, PubMed and ProQuest Central. The search returned 60 articles published since 2017, which we analysed in NVivo for common themes. Results: usic was only explicitly identified as a determinant of health in two studies. Yet, participants in five studies identified music and song as directly impacting their social and emotional well-being. When we broadened our frame of analysis to include other forms of expressive cultural practice, one quarter of included studies empirically acknowledged the role of expressive cultural practice for social and emotional well-being. Conclusion: While many recent studies identify the impact of First Nations\u27 expressive practices broadly, they miss important features of First Nations music as a potentially unique cultural, social, political and ecological determinant of health. So What?: There is an opportunity for future research and health determinant modelling to explicitly examine the role of First Nations music and other creative practices for social and emotional well-being

Desert harmony: Stories of collaboration between Indigenous musicians and university students

This article will discuss the ways in which community service learning programs in music can foster meaningful collaborations between universities and Indigenous communities. Drawing on recent pedagogical literature on service learning and insights from a four-year partnership between Australian Indigenous musicians at the Winanjjikari Music Centre in Tennant Creek and music students from Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University, it will describe how such programs can facilitate significant cross-cultural exchanges between students and Indigenous communities. By drawing on observations and interview data from those involved in the project, this paper argues that these partnerships can both assist communities with activities such as cultural maintenance, and provide students with intercultural experiences that have the potential to transform their understandings of Indigenous culture

Music Autoethnographies: Making Autoethnography Sing/Making Music Personal

Autoethnography is an autobiographical genre that connects the personal to the cultural, social, and political. Usually written in the first-person voice, autoethnographic work appears in a variety of creative formats; for example, short stories, music compositions, poetry, photographic essays, and reflective journals. Music Autoethnographies explores an intersection of autoethnographic approaches with studies of music. Written through the eyes, ears, emotions, experiences and stories of music and autoethnography practitioners, this edited collection showcases how autoethnography can expand musicians\u27 awareness of their practices, and how musicians can expand the creative and artistic possibilities of autoethnography. The chapters in this ground-breaking volume stand independently as musical lines within themselves, and represent a diverse range of creative, performative, pedagogical and research contexts. When read together, they form a harmonious counterpoint, with common themes and contours, as well as contrasting rhythms and textures. Together these chapters produce a compelling story that shows how music can inspire autoethnography to sing, and how autoethnography can inspire musicians to reflect on the personal aspects of music creation and production