For some time now, urban settlements in the rural areas of South Africa have experienced considerable problems relating to municipal water and sanitation service delivery. In September 2013, as part of a larger investigation in the town of Brandfort in the Free State Province, a transdisciplinary research team, Cultural Dynamics of Water (CuDyWat), conducted a workshop using Dalcroze-inspired activities based on music and movement to generate insight into local water-related problems. The objective was to come to an understanding of the lived experiences of a random group of community members and to contemplate potential solutions to the conundrum. This article reports on a novel application of Dalcroze, with non-musician participants, for the betterment of a social group in crisis. It is argued that Dalcroze-inspired activities are useful to encourage people to express themselves and gain better insight into the problems they face. This approach also serves to strengthen relationships in highly diverse groups.

The purpose of this comparative case study is to explore the recent use of phenomenological inquiries in music education articles published in five selected journals listed in Thomson Reuters Web of Science between 2012 and 2015. The five music education journals are The British Journal of Music Education, Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, International Journal of Music Education, Journal of Research in Music Education and Music Education Research. An interpretative philosophical worldview and a qualitative research design informed this research. By employing a constant comparative method and analysing 480 articles, the findings of this study revealed that phenomenological inquiry is the third most preferred strategy of inquiry by music education researchers. A heuristic model was developed as an interpretive tool to analyse the data. Although phenomenology is a strategy of inquiry that has a lot to offer music education, several concerns emerged over the quality and proper use as some studies evinced deficiencies regarding the clarity of the research design and disclosure of research procedures.

This qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study aims to describe the meaning that members of the Parys community ascribed to their experiences of a Dalcroze-inspired workshop. Stakeholders were a number of local residents of Parys, a scenic town situated on the banks of the Vaal River in South Africa’s Free State Province. Local residents were asked to share their water-related experiences at a workshop organized by a North-West University research group. It became clear from their stories that they had experienced severe stressful circumstances. They had suffered stress because of the health risks posed by polluted water and the frequent lapses in the town’s water supply system. Dalcroze-inspired activities were used to facilitate this meeting. Data were collected through focus group interviews, open-ended individual interviews, photos, videos, and observations. All these data were consolidated in one heuristic unit in ATLAS.ti, a computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software program. The codes were organized into categories and themes. Friese’s (2014) notice, collect and think (NCT) method for computer-assisted qualitative data analysis was used. From the data analysis, five themes emerged related to the Dalcroze-inspired activities. It included: joyful experiences, which facilitated social interaction that made it possible for personal relationships to be transformed. Virtues arose from this transformation, and participants’ experience was that the group engagement supported their well-being. We, therefore, argue that the Dalcroze approach can be used in communities in crisis to facilitate conflict resolution and transform relationships.