Music in action: tinkering, testing and tracing over time

Abstract

In this article we draw on a recent, six-year ethnographic study of community music therapy and mental health to highlight strategies and techniques for documenting music’s role in processes of change. We place these strategies in dialogue with the ethnographic work on arts and crafts by Paul Atkinson. In tandem with Atkinson, we propose a ‘slow’ approach focused on micro-processes of musical/para-musical bricolage whereby things are made and transformed over time. A three-cornered strategy in support of this approach is described: (1) a focus on musical-practical tinkering, (2) a focus on the modification and contention or testing of idiocultural musical space and, (3) two specific techniques for tracing music-related change, the music therapy ‘index’ and the ‘musical event’ schema.

Free improvisation in choral settings: An ecological perspective

“…A thick description of the local conditions, conventions, practices, and environments associated with these events was recorded through a researcher diary, field notes, visual and/or audio recordings of the sessions and performances, the author’s personal notes, and one focus group interview (see Supplemental Table 1). The interview was the main source for documenting and recording the “connections made by participants themselves” (DeNora & Ansdell, 2017, p. 241), and followed a 2-hr improvisation session to promote ecological validity (DeNora, 2013b). Five IC51 members (two males, three females) with experiences in these practices ranging from 6 months to several years were chosen for the interview, to represent the diversity of the members of the choir.…”

“…This analytical step enabled a deeper understanding of the underlying processes of change, including the connections between “relevant (linked) pasts and futures,” and of “what gets accumulated and changed when music is invoked” (DeNora & Ansdell, 2017, p. 241). This recursive process included refining the emerging themes, which finally led to the identification of four overarching themes with subthemes (see Table 3).…”

Wellbeing and Integration through Community Music: The Role of Improvisation in a Music Group of Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Local Community Members

“…It was a way to create an equalising, healing space where all participants had the power to lead. Matarasso and others caution against taking a narrow view of the arts as merely a 'tool' for social change, arguing that the intrinsic value of arts engagement is important, as well as the instrumental value (Belfiore and Bennett 2008;DeNora and Ansdell 2017;Kelly 1984). Many in this field also advocate for simplicity in analysis, keeping central the idea that music and the arts are inherently about pleasure and human connection (Higgins 2012).…”

Perpetual Vs. Permanent: Theatre And Digitalization – Friends Or Foes?

“…Stage realization of theatre never aims at distracting the spectators from reality but to portray it through the intermediary of artistic expressive means transmitting a variety of multimodal messages of different formats (Van Leeuwen, 2017). Theatre proves one of the most socially relevant art forms actively responding to all vicissitudes around: along with music it demonstrates the capacity to effect change, and thus to be an instrument of social ordering (DeNora, 2017). Its normativity and compliance with the long-settled canons ensure theatre remains one of the most ritualized forms of art and attribute it to the social and cultural background (like, answering all social demands and imbuing moral values through professional arts (Vikulova et al, 2018).…”