How can I use, develop and improve a collaborative music therapy practice to enhance the sense of community at a day programme for adults with learning disabilities?

<p>Everyone needs to belong. People with disabilities often experience belonging to restricted communities of people who usually have similar needs. The purpose of this study is to investigate how music therapy could enhance the sense of community at a day program for adults with learning disabilities. The project focuses on exploring and improving my own collaborative music therapy practice in order to reach the goal of this research. This action research follows three cycles of planning, acting and reflecting. The different cycles observe my own collaborative skills, moments of togetherness as an expression of a sense of community and relationship building with different communities of people. The data analysis involves a thematic analysis of my clinical and reflective notes taken during each cycle. I have used song composition for each cycle as a tool for integrating meaning and summarising my learning. The process of this action research helped me understand that: 1) Effective collaboration with staff required working genuinely as a team, sharing goals and acknowledging individual skills. 2) A sense of community was about connecting with others but also about self- realisation in a group. 3) Building relationships between people, staff, whānau, the local community and communities of musicians contributed to enhance the sense of community at the facility. Collaboration is an essential skill for music therapists aiming at connecting people with their community and to expend connections to a wider horizon.</p>

How can I use, develop and improve a collaborative music therapy practice to enhance the sense of community at a day programme for adults with learning disabilities?

<p>Everyone needs to belong. People with disabilities often experience belonging to restricted communities of people who usually have similar needs. The purpose of this study is to investigate how music therapy could enhance the sense of community at a day program for adults with learning disabilities. The project focuses on exploring and improving my own collaborative music therapy practice in order to reach the goal of this research. This action research follows three cycles of planning, acting and reflecting. The different cycles observe my own collaborative skills, moments of togetherness as an expression of a sense of community and relationship building with different communities of people. The data analysis involves a thematic analysis of my clinical and reflective notes taken during each cycle. I have used song composition for each cycle as a tool for integrating meaning and summarising my learning. The process of this action research helped me understand that: 1) Effective collaboration with staff required working genuinely as a team, sharing goals and acknowledging individual skills. 2) A sense of community was about connecting with others but also about self- realisation in a group. 3) Building relationships between people, staff, whānau, the local community and communities of musicians contributed to enhance the sense of community at the facility. Collaboration is an essential skill for music therapists aiming at connecting people with their community and to expend connections to a wider horizon.</p>

Starting a Conversation about Trans and Gender-Expansive Persons

This chapter explores the need for music teachers to honor trans and gender-expansive (TGE) students participating in school music programs. Diversity enriches arts engagement, in part, by uniting individuality through communal and collaborative music experiences. School music diversity includes the LGBTQA population and, more specifically, TGE young persons. Music educators benefit from knowing and understanding the lived experiences of TGE young persons as a way to honor and celebrate their individuality. Concepts of gender identity, gender expression, sexuality, and attraction are discussed in an effort to frame a glossary of terms used throughout the book. The authors acknowledge historical contexts in which this text was written. A brief primer of intersectionality is provided to contextualize the complex identities of TGE persons.

Through the looking glass: A researcher’s perspectives on a collaborative music composition project

Making Music: Composing with Young Musicians was a multi-year, multi-site research project partnered with the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board and the Canadian Music Centre to commission composers to collaborate with teachers and students to write educational music. On-site observations undertaken by the co-author and examined through a pragmatic lens employing Brief Focused Inquiry focused on the contributions of students, teachers and composers to the collaborative music compositions. Students contributed their creativity and knowledge of musical elements and concepts, and they provided feedback to the teachers and composers. Teachers contributed technical, instrumental feedback to the composers and their understanding of musical elements and concepts. Furthermore, they led band rehearsals and played musical instruments with the students. Composers contributed their musical creativity and feedback while undertaking a teacher-like role. The composers, teachers and students also used technology during this creative endeavor. The findings will be of potential interest to post-secondary music educators, composers, music teachers, and music publishers.

Musical Totem: A Collaborative Composition Methodology During the Covid-19 Pandemic

As part of the Action Research Network of the Americas, the Musical Learning Community is a collaborative group, founded during the COVID-19 global pandemic, that has brought together musicians, artists, and educators to generate shared experiences. As members of this community, we explore new ways for collaborative music-making. Through creative, cultural, and conceptual influences, the idea of the Musical Totem emerged as a collaborative music composition methodology to transcend geographical distancing. We sought interpretative freedom by adopting methods of the surrealist technique Cadavre Exquis (Exquisite Corpse) while relying on the rich concept of totems to find thematic material and set compositional parameters. The process was carried out using arts-based and autoethnographic research approaches, which provided insights into our creative musical responses and remote collaborative working processes. This endeavor showed us that symbolism can provide compositional and performative challenges and that, as a methodology, the Musical Totem can create freedom and constraints depending on the musician, the conceptual influences, and the instrumentation. We also learned that engaging in a collaborative music-making process led to increased community bonding through shared creative expression.

Knowing Music as Representation or as Operation: Exploring Musical Diversity through Collaborative Music Making in Kaleidoscope

A society considered to be in a multicultural condition is likely to condition the way things are seen and what is seen as important. Attention is likely to be drawn to difference and diversity and the prospects of including it, and high hopes may be set on music in this. Within a certain multicultural discourse, music is expected to affirm and represent identities, while at the same time to create unity across diversity. Departing from a Norwegian context, drawing on results from fieldwork within the intercultural ensemble Kaleidoscope, this paper explores collaborative music making in relation to diversity and knowledge production. It is argued that musical knowledge may be generated in useful ways by thinking beyond music as representation. Knowing music as operation may better benefit co-construction of diverse and inclusive music practices.