Like many, I have been following the Community Music Therapy moderated debate in VOICES, but unlike some, perhaps, I have felt somewhat perplexed: all this talk about what's been written, defined described, explained - has left this empiricist and practitioner somewhat uncomfortable and dissatisfied, particularly since, as I understand it, Community Music Therapy - apart from being something we talk about (or, to put it more elegantly, a discursive field) is also something that we do.
In a bid to address the absence in this debate by eminent theorists in our discipline, I would like to recount a recent experience, which I understand as Community Music Therapy in action. First I shall narrate it, and then comment.
...........
At the end of 2004, I was approached by a friend to ask whether I would be willing to 'do some music' at the end of year AGM (Annual General Meeting) of the Executive Board of BOHARENG: a Women's Spirituality Centre in Johannesburg, which is registered as an NGO (non-governmental organization). First would be the business part of the meeting: the annual report, the accounts, plans for 2005, and a closing discussion. There would then be a tea break, and then 'some music'. 'Anything special?', I asked; 'it is up to you, for about 90 minutes', I was told. I arranged to be a part of the entire morning, to get a sense of the organization, their business, and the people present. I brought along a few instruments, my guitar, a CD player, some CDs - hoping that by tea-break I would receive some divine inspiration as to how to do some music together. There were about 14 people there, ranging in ages from 30 to 70 yrs; some were outgoing and vociferous during the meeting, some were dreamy, some intense, and there was a lot of laughter and teasing, especially when the accounts were discussed. (At this point I realised that I would be offering to do this free of charge). During tea-break I had a thought that doing a song might work. The group felt lively and fun enough to do this, and they seemed to know one another well.
After tea, we did a game of saying whatever words came to mind, to do with the morning, and with BOHARENG. The words, scribbled onto a large sheet of paper on the wall, included, 'joyful, hard work, women, money, building, playing, planning, cooking, hot weather, friendship, creativity.. We then together did a quick clustering of words, and decided on four BOHARENG themes. The group was then divided into four, with each tasked to develop a four-line verse on one of the themes. One of the groups had to develop a 'refrain', with the other three did verses. They had 20 minutes to do this. I strolled around the room while they worked, helping with phrases and words (a number of people were not English speakers although English was the lingua franca), and while I listened, I began putting together a tune, strumming my guitar, walking around, trying out the bits of phrases with the various groups. .. the morning ended with a wild and raucous performance and dance of the song 'Bohareng! Bohareng! We are the women of Bohareng! Wild and creative, quiet and still, together we listen to. Bohareng! Bohareng!', and so on'.
Much laughter and thanks all round, and that night, as I sat in the plane headed for London, I kept hearing and seeing in my mind some of the old women singing and dancing like dervishes....
..............
So here was an event to which I was invited as someone's music therapist friend, to 'do a little music', with a group of people with common values, some of whom I knew through social networks. There seemed to be an implicit understanding in the request that doing music was a good thing - something that would be fun, creative; an engaging way to celebrate the end of the year, their work, and their friendships. Music would in some way bring all of these things together.
I now consider some aspects of the event, without attempting to 'fit' into a neat Community Music Therapy definition (or even contributing to it) - as befits the notion of an anti-model (Ansdell 2002, 2003, Stige 2004); and the limitations of defining (Ansdell 2002, 2004). If I choose to use some of some of the Community Music Therapy anchors suggested by Pavlicevic & Ansdell, (2004) and by Stige (2004), then I could write about this event as music-centered - in the sense that the group musicing generated a sense of group empowerment, creating a song that was very much about being women, about alternative spiritualities, and about enjoying their sense of belonging and together creating BOHARENG. If I were to consider this event as ecological - both in terms of sites and boundaries (Pavlicevic & Ansdell 2004) and in terms of responsiveness of practice (Ruud 2004), then I would talk about the context being an everyday one, happening in a large city, in the daily business of life. The request for 'some music' was made through an informal social network, and my response was to an agenda suggested by BOHARENG - which included an Annual General Meeting and a presentation of accounts and other organizational 'business'. In my role as a community music therapist, being part of the entire morning felt comfortable, inclusive, and also enabled me to consider various options for 'some music'. This grew naturally out of the morning's 'business'.
Another Community Music Therapy anchor is that of renegotiating our identities and roles (Pavlicevic & Ansdell 2004), and here is a context in which, as the music therapist, I was also someone's friend, the sister of so-and-so, the patient of someone's GP husband, and a former student of someone else. A lot of the tea-break time was taken up in catching up on gossip, and these multiple social identities and relationships from other life spaces were included in the event, rather than being left at the door. In music, the women generated and performed both their individual and group identity (Ruud 1998), transcending their organizational roles (of being the Chair, secretary, treasurer, and so on) (I didn't know I could dance like this. I didn't know I could write a song.), and also performed - and generated another collective identity for BOHARENG (..I didn't know we were wild women.) . Their experience through musicking seemed to be about experiencing their organizational roles and relationships in a different way. All of us, it seems, renegotiated our personal and professional roles during this event.
Finally, the anchor of 'assumptions and attitudes' (Pavlicevic & Ansdell 2004) returns us to this business of 'talking about' the work we do - which after all, is what this moderated discussion seems to be about. I'd like to suggest that an ecological practice draws from, and contributes to, an ecological discourse. In other words, in talking about this event, it would seem inappropriate to draw from a more 'generic' and conventional or historical music therapy discourse. It would seem inappropriate to reframe it in terms of health, of the group as a system, or of group dynamics: this would feel like a compromising of that event - as negotiated by all those wild dancing women, in that place and at that time. It does, however, seem appropriate to talk about it in terms of roles, organizational identity, growing community, since this is how that group talks about itself. No, I am not suggesting that we always need to talk the same talk as the people and places with whom and where we work - but I am suggesting some ecological alertness to discourses we generate - assuming that we are interested in these being connected to practice.
To conclude - Community Music Therapy is something that happens in, with - and hopefully transforms - socio-political 'real life' contexts, and also individual experiences within these contexts. Of course, discursive fields are also 'real life', and hugely political. But I can't help wondering whether, in debates such as these, we are at risk of creating stories about stories, stories for their own sakes, at the expense of some very work that seems to be happening somewhere outside these discussions.
References
Ansdell, Gary (2002). Community Music Therapy & The Winds of Change. [online] Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved December 8, 2004, from https://normt.uib.no/index.php/voices/article/view/83/65 ( A revised version is published in Kenny, Carolyn B. & Brynjulf Stige (eds.) (2002). Contemporary Voices of Music Therapy: Communication, Culture, and Community. Oslo: Unipub forlag).
Ansdell, Gary (2003). Community Music Therapy: Big British Balloon or Future International Trend? In: Community, Relationship and Spirit: Continuing the Dialoge and debate. London: British Society of Music Therapy Publications.
Pavlicevic, M. & Ansdell, G. (Eds.) (2004). Community Music Therapy. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Ruud, Even (1998). Music Therapy: Improvisation, Communication and Culture. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers.
Community Music Therapy: Anyone for Practice?
Like many, I have been following the Community Music Therapy moderated debate in VOICES, but unlike some, perhaps, I have felt somewhat perplexed: all this talk about what's been written, defined described, explained - has left this empiricist and practitioner somewhat uncomfortable and dissatisfied, particularly since, as I understand it, Community Music Therapy - apart from being something we talk about (or, to put it more elegantly, a discursive field) is also something that we do.
In a bid to address the absence in this debate by eminent theorists in our discipline, I would like to recount a recent experience, which I understand as Community Music Therapy in action. First I shall narrate it, and then comment.
...........
At the end of 2004, I was approached by a friend to ask whether I would be willing to 'do some music' at the end of year AGM (Annual General Meeting) of the Executive Board of BOHARENG: a Women's Spirituality Centre in Johannesburg, which is registered as an NGO (non-governmental organization). First would be the business part of the meeting: the annual report, the accounts, plans for 2005, and a closing discussion. There would then be a tea break, and then 'some music'. 'Anything special?', I asked; 'it is up to you, for about 90 minutes', I was told. I arranged to be a part of the entire morning, to get a sense of the organization, their business, and the people present. I brought along a few instruments, my guitar, a CD player, some CDs - hoping that by tea-break I would receive some divine inspiration as to how to do some music together. There were about 14 people there, ranging in ages from 30 to 70 yrs; some were outgoing and vociferous during the meeting, some were dreamy, some intense, and there was a lot of laughter and teasing, especially when the accounts were discussed. (At this point I realised that I would be offering to do this free of charge). During tea-break I had a thought that doing a song might work. The group felt lively and fun enough to do this, and they seemed to know one another well.
After tea, we did a game of saying whatever words came to mind, to do with the morning, and with BOHARENG. The words, scribbled onto a large sheet of paper on the wall, included, 'joyful, hard work, women, money, building, playing, planning, cooking, hot weather, friendship, creativity.. We then together did a quick clustering of words, and decided on four BOHARENG themes. The group was then divided into four, with each tasked to develop a four-line verse on one of the themes. One of the groups had to develop a 'refrain', with the other three did verses. They had 20 minutes to do this. I strolled around the room while they worked, helping with phrases and words (a number of people were not English speakers although English was the lingua franca), and while I listened, I began putting together a tune, strumming my guitar, walking around, trying out the bits of phrases with the various groups. .. the morning ended with a wild and raucous performance and dance of the song 'Bohareng! Bohareng! We are the women of Bohareng! Wild and creative, quiet and still, together we listen to. Bohareng! Bohareng!', and so on'.
Much laughter and thanks all round, and that night, as I sat in the plane headed for London, I kept hearing and seeing in my mind some of the old women singing and dancing like dervishes....
..............
So here was an event to which I was invited as someone's music therapist friend, to 'do a little music', with a group of people with common values, some of whom I knew through social networks. There seemed to be an implicit understanding in the request that doing music was a good thing - something that would be fun, creative; an engaging way to celebrate the end of the year, their work, and their friendships. Music would in some way bring all of these things together.
I now consider some aspects of the event, without attempting to 'fit' into a neat Community Music Therapy definition (or even contributing to it) - as befits the notion of an anti-model (Ansdell 2002, 2003, Stige 2004); and the limitations of defining (Ansdell 2002, 2004). If I choose to use some of some of the Community Music Therapy anchors suggested by Pavlicevic & Ansdell, (2004) and by Stige (2004), then I could write about this event as music-centered - in the sense that the group musicing generated a sense of group empowerment, creating a song that was very much about being women, about alternative spiritualities, and about enjoying their sense of belonging and together creating BOHARENG. If I were to consider this event as ecological - both in terms of sites and boundaries (Pavlicevic & Ansdell 2004) and in terms of responsiveness of practice (Ruud 2004), then I would talk about the context being an everyday one, happening in a large city, in the daily business of life. The request for 'some music' was made through an informal social network, and my response was to an agenda suggested by BOHARENG - which included an Annual General Meeting and a presentation of accounts and other organizational 'business'. In my role as a community music therapist, being part of the entire morning felt comfortable, inclusive, and also enabled me to consider various options for 'some music'. This grew naturally out of the morning's 'business'.
Another Community Music Therapy anchor is that of renegotiating our identities and roles (Pavlicevic & Ansdell 2004), and here is a context in which, as the music therapist, I was also someone's friend, the sister of so-and-so, the patient of someone's GP husband, and a former student of someone else. A lot of the tea-break time was taken up in catching up on gossip, and these multiple social identities and relationships from other life spaces were included in the event, rather than being left at the door. In music, the women generated and performed both their individual and group identity (Ruud 1998), transcending their organizational roles (of being the Chair, secretary, treasurer, and so on) (I didn't know I could dance like this. I didn't know I could write a song.), and also performed - and generated another collective identity for BOHARENG (..I didn't know we were wild women.) . Their experience through musicking seemed to be about experiencing their organizational roles and relationships in a different way. All of us, it seems, renegotiated our personal and professional roles during this event.
Finally, the anchor of 'assumptions and attitudes' (Pavlicevic & Ansdell 2004) returns us to this business of 'talking about' the work we do - which after all, is what this moderated discussion seems to be about. I'd like to suggest that an ecological practice draws from, and contributes to, an ecological discourse. In other words, in talking about this event, it would seem inappropriate to draw from a more 'generic' and conventional or historical music therapy discourse. It would seem inappropriate to reframe it in terms of health, of the group as a system, or of group dynamics: this would feel like a compromising of that event - as negotiated by all those wild dancing women, in that place and at that time. It does, however, seem appropriate to talk about it in terms of roles, organizational identity, growing community, since this is how that group talks about itself. No, I am not suggesting that we always need to talk the same talk as the people and places with whom and where we work - but I am suggesting some ecological alertness to discourses we generate - assuming that we are interested in these being connected to practice.
To conclude - Community Music Therapy is something that happens in, with - and hopefully transforms - socio-political 'real life' contexts, and also individual experiences within these contexts. Of course, discursive fields are also 'real life', and hugely political. But I can't help wondering whether, in debates such as these, we are at risk of creating stories about stories, stories for their own sakes, at the expense of some very work that seems to be happening somewhere outside these discussions.
References
Ansdell, Gary (2002). Community Music Therapy & The Winds of Change. [online] Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved December 8, 2004, from https://normt.uib.no/index.php/voices/article/view/83/65 ( A revised version is published in Kenny, Carolyn B. & Brynjulf Stige (eds.) (2002). Contemporary Voices of Music Therapy: Communication, Culture, and Community. Oslo: Unipub forlag).
Ansdell, Gary (2003). Community Music Therapy: Big British Balloon or Future International Trend? In: Community, Relationship and Spirit: Continuing the Dialoge and debate. London: British Society of Music Therapy Publications.
Pavlicevic, M. & Ansdell, G. (Eds.) (2004). Community Music Therapy. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Ruud, Even (1998). Music Therapy: Improvisation, Communication and Culture. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers.
Ruud, Even (2004). Defining Community Music therapy [online]. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, Moderated Discussion. Retrieved December 10 from http://voices.no/?q=content/debating-winds-change-community-music-therap...
Stige, Brynjulf (2002). Culture-Centered Music Therapy. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers.
Stige, Brynjulf (2004) On Defining Community Music Therapy. [online] Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved January 3 12, 2005, from http://voices.no/?q=content/debating-winds-change-community-music-therap...