We Can All Make Music.

Well! Well! Well!

(and no, we’re not referring to three holes in the ground!)

 

Group singing and music therapy

Once upon a time, “community music” was perceived as mounting concerts of amateur musicians and training aspiring individuals to enter the “music industry”. Once upon a time, music therapy was perceived as the use of music in the recuperation of afflicted individuals.

We have all moved on since then, and in so doing, these two ways of music have moved much closer together; the community music world has recognised that music-making is a health issue, and the music therapy world has recognised that therapy is a community issue.

In 2005, Mercedes Pavlicevic, one of music therapy's key thinkers said, “community music therapy [can] become an agent for social health and social change”.  This sums-up the way music therapy has moved from thinking of its function as remedial to thinking of it as (also) preventative, and of moving its focus from the individual (only) to its social implications.

At CMV, we have been declaring for some time that making music together (along with dancing, eating and playing) is a fundamental process through which people can enjoy “being and doing together”, and that this enjoyment is an essential element in our sense of connection with others and our well-being.

It appears that both perspectives are now coming to similar conclusions.

So in answer to the question which is usually intended as a put-down, “Isn't what you're doing just therapy?”, we reply:

A society that doesn't sing, isn't well.  Attempts to re-introduce singing as an everyday community activity obviously has therapeutic intent.  Traditionally, music therapy was perceived as a way of facilitating individual recovery from illness and injury.  We know that the singing circle movement we support and promote assists individual healing among participants, but we're hoping for social repercussions which extend beyond the personal experience.  We also know that there are many music therapists who see their work being most usefully practiced - and considered - in a community context.  What they do and what we do is not very different.  So yes, what we do is a form of (community) therapy, and it's also about empowerment, validation, confidence-building, beauty, joy and sharing, but we figure that community music therapists would probably say exactly the same thing about their work…

As is the case with more visionary community music therapists among us, we are as much (if not more) into uncovery as we are into recovery, especially if one thinks of recovery as repairing the protective shell which shields us from external threats.

In contrast, uncovery would be about exploring other worlds and states of consciousness, liberating forgotten capacities, and encouraging social engagement.

There's no doubt that travelling these paths also leads to wellness, but it is the joy inherent in music which creates the fundamental purpose of our work, and our belief that this joy should be shared.

We are therefore happy to be perceived as stimulating community therapy, not by “treating” a community, but by enhancing skills already embedded within that community.

 

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CMV - making a sound world together.

© Community Music Victoria Inc.