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Editorial: Social Convergence in Times of Spatial Distancing: The Role of Music During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Frontiers in Psychology
From dropping out to dropping in: Exploring why individuals cease participation in musical activities and the support needed to reengage them
Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts
, 2019
From dropping out to dropping in: Exploring why individuals cease participation in musical activi...
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From dropping out to dropping in: Exploring why individuals cease participation in musical activities and the support needed to re-engage them. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, advance online publication.
Adela and transformative learning: A Freirean perspective on a community music education project in Melbourne, Australia
International Journal of Music Education
, Oct 13, 2022
In what ways can a community music education project based on historical re-enactment be a vehicl...
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In what ways can a community music education project based on historical re-enactment be a vehicle for transformational learning, empowerment and reconnection with community? In 2018, Serenading Adela was performed to celebrate and remember the 100th anniversary of a moment in history when women sang under the prison cell window of Adela Pankhurst, an anti-conscriptionist. The operatic work, which recruited 100 adult participants, was conceived and developed over almost 2 years and rehearsed for 5 months. The researchers were interested in participants’ motivations and their experiences of engagement with a story of historical injustice. Data were collected by holding interviews and focus groups and analysed using thematic analysis informed by Freirean concepts. Five themes emerged, indicating that the pedagogical approach and ideologies of the directors enabled and nurtured collaborative connections, personal growth, new perspectives, meaning-making and empowerment for a diverse group of adults.
Call and response: Social affordances in virtual Egyptian music and dance performance
Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology
Disciplinary background A. Ecological psychology and distributed creativity. The theoretical fram...
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Disciplinary background A. Ecological psychology and distributed creativity. The theoretical framework of the research drew on Gibson's (1979) ecological psychology and concept of affordances, considering the role of technology and music as social affordances. The distributed and inherently social nature of music and dance (
How Can Music Engagement Address Loneliness? A Qualitative Study and Thematic Framework in the Context of Australia’s COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdowns
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Social isolation and loneliness are serious public health concerns. Music engagement can strength...
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Social isolation and loneliness are serious public health concerns. Music engagement can strengthen social connections and reduce loneliness in some contexts, although how this occurs is not well understood; research suggests that music’s capacity to manipulate perceptions of time and space is relevant. This study adopted a qualitative perspective to examine how music engagement shaped the experiences of residents of Victoria, Australia, during conditions of restricted social contact during the lockdowns of 2020. Semi-structured interviews explored participants’ lived musical experiences while giving focus to perceptions of time and space (e.g., how music helped restructure home and workspaces in response to lockdown regulations, or punctuate time where older routines were no longer viable). Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the interview transcripts identified five themes representing the key findings: (1) a super-ordinate theme of perceived control, which comprises four ...
The impact of biographical information about a composer on emotional responses to their music
Musicae Scientiae
This study investigated whether reading biographical information about the composer Jan Dismas Ze...
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This study investigated whether reading biographical information about the composer Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679–1745) before listening to his music would influence listeners’ self-reported emotional responses. The study involved 179 participants who completed an online listening exercise in which they read either a negative or a neutral biography of Zelenka, or no biography, before listening to two short excerpts of his music. After listening to each excerpt, participants completed a 27-item questionnaire concerning their emotional responses and were then asked to describe in their own words how the music made them feel. Two-factor analyses identified five factors underlying the emotional responses of participants for each musical excerpt. Generalised Linear Mixed Model analyses indicate that the biography condition affected participants’ emotional responses with regard to memories, associations, and mental images. Positive emotional contagion was also a significant predictor variable ...
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Participants reading a negative biography were more likely to use negative language to describe their emotional responses, showcasing biography's influence on perceptions.
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A Qualitative Exploration of Aged-Care Residents’ Everyday Music Listening Practices and How These May Support Psychosocial Well-Being
Frontiers in Psychology
Strategies to support the psychosocial well-being of older adults living in aged-care are needed;...
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Strategies to support the psychosocial well-being of older adults living in aged-care are needed; and evidence points toward music listening as an effective, non-pharmacological tool with many benefits to quality of life and well-being. Yet, the everyday listening practices (and their associated specific psychosocial benefits) of older adults living in residential aged-care remain under-researched. The current study explored older adults’ experiences of music listening in their daily lives while living in residential aged-care and considered how music listening might support their well-being. Specifically, what might go into autonomous listening activities? 32 Australian residents (aged 73–98) living in two Australian care facilities participated in semi-structured interviews. The results of a qualitative thematic analysis revealed three themes pertaining to “previous music experiences and interest,” “current music listening,” and “barriers to listening.” While an interest in and ac...
I ask them what they can feel": proprioception and the voice teacher’s approach
Voice teachers adopted a proprioceptive style of teaching, literally adopting a 'hands-on' approa...
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Voice teachers adopted a proprioceptive style of teaching, literally adopting a 'hands-on' approach and also asking students to reflect on their own physical sensations rather than on the sounds they were making. Further, voice teachers were shown to be developing proprioceptive awareness in their students to aid in achieving the complex sensorimotor coordination required in singing. Implications These findings have implications regarding vocal pedagogy courses training voice teachers to incorporate proprioceptive awareness in their practices.
Examining solo flautists' body movements from sight-reading to final performance
Australian Music & Psychology Society
, 2020
Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) is a theoretical framework used to observe, notate, describe, and a...
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Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) is a theoretical framework used to observe, notate, describe, and analyse human movement. The current study used LMA to investigate how the solo flautists' body movements might progress from sight-reading an unknown piece, through practise, to a "performance take". Thirteen flautists (seven university students, and six professionals) were asked to sight-read, practise, and perform up to five times either a standard notation or extended technique adaptation of an unknown solo flute piece. LMA was applied to the videoed performances to analyse weight shift, posture, and spatial pathway patterns. Analyses showed that body movements differed between flautists and within each rendition by the same flautist. Student-level flautists showed a bigger difference in the range, type, and patterns of body movements when learning/practising versus performing compared to professionals. The results indicated that body movements are used to signify new sections in the music, vary performance renditions, and prepare the flautist to transition from practising into "performance mode". The outcomes of this research are applicable to both teachers and performers to further inform their teaching, practice, and performer-audience communication.
The Role of Artistic Creative Activities in Navigating the COVID-19 Pandemic in Australia
Frontiers in Psychology
, 2021
During the COVID-19 pandemic some Australians turned to artistic creative activities (ACAs) as a ...
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During the COVID-19 pandemic some Australians turned to artistic creative activities (ACAs) as a way of managing their own mental health and well-being. This study examined the role of ACAs in regulating emotion and supporting mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic, and also attempted to identify at-risk populations. We proposed that (1) participants would use ACAs as avoidance-based emotion regulation strategies; and (2) music engagement would be used for emotion regulation. Australian participants (N = 653) recruited from the general public completed an online survey, which included scales targeting anxiety (GAD7 scale), depression (PHQ9 scale) and loneliness (two UCLA Loneliness Scales, referring to “Before” and “Since” COVID-19). Participants reported which ACAs they had undertaken and ceased during the pandemic using an established list and ranked their undertaken ACAs in terms of effectiveness at making them “feel better.” For their top-ranked ACA, participa...
Efficacy of Parkinsong Groups for improving Communication and Wellbeing in Parkinson's Disease
Communication impairment is one of the most common symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, significantly...
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Communication impairment is one of the most common symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, significantly impacting quality of life (Miller, 2012). Speech characteristics may include a soft, monotone, breathy or hoarse voice quality, imprecise articulation, dysprosody and dysfluency (Skodda et al., 2013). These characteristics, combined with reduced nonverbal communication, cognitive-linguistic impairment and poor self-perception of speech, make communication difficult and lead to self-consciousness, reduced likelihood to participate in conversation, and the avoidance of social interaction that requires speaking. Communication difficulties can compound issues of depression and related social isolation (Miller et al., 2006).
The rise of affectivism
Nature Human Behaviour
, 2021
Research over the past decades has demonstrated the explanatory power of emotions, feelings, moti...
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Research over the past decades has demonstrated the explanatory power of emotions, feelings, motivations, moods, and other affective processes when trying to understand and predict how we think and behave. In this consensus article, we ask: Has the increasingly recognized impact of affective phenomena ushered in a new era, the era of affectivism? The behavioural and cognitive sciences have faced perennial challenges of incorporating emotions, feelings, motivations, moods, and other affective processes into models of human behaviour and the human mind. Such processes have long been marginalised or ignored, typically on the basis that they were irrational, unmeasurable, or simply unenlightening. However, it has become increasingly difficult to deny that these processes are not only linked to our well-being, but also that they shape our behaviour and drive key cognitive mechanisms such as attention, learning, memory, and decision-making. Fertile ground for addressing these challenges lies in the writings of the ancient Greeks, and of eminent scholars such as Descartes, Hume, Darwin, Wundt and James, to name but a few. The most recent seeds were sown in the 1960s, allowing an unprecedented, multidisciplinary interest in affective processes to take root around twenty years later. Research on such processes has positively blossomed since, as growing numbers of dedicated researchers, departments, research centres, journals and societies contribute to the affective sciencesa highly integrative endeavour that spans disciplines, methods, and theories. 1-4 By Supplementary Reading List Please note: No attempt has been made to ensure that this list is representative or balanced across disciplines, impact, time or theories. A more complete analysis and explanation of individual papers, books and events that led to the rise of the affectivism is currently underway as part of a complementary project.
“Music Has No Borders”: An Exploratory Study of Audience Engagement With YouTube Music Broadcasts During COVID-19 Lockdown, 2020
Frontiers in Psychology
, 2021
This exploratory study engages with eight case studies of music performances broadcast online to ...
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This exploratory study engages with eight case studies of music performances broadcast online to investigate the role of music in facilitating social cohesion, intercultural understanding and community resilience during a time of social distancing and concomitant heightened racial tensions. Using an online ethnographic approach and thematic analysis of video comments, the nature of audience engagement with music performances broadcast via YouTube during COVID-19 lockdown of 2020 is explored through the lens of ritual engagement with media events and models of social capital. The eight case studies featured virtual choirs, orchestras and music collaborations of various genres, including classical, pop and fusion styles drawing from European, Asia Minor, South African, West African, North African, Arabic, South Asian, and East Asian cultural origins. Five overarching themes resulted from thematic analysis of video comments, including Interaction, Unity, Resilience, Identity, and Emoti...
What are the affordances of the digital music space in alternative education? A reflection on an exploratory music outreach project in rural Australia
International Journal of Music Education
, 2021
In Australia, access to music education is inequitable due to the challenges of distance, differe...
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In Australia, access to music education is inequitable due to the challenges of distance, different state education systems and a lack of resources in schools. As a means to address this social justice issue, we explore here the viability and effects of a digitally based music outreach programme undertaken in collaboration with Hands on Learning (HOL), an alternative education provider. The programme was delivered over 6 weeks using GarageBand to children in a small rural town who were experiencing difficulties in upper primary and lower secondary school years. A qualitative approach was taken, holding focus groups, observing sessions and accessing HOL daily notes. The programme had a significant impact on the teachers and children involved, showing promise for a larger scale project in the future.
Researching creativity and wellbeing: Interdisciplinary perspectives
International Journal of Wellbeing
, 2020
This special issue on creativity and wellbeing represents the outcome of a collaboration between ...
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This special issue on creativity and wellbeing represents the outcome of a collaboration between the International Journal of Wellbeing and the Creativity and Wellbeing Hallmark Research Initiative (CAWRI) at the University of Melbourne. It includes contributions from academics associated with CAWRI as well as those in our local and international network. The volume appears at a time when these two concepts, and the relationship between them, have been brought to attention in a range of contexts by extraordinary global events. The COVID-19 pandemic, for example, has had disastrous health and wellbeing impacts and has led to stay-at-home orders and extensive lockdowns which have "changed everyday life for the masses, in an unprecedented manner" (Warren & Bordoloi, 2020, p. 1). Insofar as creativity involves adaptive behavior that emerges in response to interruptions to previously successful routines and habits (Joas, 1996), 2020 has been the year of creativity par excellence. But the disruptive impact of COVID-19 has also destroyed or damaged many creative social products generated by those old routines and habits, meaning that routines and habits, and not just interruptions or impasses, can also be pathways to creativity (Dalton, 2004). The events of 2020 should therefore give us pause to consider the meaning of the term "creativity" and to reflect on the potential role of creativity in cultivating and supporting wellbeing. The purpose of this special issue is to consider the relationship between creativity and wellbeing from a range of disciplinary perspectives in order to illuminate and better understand this relationship. Because of this disciplinary variety, theoretical frameworks and methodological approaches are drawn from different traditions of creativity research. Modern creativity research is usually said to have started in 1950 with the publication of Guilford's 1949 presidential address to the American Psychological Association, titled "Creativity" (Guilford, 1950), although creativity was a key aspect of much early sociological thinking, as in, for example, Weber's notion of charismatic leadership and Marx's idea of the active and creative subject (Chan, 2016). Nevertheless, creativity research was mostly marginalized in sociology until the late twentieth century, with the field being dominated by psychological and philosophical approaches (Cropley, 2011; Domingues, 2000). But theoretical links between creativity and wellbeing find roots even in the seventeenth-century writings of Francis Bacon and René Descartes, two of the early founders of modern science, who viewed creativity as involving the harnessing of the forces of nature for the betterment of the human condition (Cropley, 2011). Creativity has also been understood in different ways in different cultures, with some conceptions of creativity emphasizing "vertical" or process-oriented aspects, and others emphasizing "horizontal" aspects associated with novelty and rupture (Celik & Lubart, 2016). Similarly, definitions of wellbeing have varied greatly, with some emphasizing the individual experience of pleasure, life satisfaction and self-realization, while others are tied to the collective brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
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Kiernan identifies four categories of emotion in creative practices, linking emotional expression to social change and wellbeing.
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Using Self-Determination Theory to Examine Musical Participation and Well-Being
Frontiers in Psychology
, 2019
A recent surge of research has begun to examine music participation and wellbeing; however, a par...
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A recent surge of research has begun to examine music participation and wellbeing; however, a particular challenge with this work concerns theorizing around the associated well-being benefits of musical participation. Thus, the current research used Self-Determination Theory to consider the potential associations between basic psychological needs (competence, relatedness, and autonomy), self-determined autonomous motivation, and the perceived benefits to well-being controlling for demographic variables and the musical activity parameters. A sample of 192 Australian residents (17-85, M age = 36.95), who were currently participating in a musical activity at the time, completed an online questionnaire. Results indicated that females were more likely to perceive benefits to their well-being; and that how important an individual considers music in their life was positively related to perceived well-being. Importantly, the analyses also revealed that the basic needs of competency and relatedness were related to overall perceived well-being as well as specifically social, cognitive, and esteem dimensions of well-being. Autonomous motivation demonstrated significant associations with both an overall well-being score as well as four of five specific wellbeing subscales measured. Collectively, the findings indicate that Self-Determination Theory offers a useful theoretical framework to understanding the relationship between musical participation and well-being. Further, the pattern of findings reiterates the positive associations between musical participation and one's psychosocial well-being, with broad implications for people involved in the facilitation of musical activity.
Musical Activity and Well-being
Music Perception
, 2018
A relationship between participation in musical activity and well-being has frequently been obser...
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A relationship between participation in musical activity and well-being has frequently been observed in recent research reports. Of these, some propose various well-being-related correlates of musical participation, but the varying samples and foci leave researchers without a reasoned appraisal of these correlates or a data-driven categorization of them. To address this lacuna, the current research reviewed of existing literature, identifying 562 benefits of well-being benefits perceived to be associated with musical participation. These items were used as the basis for developing a new quantitative measure to evaluate the perceived benefits of well-being arising from music participation. Principal axis factor analysis of data using this new, 36-item measure identified five discrete dimensions: mood and coping, esteem and worth, socialization, cognition, and self-actualization. The development of this well-being measure addresses a gap in the research and provides a tool for future ...
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Identified 562 perceived benefits of musical participation on well-being, highlighting the need for a reasoned appraisal of correlates in previous research.
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Music’s Role in Facilitating the Process of Healing—A Thematic Analysis
Religions
, 2017
This qualitative study aims to understand the factors motivating Korean migrants' participation i...
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This qualitative study aims to understand the factors motivating Korean migrants' participation in weekly Charismatic Prayer Meetings in a Catholic Church. As music plays a crucial role in these meetings, the paper explores whether active engagement with music motivated the long-term commitment of participants to the meetings. The research is based on a thematic analysis of a focus group comprising six Korean adults living in Australia. Results show that music performed in religious forms such as Praise and Worship and Speaking/Singing in Tongues prayers was found to intensify spiritual experiences of the people as a group, and over time, each participant experienced improved physical and mental wellbeing, which in turn motivated further investment in the meetings. It was evident that the passionate group music-making enabled participants to focus on conscious and subconscious body, mind, and spirit, eliciting transpersonal experiences within each person. The findings of the current study are deemed relevant to this specific cohort and to others in similar contexts, where minority groups use worship and music for socio-cultural inclusion that addresses both spiritual and mental health issues. Though a small-scale study, the current paper provides a rationale for these religious groups to be involved in music-based spiritual practice.
The Early Progress of Able Young Musicians
The Psychology of Abilities, Competencies, and Expertise
Music and world-building in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia
International Journal of Community Music
, 2018
This article investigates the perceived benefits of music community membership within a historica...
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This article investigates the perceived benefits of music community membership within a historical framework of music making in the same geographical locations. Research was carried out in the Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Hunter Valley regions of New South Wales. These regions were selected because of their connection with ongoing historical research on the role of music in world-building for these communities in the early settler period. Coalmining was the major industry underpinning the founding of these regions and today it is still a dominant presence, whether it be as active mines or felt as the impact of mine closures. The research aimed to compare music communities across time, looking for continuities and discontinuities in paradigms and experiences related to world-building. while music’s affordances in the historical communities were deduced through a close reading of historical sources, the perceived personal and social benefits of current communities were investigated u...
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