Negotiating Individuality and Collectivity in Community Music (article)

Schiavio, A., van der Schyff, D., Gande, A., & Kruse-Weber, S. (2019). Negotiating individuality 

and collectivity in community music. A qualitative case study. Psychology of Music, 

47(5), 706–721. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735618775806

Negotiating Individuality and Collectivity in Community Music: A Qualitative Case Study by Andrea Schiavio, Dylan van der Schyff, Andrea Gande, and Silke Kruse-Weber

• “emerging collaborative and improvisational pedagogies have a great deal to offer as they could help in negotiating difference, fostering collaboration, and aid in stimulating trust and shared forms of social understanding,” (Schiavio et al. 707)

Meet4Music (M4M)

• This program was established in 2016 by the Institute for Music Education at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Graz, Austria
• The Enactive Mind
  • “enactivists argue that mind is embodied (the body plays a constitutive role in driving cognitive processes), embedded (the brain-body system can function adequately only if situated within a given milieu) and extended (cultural and physical tools of the environment can be exploited to achieve a cognitive task,” (Schiavio et al. 708)
  •  “Identity cannot be understood as separate from the organism’s biological complexity, nor as isolated from the environment that sustains it: organism and environment, self and other, are co-arising aspects of the same extended system,” (Schiavio et al. 708)
    • This quote serves as a definition of identity and autonomy that the paper will refer to from now onwards. Identity will be discussed in relation to the ability of M4M participants to develop/share their musician identity in creative ways
  • “[Embodiment] refers to the capacity of the body to co-constitute the organism’s mental life, including aesthetic experience. Examples supporting this claim can be found in studies showing how perception evolves as the body’s relation with the world changes,” (Schiavio et al. 708)
  • “In social contexts (e.g., when considering musicians playing together) we find that non-verbal communication becomes a highly valuable resource in the generation and development of musical meaning. Movements, gestures and coordinated behaviours appear to define a fundamental understanding associated with joint music-making, becoming fundamental for collaborative creativity and mutual interactions,” (Schiavio et al. 709)
    • “Shared musical understandings arise through sustained co-adaptive engagement with the bodily and sonic activities of others,” (Schiavio et al. 709)
  • Sense-making is defined as a “set of meaningful interactions that mutually constraint agents and their niche. In particular, by self-regulating their own engagements with the environment, organisms develop and employ dynamic patterns of action and perception, which reflect their own organisational (i.e., biological and phenomenological) complexity,” (Schiavio et al. 709)
    • “Co-performers develop a “sense of togetherness” that involves at the same time  (a) the maintenance of an autonomous perspective and (b) a mutually adaptive stability based on the contextual musical event being co-created,” (Schiavio et al. 709)
  • “Because recent research in community music increasingly indicates the value of nonhierarchical and cooperative approaches to musical development, we suggest that the enactive approach could offer a useful way of examining and interpreting existing studies in community music, as well as an important framework for guiding future work,” (Schiavio et al. 710)

Discussion

• Collaboration
  • “Collaborative music-making allows facilitators and participants to play together and negotiate forms of musical communication during the sessions,” (Schiavio et al. 712)
  • “Participation through music serves a double purpose: it facilitates social interaction and stimulates further (artistic) interactions,” (Schiavio et al. 712)
    • “It allows for an essential negotiation between individual and collective subjectivity, helping participants experience a sense of community and develop their identity as a group,” (Schiavio et al. 712)
      • This relates to the authors’ definition of “autonomy”: reenforcing the idea that one’s identity is transformed by social interactions and collaboration
    • “Individuals become part of the community by enacting their own identity through forms of collaboration,” (Schiavio et al. 713)
• Non-Verbal Communication
  • “Collective music-making requires in-the-moment interactivity— a complex network of reciprocal and non-linear communicative processes that engage a range of bodily, affective, sonic, aesthetic, and socio-cultural dimensions that are negotiated as the music unfolds,” (Schiavio et al. 714)
  • “Musical development should be explored in terms of the ongoing interactions that occur between pupils, parents and teachers, focusing on the relationality of the (musical) social system itself rather than only on the single components that constitute it,” (Schiavio 714)
• Sense of Togetherness
  • “Categories like “agency” (the drive for independence) and “communion” (the need to be engaged with and understand others) are negotiated in real time through collective practice. Such forms of musical collaboration highlight and may be used to encourage situations where “each of the subjects is taking account of the other’s interests and objectives in some relation to the extra-personal context, and is acting to complement the other’s response”,” (Schiavio et al. 715)
  •  “The “sense of togetherness” motivates new participatory musical events, connecting participants, instruments, meanings, and musical identities,” (Schiavio et al. 715)

Conclusion

• “It is increasingly recognised that co-present forms of musical activity can create and strengthen social bonds, fostering forms of mutual understanding even in situations where linguistic communication is difficult or not possible,” (Schiavio et al. 716)
• “Researchers in this growing field are exploring the practice of improvisation in terms of fostering a sense of agency, understanding, and collaboration among students and teachers—and how this may lead to more inclusive pedagogical environments that highlight creativity and the enactment of new personal, social, and cultural realities,” (Schiavio et al. 716)