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This article describes a framework for assessing the positive influence of music activities in community development programs. It examines hybrid music, health and rich media approaches to creative case study with the purpose of developing more compelling evidence based advocacy that examines the claims of a causal link. This preliminary study examines the problems with the research methods and seeks to design a more media inclusive approach that allows music experience to be heard in more compelling ways than text alone. The framework outlined in this paper provides a measure of effectiveness for community development programs that integrates social and cultural aspects. The framework connects notions of resilience as a fundamental building block for healthy communities with indicators of musical meaning and engagement. These indicators have previously been used individually in evaluating the effectiveness of music experience. This article reports on an exploratory research project that utilises this framework across a series of case studies in several culturally diverse Australian communities. The relevance of the research is that it seeks to identify the critical components of music education that have significant transferable implications for community development programs.
Music Education Research
According to the current literature, special skills in empathy are needed to implement culturally sensitve and appropriate-music therapy services. The purpose of this study was to assess levels of cross-cultural empathy among music therapists in two countries. Professional members of the Australian and the American Music Therapy Associations (N=78) completed on-line tests of cross-cultural empathy and social desirability. Test scores were analyzed according to (a) country of residence, (b) academic degree, (c) previous cross-cultural training received, and (d) years of clinical experience in music therapy. Results showed a significant relationship between cross-cultural training and cross-cultural empathy scores. Common misconceptions concerning aspects of cross-cultural music therapy are discussed as is the need for systematic and comprehensive cross-cultural training programs.
Music Therapy Perspectives
Recent research has successfully applied social identity theory to demonstrate how individuals use music as a basis for intergroup differentiation. The current study investigated how music might also be used to encourage the development of positive intergroup attitudes. Participants (N = 97) were allocated to one of two experimentally created social groups and then led to believe that the groups had similar or different musical preferences. They then evaluated each group and reported their perceptions concerning how they expected their own group to be evaluated by the other group. Participants who believed the groups had similar musical preferences reported more positive intergroup attitudes relative to a control group; they also expected to be evaluated more positively by members of the other group. However, positive intergroup perceptions were also reported by those who believed the two groups had different musical preferences. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
One of the most startling aspects of musical culture in the post-Cold War United States is the systematic use of music as a weapon of war. First coming to mainstream attention in 1989, when US troops blared loud music in an effort to induce Panamanian president Manuel Norriega’s surrender, the use of “acoustic bombardment” has become standard practice on the battlefields of Iraq, and specifically musical bombardment has joined sensory deprivation and sexual humiliation as among the non-lethal means by which prisoners from Abu Ghraib to Guantanamo may be coerced to yield their secrets without violating US law.
Trans. Revista Transcultural de Música
The study assessed the effectiveness of a musical programme at reducing anti-dark-skinned stereotyping among light-skinned Portuguese children aged 7-10 years, as measured through the Preschool Racial Attitude Measure II (Williams et al., 1975). The programme consisted of introducing a sub-series of Cape Verdean songs into the series of regular Portuguese songs studied and learned by the pupils during school music courses. At the beginning of the study, all children showed a moderate mean level of pro-white-skinned/anti-dark-skinned stereotyping. At the end of the study, the level of stereotyping among the control group of pupils who were not exposed to Cape Verdean songs ( N = 97) was not altered, but the level of stereotyping among the pupils exposed to the programme ( N = 96) was significantly reduced. Strong differences as a function of age were evidenced: among participants aged 7-8 years, there was practically no change in stereotyping; in contrast, there was a dramatic change among 9- to 10-year-olds.
Psychology of Music
When a Western musician thinks of Israel, the immediate association is of incessant political conflict and terrorism, not the country's rich cultural life. Yet, for a state that has endured one terrorist outrage after another over the last four years, Israel's thriving contemporary music scene — a part of classical music events, blossoming with over 2,300 classical concerts a year — is an astounding feat. In March 2002, while biweekly suicide attacks ended the lives of over 120 Israeli civilians, concert halls were unbelievably full despite the fear, or perhaps just because of it, as a constructive escapism. A year later, still under shaky political and economic conditions, Avigail Arnheim, the director of music events at the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, and Dan Yuhas, the newly-elected chair of the Israel Composers' League (and the music director of the Israel Contemporary Players) initiated preparations for three concurrent festivals of contemporary music in October 2004. A Western musician, not knowing the details, would think that they were planning events for Berlin and Munich audiences, and not for Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem listeners.
Tempo
Music therapists have traditionally worked with survivors of different types of trauma. But they are increasingly involved in providing services to war trauma survivors. In the post 9/11 world, many have been, and continue to be traumatized by war, acts of terrorism, and violence worldwide. Some music therapists have sought to respond actively to these events and the resulting trauma, by reaching out to trauma survivors. In addition, some are also involved in peace advocacy. From information obtained from interviews conducted with eight music therapists regarding the nature and outcomes of these therapeutic practices and their involvement in peace advocacy (as applicable), the relevance of this realm of work within the Singaporean context is explored.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy
In my country of Kosovo, where we endured 10 years of terrible conflict, even in the most difficult of times songs were created speaking of freedom. As children sang these songs, it brought them hope for a better life in the future. When the conflict came to an end and peace was established in 1999, a special concert (the first classical concert in 10 years) brought 600 people together with glorious music to heal our souls and give us the hope and strength to move forward.
International Journal of Music Education
To date, no research has been conducted on the field of music therapy within international humanitarian aid. The aims of this study are to explore the situation in more detail and to include descriptions of organisations and projects that are involved in the psychosocial aid of trauma survivors in areas of post-conflict using music therapy. The article will give an outline of programmes, describe their work, and serve as an information source for other organisations involved in international mental health aid.
Intervention
This book explores a provocative area of inquiry for critical theory and research into world politics and popular culture: music. Not just because political science barely engages with anything musical, but also because it is clear that many opportunities for critical scholarship and reflection on global politics and economics are present in the spaces and relationships created by organized sound. It is easy to focus on the textual elements of music, but there is more at stake than just the words. Critical reflection on the intersections between music and politics also need to take into account the visceral and non-verbal elements such as counterpoint and harmony, polyphony and dissonance, noise, rhymes, rhythms, performance and the visual/aural dimensions to music-making.
The importance and potential of arts as a tool for peacebuilding should not be underestimated. To illustrate this, my introduction tells some modern “Pied Piper” tales. The cases following this text elaborate further on how the arts are currently being used in peacebuilding activities in different regions around the world.
People building peace II: successful stories of civil society
This book argues that the arts must begin to develop a robust evidence base that underpins the unique contribution that the arts can make to society. The arts and cultural sectors are at a crossroads. Since 1997 the range and diversity of arts provision has been extended and developed new and innovative approaches to engagement with all levels of society. All this has been supported by record increases in spending from government, local government, the Lottery and corporate donors. However, in the current financial climate tough choices will have to be made.
This essay explores the significanceof art in political and social change by way of evidence from the Swahili coast of East Africa. Analysis of two musical genres, ngoma and dansi (typically glossed as "traditional dance"and "urban jazz"), exposes common aesthetic principles of innovation, inventive appropriation,competitiveo pposition,linguistic indirection,and intertextuality. Historical analysis further reveals that both genres haves erved as effective modesof political action in Swahili communities. I use this data to question prevailing assumptions about Swahili cosmopolitanism, challenge traditional/modern binarism, and theorize the relationship between art and society
Anthropological Quarterly
Five experiments examined effects of songs with violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and hostile feelings. Experiments 1, 3, 4 and 5 demonstrated that college students who heard a violent song felt more hostile than those who heard a similar but nonviolent song. Experiments 2–5 demonstrated a similar increase in aggressive thoughts. These effects replicated across songs and song types (e.g., rock, humorous, nonhumorous). Experiments 3–5 also demonstrated that trait hostility was positively related to state hostility but did not moderate the song lyric effects. Discussion centers on the potential role of lyric content on aggression in short-term settings, relation to catharsis and other media violence domains, development of aggressive personality, differences between long-term and short-term effects, and possible mitigating factors.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
The author reflects the construction of national music while the arise of the nation State in Guatemala. This development begins formally while the first decades of the nineteenth century and has not finished yet. For the myth of the Nation state and those who use it for their project of domination it is crucial that national music can be distinguished externally from musics generated by other nations while it can be applied internally for the aim of national homogenisation. Since the middle of the nineteenth century the music is used in Guatemala for the dissemination of ideologies that help to construct this myth. The vernacular music of the Maya people does not follow this logic. Hence it is considered inferior or «incorrect». For the myth of the nation State only the totality of «the people» as an abstract concept can understand and appreciate the national music, but not the concrete or individual group. Assuming this the music is converted into an important tool of a repressive mechanism and deculturation.
América Latina Hoy
Music sociology has addressed the history of the musical canon, taste and social exclusion. It has also addressed issues of musical value and the perceptual politics of musical reputation. More recently, it has developed perspectives that highlight music's ‘active’ properties in relation to social action, emotion and cognition. Such a perspective dispenses with the old ‘music and society’ paradigm (one in which music was typically read as distanced from and ‘reflecting’ social structure) and points to core concerns in sociology writ large and to educational concerns with music's role as a socialising medium in the broadest sense of that term.
British Journal of Music Education
In three experimentswe examined whether songs that are widely used in times of crisis (crisis songs, CS) could resume their unifying effect when they are played offcontext. In the first experiment, two conflictual groups, religious and secular Jews, were exposed t o CS, t o love songs (LS), or t o no songs and were then asked t o express their attitudes towards their outgroups. It was found that CS positively affected respondents' attitudes: stigmas and prejudice were lessened. In a second experiment, the CS effect was examined under more restrictive conditions. Instead of listening t o CS, participantswere asked t o recall them from memory. In addition, attitudes towards ingroups and outgroups were collected more systematically. Results showed again that CS reduced intergroup bias. In a third experiment we tried t o understand the mechanism underlying the CS effect by examining the thoughts and associations that people had while listening t o CS. Analysis of the associations showed that unifying themes such as "nationalism," "sorrow and grief," and "unity" were most prominent when religious and secular respondents listened t o CS. The CS effect and its underlying mechanism are explained in light of the "common ingroup identity model." CS had the power to bring into awareness that the conflicting groups belong t o one superordinate social group which, in turn, reduced stigmas, prejudice, and intergroupbias. Possibleimplications of these findings are discussed.
Musicae Scientiae
Ethnomusicology
Throughout the world, community arts-based processes have become an essential component of peacebuilding work in societies experiencing severe conflicts. Both during a conflict and in post-conflict peacebuilding efforts, community based arts processes can be an especially effective tool to bring together identity groups through sharing common cultural experiences, raising awareness about past suffering, and engaging communities in creative projects. In this research project, the author spent fourteen months in Bosnia-Herzegovina researching the use of community arts-based peacebuilding efforts both during the war and in the post-conflict stage. This paper provides an overview of the research and offers several conclusions on the role of arts in peacebuilding within Bosnia-Herzegovina with the hope that these findings have relevance for other regions and the field in general.
Peace and Conflict Studies
This article explores political, cultural and musical issues surrounding the dispute between Palestinians and Israelis, particularly over Jerusalem, which each party uses to symbolise and promote their own perception of the conflict. Specifically, I examine selected popular musical landmarks that capture the essence of the struggle from the ultra-nationalistic tones of the 1960s and 1970s to the more reconciliatory ones in the 1990s advocating peace. Special attention is given to musical cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian singers who played a strong role in the promotion of peace within a utopian dream of coexistence between Arabs and Jews.
Popular Music
Ethnic groups use music to promote in-group favoritism and values, but also to enhance intergroup closeness and understanding. The current study examined whether national music, often used for emphasizing intergroup separateness, can also reduce prejudice and promote theory of mind among two groups in conflict, Jews and Arabs in Israel. More specifically, the study examined whether removing a national song from its conflictual context, and introducing it in a manner which emphasizes out-group familiarity, enhances mentalization and positive attitudes between groups. Arab/Jewish women (N = 254) were randomly divided into four groups and exposed to one of two types of national Israeli songs, a Holocaust Day song (HDS), which is not associated with the IsraeliArab conflict, or a Memorial Day song (MDS), which is aired only on days of remembrance for Israel’s fallen soldiers, sung by either a Jewish or an Arab singer. The results demonstrated that exposure to a HDS enhanced theory of mind when it is sung by an Arab singer. Moreover, Arabs who heard the HDS demonstrated reduced prejudice against Jews, when compared with the MDS. The results demonstrate that national songs, which may be the epitome of in-group favoritism, can be used for promoting theory of mind even among adversarial groups.
Psychology of Music
The present study explored how media, specifically violent rap music, may influence Blacks’ and Whites’ attribution of Blacks through stereotype priming. When compared to controls and participants exposed to nonviolent Black musicians, those exposed to violent Black musicians reported attributions of a target Black male’s violent behavior that was particularly dispositional relative to attributions of a White male’s violent behavior or to any other condition. The findings also indicated that the impact of exposure to violent rap music generalized to judgments involving other stereotype-related traits (i.e., intelligence) but not to judgments of nonstereotypical traits (i.e., spatial skills)
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781315090894/music-medicine-peregrine-horden
In the last decades Norway has seen substantial immigration into the country, largely from South Asia. In the capital (Oslo) one out of every four school children have foreign roots. This development poses a great challenge to educational policy, and begs for efforts that foster interracial harmony and prevent ethnic conflict. The Norwegian Department of Culture and the Culture Fund in the years 1989‐1992 supported a school research project run by the State agency for music promotion — NorConcert. Eighteen schools with varying percentages of immigrants and of various location and size were selected to test the effectiveness of an art program rooted in the cultural heritage of the countries of origin. Music, dance and theatre from Asia, Africa and Latin‐America were presented by renowned artists from the countries represented, supported by immigrant teachers and culture workers. The results of the study revealed significant improvement in the social milieu of participating classes and schools, with a lessening of conflict and harassment. The program was also seen to foster self‐esteem and the development of individuality among immigrant children. As a result of the project a Norwegian Multicultural Music Centre was established in 1992, and the programming of State supported school concerts was extended in an intercultural direction.
European Journal of Intercultural studies
History of European Ideas