At the beginning of the pandemic, many music ensembles had to stop their activities due to the confinement. While some found creative ways to start making music again with the help of technologies, the transition from "real" rehearsals to "online" rehearsals was challenging, especially among older amateur musicians. The aim of this case study was to examine the effects of this transition on three community band conductors and three older amateur musicians.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStudies of creativity emerging from cultural psychology and social psychology perspectives challenge individualist conceptions of creativity to argue that social interaction, communication, and collaboration are key elements in creativity. In recent work creative collaboration has been proposed to be "distributed" between audiences, materials, embodied actions, and the historico-socio-cultural affordances of the creative activity and environment, thus expanding the potentialities of creative collaboration beyond instances of direct human interaction and engagement. Music performance, improvisation and composition may be viewed as exemplary "laboratories" of creative collaboration through the combined elements of audiences, materials, embodied actions and historico-socio-cultural affordances and constraints.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhilosophers, composers, and musicians have long argued whether instrumental music finds meaning in its formal structure and musical content (Hanslick, 1986) or through reference to extra-musical elements, like narratives, emotions, or memories (Meyer, 1956). While the use of extra-musical elements appears grounded in individual musicians' priorities for performance and teaching (Héroux, 2018), the impact of emotional indications on expressivity has not previously been studied in a large-scale experiment. The aim of this pilot study was to construct the methodology for a larger project to study the impact of the use of extra-musical elements on the sound results of guitarists.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Psychol
January 2019
A growing body of evidence has demonstrated significant social and emotional benefits of music-making amongst senior citizens. However, several as-yet unresolved age-related barriers to "musicking" have been identified. Positioned within the emergent field of gerontechnology, concerned with the interface between aging and technology research, this review of literature thus explores the potential for music technologies to function as a vehicle for creative musical opportunities in later-life.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLondon J Prim Care (Abingdon)
March 2016
Although there is now an accepted need for initiatives that support older people's well-being, little attention has been paid to the potential for music making to effect a significant contribution to the quality of life of older people. The research summarised here explored the role of music in older people's lives and how participation in community music making can enhance their social, emotional and cognitive well-being. The research comprised three UK case study sites, each offering a variety of musical activities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPerspect Public Health
January 2013
Aims: This research explored the relationship between active music making and subjective well-being, in older people's lives. The research focused on how participation in making music might enhance older people's social, emotional and cognitive well-being, through meeting the basic psychological needs identified in earlier research.
Method: The research comprised three case studies, each offering a variety of musical activities to older people.