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Perceived enablers and barriers to optimal health among music students: a qualitative study in the music conservatoire setting
Get PDFStudent health and wellbeing within higher education has been documented as poor in relation to the general population. This is a particular problem among students at music conservatoires, who are studying within a unique educational context that is known to generate both physical and psychological challenges. This article examines how conservatoire students experience health and wellbeing within their institutional context, using a framework from health promotion to focus attention on perceived
enablers and barriers to optimal health in relation to three levels: lifestyle, support services, and conservatoire environment. In order to respond to the individuality of students’ experiences, a qualitative approach was taken based on semi-structured interviews with 20 current or recent conservatoire students in the United Kingdom. Thematic analysis revealed a complex set of enablers and barriers: (i) lifestyle enablers included value placed on the importance of optimal health and wellbeing for musicians and daily practices to enable this; lifestyle barriers included struggling to maintain healthy lifestyles within the context of musical practice and learning; (ii) support enablers included accessible support sources within and beyond the conservatoire; support barriers included a perceived lack of availability or awareness of appropriate support; (iii) environmental enablers included positive and enjoyable experiences of performance as well as strong relationships and communities; environmental barriers included experiences of comparison and competition, pressure and stress, challenges with negative performance feedback, psychological distress, and perceived overwork. The findings reveal a need for health promotion to focus not only on individuals but also on the daily practices and routines of conservatoires. Additionally, they suggest that continued work is required to embed health and wellbeing support as an integral component of conservatoire education, raising awareness so that all students are fully informed of where, and how, to seek the information or help that they may need. Finally, they indicate a need for more radical scrutiny of the cultures of conservatoires and an assessment of how these can be modified to best optimize students’ health and wellbeing
Fit to perform: an investigation of higher education music students’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors toward health
Get PDFMaking music at the highest international standards can be rewarding, but it is also challenging, with research highlighting pernicious ways in which practicing and performing can affect performers’ health and wellbeing. Several studies indicate that music students’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors toward health and healthy living are less than optimal, especially considering the multiple physical and psychological demands of their day-to-day work. This article presents the results of a comprehensive screening protocol that investigated lifestyle and health-related attitudes and behaviors among 483 undergraduate and postgraduate students (mean age = 21.29 years ± 3.64; 59% women) from ten conservatoires. The protocol included questionnaires measuring wellbeing, general health, health-promoting behaviors, perfectionism, coping, sleep quality, and fatigue. On each measure, the data were compared with existing published data from similar age groups. The results indicate that music students have higher levels of wellbeing and lower fatigue than comparable samples outside of music. However, they also reveal potentially harmful perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors toward health. Specifically, engagement in health responsibility and stress management was low, which along with high perfectionistic strivings, limited use of coping strategies, poor sleep quality, and low self-rated health, paints a troubling picture both for the music students and for those who support their training. The findings point to the need for more (and more effective) health education and promotion initiatives within music education; in particular, musicians should be better equipped with mental skills to cope with constant pressure to excel and high stress levels. In part, this calls for musicians themselves to engage in healthier lifestyles, take greater responsibility for their own health, and be aware of and act upon health information in order to achieve and sustain successful practice and performance. For that to happen, however, music educators, administrators, and policy makers must play an active role in providing supportive environments where health and wellbeing is considered integral to expert music training. *** For a video summary of this article please see http://researchonline.rcm.ac.uk/id/eprint/1806/ **
Book review: 'The social worlds of nineteenth-century chamber music: composers, consumers, communities' by Marie Sumner Lott.
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Preface to score: Károly (Karl) Goldmark: Aus Jugendtagen Op. 53
No full textPreface to study score of Károly (Karl) Goldmark's concert overture Aus Jugendtagen Op. 53
Non-invasive wood identification of historical musical bows
No full textThe article describes methods and outcomes of the experimental application of X-ray microtomography towards the identification of the wood species of eight 18th-century bows from the historical collection of the Conservatorio L. Cherubini/Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence. The investigation was undertaken at the Syncrotron Electra in Trieste in collaboration with the University of Florence and led to more accurate non-destructive documentation of the materials of the bows towards a more accurate attribution, documentation and conservation
Playing from open score 2: Kerll’s Ricercata for a barrel organ.
No full textThis second, companion article to ‘Playing from open score 1: Froberger’s Fantasia, FbWV 206’, British Clavichord Society Newsletter, no. 66 (October 2016), pp. 3–9 considers the Ricercata by Johann Caspar Kerll (1627–1693) in the context of other seventeenth-century keyboard music, and as an exemplar of the fugal organisation, motivic construction and the performance practice of partitura scores. Reading music from open score was a prerequisite of seventeenth-century keyboard fugue performance. This tradition began in Naples with Rocco Rodio's Libro di ricercate, a 4 (1575), and was widely adopted across Europe until beyond the time of J.S. Bach. While today the practice of playing fugues from open score is generally unknown and no modern edition of Kerll’s Ricercata has been published in open score. This article includes an open score transcription the ‘Ricercata in Cylindrum phonotacticum transferenda … à Gasparo Kerl’ printed in the fifth part of Book 9 of Athanasius Kircher’s Musurgia universalis (1650). The article includes a full commentary and critical analysis of this fantasia and ricercar style fugue on three subjects. The transcription is typeset with modern treble and bass clefs to assist players who wish to perform this music from a visual presentation similar to that of the original but which does not require fluency in C-clefs
Music in three dimensions: an integrative perspective on the aesthetic, praxial and social dimensions of music
No full textThis paper outlines a perspective on music and music education arising from the experience of Sage Gateshead, a large cultural institution in the north of the UK. More specifically, it is a
perspective which has emerged from the process of situating undergraduate music learning within Sage Gateshead’s artistic programme. A process of action research undertaken by the
author between 2011-2015 helped to develop a critical understanding of the organisation’s practices which in turn has helped to underpin the undergraduate curriculum.
This particular situation has given rise to a conception of music which might be broadly described as integrative, emphasising the integration of three musical dimensions which have often been considered as separate or contesting – if closely related – fields of
musical practice, namely; the ‘aesthetic’ and ‘praxial’ models of music which have long been the subject of much debate; and the idea that there are specific and measurable ‘social’ – as well as physiological, psychological, and other – benefits associated with music, which has informed much cultural policy since the late 1990s in the UK. The perspective of Sage Gateshead – and the model described herein – suggests that music is at its most potent when all three of these dimensions – the aesthetic, the praxial and the social – are engaged, not to the exclusion of the other two, but held in a kind of ‘creative tension’ with them.
The idea that music operates on a number of levels simultaneously is certainly by no means radical or new. However, what I hope can be gleaned from a better understanding of
the situation of Sage Gateshead is the kind of creative tension which exists when these three dimensions of music’s power are engaged in practice. In particular, an integrative model of
music has implications for the training of musicians, as it infers that musicians need more than just the traditional skills of musicianship if they are to form and sustain long-term careers
in music. Rather than the common perception of becoming a music educator as the ‘negation’ of a professional identity in music, the integrative model of music sees musicians as more
holistic agents, with the knowledge and skills to be able to operate competently and effectively across music’s different dimensions. **** The full text of this paper is available open access as part of the conference proceedings document at the 'Official URL' link below. ***
Early years arts activity mapping project, Festival Bridge
No full textThis mapping study aims to understand and quantify current activities in arts and cultural spaces, as well as in Early Years (EY) educational settings in the Festival Bridge region, in order to build on existing strengths, highlight gaps, and prompt an inspirational road map for the future. The research has been driven by the needs and opportunities present in the geographic areas covered by The Festival Bridge (FB), the regional Arts Council England bridge
organisation for Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Peterborough and Suffolk. FB has been supporting cultural EY provision in this region through Culture Chain investment in the creation of the Arts and Young Children Regional Network (AYCORN) East. *** This report is available open access at the 'Official URL' given below. **
