1857 research outputs found
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The global conservatoire: towards an integrated approach to developing twenty-first-century artists
No full textThis chapter looks beyond surface evaluations of online teaching during the pandemic and considers a new model for online teaching in the conservatoire. We start by recognising recent and significant changes in the external environment for all artists, notably the focus on generating a more sustainable future, the importance (and fragility) of global communities and the role of technology in the arts. While the significance of these aspects for the musician-in-training may not be immediately obvious, we argue that deep engagement with these issues is vital to develop global artistic citizens for the 21st Century. We propose that online teaching in the conservatoire has the potential to become an important vehicle for equipping students to respond to these changes in society. In recognising the possibilities for online teaching, we move from a position of online ‘replacing’ or ‘replicating’ traditional conservatoire teaching to ‘complementing’ practice-led experiences. We examine how core learning and teaching values can be embedded in the online environment to promote synergy between different learning experiences in the conservatoire. Furthermore, we propose that a transnational model of design and delivery could be most effective in developing culturally responsive artists. ***** This chapter is available open access at the Official URL given below. ****
Understanding the history of 1930s musical migrants to Britain through minimal computing-led digital humanities
Get PDFThis article explores how historical musicology can use computational methods within a minimal computing framework, recovering the performance histories of three migrant musicians, producing valuable new information about their careers. Líza Fuchsová, Maria Lidka, and Paul Hamburger all left Nazi-occupied Europe during the late 1930s and settled permanently in the UK. Fuchsová (1913-1977) was a Czech pianist who became an advocate for Czech musical culture as well as an important piano soloist; Hamburger (1920-2004) was an accompanist and teacher who left Vienna for London and became a senior figure in BBC radio and Guildhall professor; and Lidka (1914-2013) [Marianne Liedtke], was a violinist, orchestra leader and later Royal College of Music professor. Their careers have been underexplored, but machine-read digitised archives have opened new possibilities for finding and sorting what can seem like an overwhelming amount of performance data. This article uses a minimal computing led approach to demonstrate building a robust and accessible structure to interrogate performance data and establish performance histories. This article will demonstrate the value of this framework and will show how it can be applied to historical musicology work
What does it mean to sing with the Earth?
Get PDFA small group (n=11) of singers from the same community of musical practice in the UK participated in focus group workshops to reflect on their experiences of group singing in nature. The study found that group singing in nature was considered to be a (non-religious) spiritual practice which enhances participants’ experience of both communitas and their connection to the natural world.
Participants made an important distinction between singing with the earth - communing with the natural world in a more spiritual way - and singing for the earth, a more political activity in response to local and global environmental issues. From a Posthuman perspective, diffraction – as both the physical and metaphorical process of exploring ‘differences that matter’ (Barad 2007, 46) - is identified as an important concept for understanding how different routes to wellbeing can be mutually constitutive and intra-active. De-centring human experience by amplifying the co-constitutive role of other agencies like the natural world highlights the ontological and epistemological complexity of such
experience
A note on the future of music and parental mental wellbeing
No full textChapter 14 provides a short note on the future of music and parental mental wellbeing. It first acknowledges some of the threads that run through the book and then identifies four (of many) future directions that practice and research in music and parental mental wellbeing might take. These areas include implementation and scaling-up, emphasising the importance of strong and equal interdisciplinary partnerships, and looking beyond the early years to establish and research new practices designed with and for parents across the life course. Further areas for development include diversity and representation, prioritising work with parents and musicians in wide ranging contexts, as well as capacity building to support and nurture practitioners working in music and parental wellbeing settings. The chapter ends with a final reflection on the potential for music to help reimagine and communicate what parental wellbeing is and can be amongst all that the twenty-first century is bringing
'Noble throughout': the transformations of the pedal harp in Paris and London, between 1749 and 1811
Get PDFWhen Denis Diderot first heard a pedal harp played by Oginski, he was enchanted. The philosopher’s appreciation for the instrument introduces the pedal harp as an object of fascination for the Enlightenment. From the arrival of the first single-action pedal harp in Paris in 1749, to the patenting of the double-action pedal harp in the 1810s, the instrument underwent significant changes making the harp easier to play and more versatile. Several makers offered different versions of the mechanism, while others added to the tonal possibilities. The transformations of the single-action pedal harp paved the way for the development of the double-action pedal harp – patented by Sébastien Erard in London in 1810 and in Paris in 1811 – which remains the standard pedal harp mechanism today.
This thesis examines the single-action pedal harp’s place within Paris and London societies during this period. It engages with a musical instrument that was also considered an object of luxury, with a range of economic and social implications. The first chapter explores these issues, detailing the different meanings tied to the pedal harp at the time. The second chapter focuses on the makers of the pedal harp, assessing their lives and careers. It sheds a new light on their role in various networks such as the German Protestant community in eighteenth-century Paris, which helped to sustain their activity, both personally and professionally. The third chapter explores the quest for transformations that harp makers sought to bring to the pedal harp highlighting the processes employed to protect and disseminate their creation. The analysis of each of these transformations outlines their different trajectories, with a focus on the Erard workshop in Paris and London. The pedal harp is foremost a musical instrument, played by musicians, with its own compositions. The fourth and final chapter examines the performance aspect of the pedal harp, and its place in the music of the period. It explores new links between players and harp makers and highlights the careers of musicians often forgotten in music history.
Drawing on a variety of sources, this study offers a comprehensive view of a crucial period in the pedal harp’s history. Through the investigation of more than eighty pedal harps spanning the years 1749 to 1810, this study demonstrates the invaluable insights that can be gained from material culture studies when telling the history of a musical instrument. The harps have been studied alongside archival texts, iconography, and music of the period, in order to present the many aspects of their material presence. The instrument emerges here as a prism through which to explore complex issues of labour, market, class, gender, and culture at the time
Augmented reality and in-person piano tuition: project report
Get PDFThe ‘Augmented Reality Piano’ research project that took place between July 2022 – July 2023.
This report outlines the design and delivery of the project and describes and analyses its
findings. It ends by offering recommendations for future use of augmented reality in
instrumental teaching, and how hubs can effectively conduct future research in the adaptation of new technologies into instrument-teaching contexts.
The project is a collaboration between Wiltshire Music Connect, Leicestershire Music,
Lincolnshire Music Hub, Norfolk Music Hub and the Royal College of Music.
The project was initiated in order to investigate the potential of augmented reality to increase
pupil engagement and progress within one-to-one instrumental tuition. The research was
carried out between April – July 2023 and worked with 6 experienced piano tutors and 32
beginner piano pupils aged 13-16 over a 10 lesson period. Half of the pupils had access to an AR headset both at home and in lessons. The remaining half undertook traditional lessons without access to AR. Data was gathered from piano tutors, pupils and parents using a mixture of questionnaires, interviews and lesson diaries
Music for parent and child interaction
No full textChapter 10 explores parent-child musical interaction, outlining the origins of musicality inherent in emotionally important relationships from infancy. It discusses communication in early childhood and presents musical interaction as an important component to the earliest communicative expressions of young children. By removing words and focusing on musical playfulness, the work of an early childhood music-arts organisation—Magic Acorns—has discovered through extensive research-informed, reflective practice that parental wellbeing is enhanced when children are recognised as communicators. Findings for practice are outlined, calling for attuned, improvisatory practice built on reduced adult talk, as a decolonising and liberating approach. The chapter questions neoliberal, measurement-driven societal pressures and proposes an ethics of care as the starting point for practice focusing on interaction, music-play, parents, and young children
Enhanced performance training
No full textThe principles of self-regulated learning drive the efficient development of musical skills. This is achieved through thoughtful practice comprising deliberate planning, execution, and review of progress, driven by an array of strategies and the knowledge to implement them. Existing and potential new technologies offer the possibility of enhancing musical performance training by facilitating and encouraging these behaviours. This chapter considers the role of such technologies through the lens of self-regulated learning, considering how current technologies may be best implemented and speculating on technologies to come. Technology-enhanced practice planning can be achieved through systems that foster goal setting and the tasks required to achieve them. Practice execution can be maximized with technologies that can measure and provide instant feedback on the sounds and movements musicians produce, as well as allowing learners to manage their time and stay on task. Effective review is made possible through methods of capturing, summarizing, and analyzing performance, which can then inform plans for future practice and complete the cycle of self-regulated learning
Online songwriting and postnatal loneliness
No full textChapter 5 reports on the co-construction, testing, and evaluation of an online songwriting intervention—Songs from Home—that aimed to reduce loneliness and symptoms of postnatal depression (PND) and enhance social connectedness. The chapter describes the co-construction process and key characteristics of the musical practice, as well as evaluation and research findings. The chapter illuminates how Songs from Home can facilitate four goals—comfort and safety, feelings of achievement, connection, and adapting to individuals—and address loneliness, social connectedness, and symptoms of PND among women in the perinatal period. The chapter concludes by noting that Songs from Home was highly recommended by those who participated in it, with the potential for refinement and scale-up
Creative health in the urban Global South: barriers and facilitators in the cases of Cochabamba and Salvador
Get PDFAims:
The Global South has some of the world’s largest cities, where rapid, ad hoc development of urban centres and ‘megacities’ has fuelled major socio-economic, environmental, and public health concerns. These urban environments can generate feelings of loneliness, with multiple barriers for access and participation in socio-cultural infrastructures. An inclusive future agenda for global creative health must, therefore, consider how urbanisation impacts social public health, what creative health approaches can do to alleviate this, and what the barriers are to access. This article explores barriers and facilitators to accessing socio-cultural urban infrastructures in two case-study cities: Salvador in Brazil and Cochabamba in Bolivia.
Methods:
Data were collected as part of a survey examining access to, and engagement in, arts and cultural activities undertaken between 25 January and 1 May 2023. This article focuses on two questions: What helps you to access artistic and cultural events in your city? and What barriers do you face in accessing artistic and cultural events in your city? 239 open responses from adults, in Portuguese and Spanish, were analysed using descriptive thematic analysis.
Results:
Findings highlight how emergent issues around existing economic inequality, safety, and accessibility can limit residents’ capacity to engage in creative health activities. While preliminary in scope, this raises wider public health implications for how creative health approaches may be leveraged within urban, Global South contexts.
Conclusions:
Findings highlight how greater dialogue is needed between the urban development, public health, and creative health sectors. Given the emerging evidence of the role of creative engagement to alleviate loneliness, integrating creative health approaches within urban public health may further strengthen connections with the most vulnerable communities, and help to build healthier cities. The article ends by outlining an approach that incorporates both local and city-wide creative encounters, highlighting how future interventions could be appropriately designed that gradually scale these types of interventions from tailored local offerings to larger, city-wide activities.
Plain language summary:
What are the aims of your study?
• This study focused on two cities in South America, Salvador and Cochabamba, to explore how city spaces might impact how creative health activities are delivered and received by residents. We focus in particular on the barriers and enablers that residents report in accessing creative and cultural activities.
What are the key findings/results?
• Residents of the two case-study cities reported that lack of money, lack of accessible transport, and not feeling safe in travelling to participate in cultural activities were the main reasons they did not access them, and that more needs to be done to make these activities more accessible.
What is important about your study?
• Research has shown how engaging in creative activities can promote social connection and alleviate loneliness, which are important factors for supporting social public health. This study was the first to look at how this might be applied in two South American cities and highlights the barriers and enablers that residents report in accessing creative infrastructure.
How could your study inform public health practice?
Our findings indicate that when creative programmes are designed for, or delivered in, cities in South America, the impact of the urban environment must be considered. This can support public health through ensuring that socio-cultural infrastructure is accessible to as many residents as possible