Who We Are
We are a group of scholars and practitioners interested in wellbeing outcomes for community music making as a leisure activity across the life span. Our interest encompasses the widely ranging ways that people engage with music making and listening at all ages, from childhood through older adulthood.
What We Do
We wish to understand how factors such as motivation and leisure constraints interrelate with music pedagogy to inform the development of beneficial arts interventions in group community music making and support life-long participation in music. Our group brings together scholars from across Penn State with community music practitioners, emphasizing interdisciplinary research in people’s leisure time and wellbeing-seeking and seeking to contribute scholarship that is relevant and applicable to practitioners working in community-based settings.
Who We Work With
We engage both researchers and practitioners with an interest in community music-making and wellbeing. By establishing collaborative relationships between music leaders and scholars, we ensure our contributions are theory-informed, data-driven, useful, timely, and lead to effective interventions.
Strategic Aims/Goals
We will:
- Identify pressing wellness topics that may be addressed through community music
- Review literature to support a path forward for research on those topics
- Convene researchers and practitioners with expertise to execute specific studies of programs and interventions
- Disseminate results to enhance the well-being effects of community music practice
Mission/Vision
Our objective is to answer the following questions:
- What are the biggest challenges to wellbeing that recreational music participation could help address?
- What prevents people from benefiting from, or participating in, recreational music?
- Are there specific (sub)populations who benefit more from recreational music participation (or would benefit more from increased exposure)?
- Do different types of recreational music (e.g., choral vs. instrumental, frequency of rehearsal or performance, etc.) have different outcomes?
Highlights/Events
- Initial Meeting on April 10th
- Symposium in the fall