Environment, intention and intergenerational music making: facilitating participatory music making in diverse contexts of community music

Current conversations and debates amongst community music and music educational practitioners have engendered the need to identify and describe qualities and leadership strategies that could be expected essential for those in teaching, facilitating and/or working in diverse settings, including carceral environments. Common areas are first explored: where are we working (context)?, with whom are we working (people/community)? and given an understanding of the first two questions, how do we do it (strategies)? These framing questions assist in locating common characteristics of making music in various settings, but also point to the distinctive features of each of the three contexts. By establishing conditions for authentic experience, safety in exploring and risk-taking as well as defining key strategies for successful engagement, instructional approaches are identified and applied. Pedagogical practices that include instructional strategies such as guided discovery, collaborative learning and narrative dialogue are identified. Facilitation processes such as, for example, demonstrating/modelling, coaching, Socratic direction and facilitating/enabling are models of musical intervention that create space for acquiring and using lifelong skills in participatory contexts. Whether in schools, communities or prisons, the positive experience of music making thrives where the flexibility of the teacher/facilitator, the reflexivity of the innovator, the foundational knowledge that research and practice provide and the ultimate enhancement of the community are fully in place.