IJCM Conversations

Special Episode: Season One Recap with Alicia de Bánffy-Hall and Roger Mantie

• Alicia de Bánffy-Hall & Roger Mantie • Season 1 • Episode 10

Share episode

In this special episode of the IJCM Conversation Series, hosts Alicia and Roger reflect on the highlights of Season One, sharing personal journeys into community music, current research projects, and memorable moments from their guests. They discuss the evolving terminology and impact of community music, challenges of working in multiple languages and how they feel now after completing season one and hearing their guests stories. 


Our hosts:

Alicia de Bánffy-Hall is a professor for music in social work/ community music at the University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf, Germany and editorial board member of the IJCM, co-founder of the Community Music Netzwerk and Commissioner of the Community Music Activity Commission. https://aliciadebanffyhall.blogspot.com/


Roger Mantie is a professor in the Arts, Culture and Media department at University of Toronto Scarborough (Canada) and Senior Editor of the International Journal of Community Music.

https://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/acm/roge…


More information about the International Journal of Community Music: https://www.intellectbooks.com/international-journal-of-community-music


This podcast series is hosted by Alicia de Bánffy-Hall and Roger Mantie and produced by @LaurieHallLJH.



Hello everyone and welcome to this special episode of the IJCM Conversations Series. Today we're wrapping up season one and we've had nine amazing episodes so far- insightful conversations with inspiring guests and plenty of memorable moments. That's right, Alicia. We've explored so many facets of community music, from what we might say is an academic perspective, and we thought it might be a great time to reflect on the highlights from this past season, revisit some memorable moments perhaps from the podcast, and even turn the tables a bit and answering some questions we usually ask our guests. So Roger, a question we ask all our guests at the beginning of each episode is - how did you get involved into the field of community music? And so how did you get involved in the field of community music? Well, as some people may know, my background is, like a lot of people in the academic community music world, in music education. My pursuit of higher education was guided in fact by my concerns with let's just say ‘lifelong participation and well-being’, if I can put it that way. And so the first time I ever heard this term ‘community music’ was during my doctoral studies. David Elliott used to be at the University of Toronto and he had moved on to New York University at that time. And I heard that he was heavily into community music and was thinking about this journal. And then I read about this guy, Lee Higgins, and I wasn't too sure what to make of it. And then of all coincidences, we both landed at Boston University in the summer of 2009. That led to a series of fruitful conversations in between our squash games. And we began to see the intersections between music teaching and what, in the community music field, they describe as ‘music facilitation’. And then my interest in leisure studies led me to uncover the history of the recreation movement of the early 20th century in the United States and the close connection it had with the field of music education. 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, they had this huge rise in a community music movement. It was both in Canada and the United States. And I guess what fascinates me often is how they use the term community music, and yet it has little to do with the emergence of the community arts movement in the UK in the 1970s that led to sort of the more contemporary discourse of music. So I think we're at this amazing moment right now, as many people around the world are figuring out what community music might mean in the 21st century. And in fact we have this upcoming issue of the International Journal of Community Music called ‘Thinking More About Community Music’, based in part on Lee Higgins's latest book. So Alicia, what about you? How did you come to community music? So my journey has been very personal in the beginning. I grew up in Munich in the 1980s (in Germany) and in the city at that time, I grew up in the centre, there were really loads of community arts activities going on and that was sort of the environment I grew up in. I was part of a, it was called Kinderforum, Fandelow in Munich, where there were community artists and we as children could really creatively, with all art forms, create - and it was totally child-centered and we had a lot of power in creating that creative space. And I did community theatre projects - really grew up in an environment at that time where that was really flourishing. But it was not connected at all to music education, just as a side note. So that's interesting. But that was that time. And then as a teenager, I joined an all girls, women's musical project when I was 14, 15, and we worked together for two and a half years with an author, with a composer... It was 30 girls and young women from all backgrounds, and it really meant a lot to me. It really changed my life. And we're still friends. We meet every year at Christmas on the 23rd. We have a musical. breakfast together, the women, and that was 30 years ago, it's a long time ago. so those friendships really carried to now and we would never meet now. Our journeys have been very different. It was at that time that I realised this is what I want to do with my life, but there was no word for it. So I was a teenager growing up and I thought, what do I want to do? I want to combine working with people, working with social change and working with music. And it didn't really exist as a career path in Germany. And I remember going to Switzerland and looking at Dalcroze rhythmics, and that was kind of close, but not quite what I was looking at. My father's from Argentina. I went to Argentina to be with my grandmother and my family for three months. And my mum sent me a catalogue by post (because it was that time still) of LIPA, of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. And it had a degree programme, BA in Performing Arts / Community Arts with a focus on music. And I remember, I still remember lying on my cousin's bed in Argentina reading this description. And it was this moment which felt like - these are the right words to describe what I've been looking for. And I didn't have the words until then. So I went back to Munich, applied, had to do an audition, and went to Liverpool to study community arts, community music, and that was in 2000. And I was extremely lucky to do that at a time where in the UK, arts as a tool for social change under the Blair government was supported with lots and lots of money. So I finished in 2004 and was able to then work as a practitioner in Liverpool, at a time where I could make a living from being a community musician, working in communities and cultural institutions and schools, et cetera. So it was a very personal journey. And I only then later came to research. So that was after a long time in practice. And then I went and did a PhD. That's amazing. What a great story. I love that. And the fact that Lee took me to LIPA one time when I was visiting him in Liverpool. Maybe we met! This is the thing, six degrees of separation, right? Yeah! I mean, that's where I met Lee. I met him when I was 20, when he was teaching at that BA programme. So we've talked so much in this season about our guests’ research and the fascinating work they're doing. So I think our listeners would love to hear more about what you're working on. Well, to be honest, I feel like I'm spread a little bit too thin at the moment, with too many projects simultaneously on the go, which is maybe not that unusual in academia. But as you may recall, my primary research is on what I'm referring to as ‘music and leisure’ or leisure as you might say in the UK. While that obviously doesn't cover all the various kinds of community music activity, it does cover some of them. For me at least, The heart of leisure or leisure isn't free time per se, but rather health and well-being. And so that's for me the big tie-in.

Some listeners may be familiar with the article I co-authored with Lloyd McCartin in 2023, ‘Music, Health and Well-being’ in ‘IJCM Articles:

an Integrative Review’. And it's sort of part of my overall research agenda, examining music and wellness and well-being. I'm currently working on a similar article but with a much expanded focus, looking at multiple journals. I've also been researching pipe bands, as in bagpipe bands, for the past three years and that has really expanded my own conception of what community music might mean. And I'm also involved with a large project examining the teaching beliefs and practices of school music teachers and non-school music teachers, so what we might refer to as community music leaders, sort of with the intention of trying to examine points of congruence and divergence between school and non-school settings. that's some of the things that I've been up to. What about you, Alicia? What have you been working on in your exciting new position there in Germany? Well, a bit similar to you, I feel like I'm doing too many things. But I think one focus for me has been on the development of community music in Germany, because I've sort of done a lot of work documenting or researching aspects of that. So that's, for example, intersections with existing fields of practice - That's social work, definitely - music and social work - the intersection with folk music, German and Austrian, Swiss folk music and also cultural education. I've worked intensely with a number of high art institutions, so that's the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Konzerthaus Dortmund or the Philharmonic Orchestra in Munich. And in Hamburg, for example, I looked at community composing and that artistic and also social process that happens there. And also the tensions that happen when an institution like that is sort of… striving to the ideal of cultural democracy, but actually in the way they're set up and the way they're positioned in society being at the other end of the spectrum. So I'm really interested in that. I've done some small research projects into particular aspects of community music. So I've looked into planning and how community musicians plan. I think that's something not really looked at. And then... looking at what happens in the facilitation process with that plan. While there's a lot of research on projects and things like that, I find those small moments of the practice really interesting. I did a survey on the growth of community music in higher education and I did a survey with, I think, 53 universities in this country and found out how it's been tracking in the last 10 years. But I think one thing that's been really challenging for me has been working in two languages. So my international English speaking profile or whatever you want to call it, is sort of one thing. And then there's a parallel strand of working in the German language. And the research gaps are very different. So it's like you have two research careers. And I had to do a lot of writing in the German language, also to move the field forward or responding to certain questions, which I wrote in German, hence they are not understood by a big part of the community, but they were important to do. So that's really, yeah, that's a challenge - two tracks going at the same time. Well, that is really fascinating. And, you know, we speak about some of this in episode seven, where you tell us about community music in Germany. So let's have a little flashback here. Obviously there's been Community Music -like practice for a long time. So that was clear to us. Now the discussion was, how does this internationally developed discourse - where does that fit in Germany? And that was a really important part of sense-making, of realising actually there isn't a field that exactly mirrors this field. Also there isn't a discourse that has the same focus as you have in that sort of international field. And then I did, separately, a lot of research into all these different fields. I had been in England for 12 years, I knew nothing, so I had to really understand - what does music and social work mean? What does cultural education mean, music and cultural education? Where's the music education discourse in this country? The whole amateur music-making field is very developed, very big, very organised in Germany. Again, a lot of activities you could see that would have intersections. Or folk music, traditional folk music-making. Again, really, especially in the sort of alpine regions where we were in Munich in the south, a very big field of practice. Some of which has very interventionist, accessible, inclusive practices. If you had to pick one moment from this season that resonated with you the most, what would it be? That is so difficult to answer because I feel like every episode has been interesting in its own way, of course. Although I think my experience may be a little different than some listeners in that I've known Lee Higgins, Lee Willingham, Don Coffman, Brydie-Leigh Bartleet, I've known them for a long time and so of course while it was great to hear from them I'm already quite familiar with their stories but you know, the episodes on busking or community music in Italy or you know, yours in Germany, these were fascinating to me because they're a little bit more outside of my sort of wheelhouse knowledge. So even though you and I have known each other for a long time, we haven't previously chatted on the depth of community music in Germany. And even though I helped to oversee the production of the special issues on community music in Italy and on buskers, those interactions were primarily through email. So getting to hear the voices of the guest editors was truly delightful. What about you, Alicia? Was there a guest or conversation that really stayed with you? I loved hearing about the stories behind the published work, how articles and research happened and the stuff that kind of is never communicated publicly unless you know the authors. And also realising that we're documenting community music development and history in a way I felt was really important. For example, when you hear Lee Higgins' story about how he built the International Journal of Community Music. And in terms of episodes, one highlight for me was the busking episode with Meg Elkins and Paul Watts and understanding the role busking plays in creating community, the art form it is and how political, the political aspects of place-making in public spaces and the perspectives that Meg brings to the table as an economist have been fascinating to me. I thought that was just really, really interesting. And this episode made me move differently in public spaces. It's really, also listen differently if I'm in town. Meg mentions the magic of the busk and how it can transform a place. Let's have a look at this clip from episode eight. I think the right busker creates a welcoming space and a safer space. And historically there's been examples of buskers coming into spaces to make it more safe. Because if you've got music it takes away the level of danger and it invites people in and it almost gives a level of respect to that public space, in a way that only music can, because the whole point about this is sharing music, right? And what music does to us and how transformative it is in that experience. I mean, when we experience music, truly experience music, it goes beyond just a head space - into a heart space. And if you're walking by and someone genuinely touches your heart, it is transformative. I mean, I had that experience today. I was in a hurry getting to another event and I heard a beautiful musician on the street. It jolted me into just taking a moment to take in the music. So it does transform a space. If you can find that right musician for that right space. You can change someone's day. Like Meg, I've often been in the Bourke Street Mall in Melbourne, which is pedestrian, it's car free, it's pedestrians only, except for trams. It's the holy grail, I suppose, of being able to busk in the area of Bourke Street, just outside the major department stores. You know, trams make a lot of noise, especially if there's a conductor on the bell, You know, "ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!" You know, if there are a couple of hundred people around a busker, they'll be over the tram tracks and no amount of noise from the tram can register in a person if they’re transfixed listening to a busker - because they are so engrossed with the busker, they're going to get run over by a tram! Well, they don't get run over by a tram. And it's a beautiful thing when a crowd gathers around a performer in a random moment of exchange. And it truly is the audience and the musician that are having this exchange, in an accidental way that is the magic of the busk, that you can capture someone who's going about their everyday moment and draw them into your space to make them stop and listen. That's the exchange that people pay for. They're saying, you actually gave me something in my day, that I feel like I need to exchange something back to you. This is the magic of busking. Another really interesting conversation was the one with Antonella Coppi and Johann van der Sandt about community music in Italy, where I saw some parallels to the development of community music in Germany, especially with regards to using the term community music, so the English language term, versus, for example, a German translation or a new German term or an Italian translation and a new Italian term. So let's have a look. I think there's a lot of parallels between your story in Italy and our story here in Germany. So that's another sort of aspect to this. When I read your editorial, the one that you wrote for the Special Issue on Community Music in Italy, you wrote that the term was really unknown in Italy when you started. So what have been the challenges that you've encountered working with an idea or approach or concept and the whole sort of field of Community Music in the Italian context. I can say something, but probably Johann can add more. First of all, if you translate in Italian language “Community Music”, the translation is “music of community”. And it is not the perspective that we want to investigate. The concept of community is so different in every country and the needs to support the society are so different. And we received in the time a lot of suggestions to translate in Italian this term, but we, Johann and I, decided to maintain “Community Music” because it's a specific label of specific experience. Terminology is so interesting, right? I'm reminded of podcast number seven where you talk about community music in Germany or episode four where Don Coffman talks about the term community music in the United States. Almost every country, of course, has some form of non-professional music-making, if we can put it that way. And even though it's not always called community music, this activity is going on. And as you make a point in your episode, Alicia, So much of the time it's about framing the conversation. In Don's episode he talks about how, until more recent times, no one in the US knew what you were talking about if you said community music. People only understood things like community orchestras or community choirs, for example. But of course the world's always changing and I'll say from my perspective as a Canadian, you know, the term community music wasn't always well known here either, but you know, currently I teach courses literally in community music. I'm doing one today for example, this is my teaching day so I teach ‘Introduction to community music’ and of course, in episode six our guest Lee Willingham, he's created undergraduate and graduate degree programmes in community music at Wilfrid Laurier University. So speaking of Lee actually, I'm reminded of his stories in episode six where he talked about working with a local indigenous community choir and how they paired up with the local police choir. So let's take a look back at that. She worked with a group of women, in English they were called the Good Hearted Women Singers, who mostly were survivors of federal institutions such as residential schools and a variety of other unfortunate chapters in Canadian history. She got them together with a drum circle, it taught them songs, and they became a powerful force, a voice for Indigenous women in our community and beyond. She encountered one day a public relations officer from the Waterloo region police services. So a tall white man in a black uniform with badges and braids and guns. People that aren't from Canada may not know that there's an incredibly toxic history or a history of toxic relationships between police and Indigenous people. He said, we have a choir of men, a male police choir that would love to sing with you. So again, imagine the cultural, you know, challenges here. It happened and it happened on our campus and I facilitated that first concert. So we had they had a venue, they had tech, they had all the stuff you need for a concert. It was really powerful. Like so many of us in the academic field of community music, Lee's background is in music education. It was interesting, I think, to listen to Lee describe adapting his pedagogical strategies to different contexts, such as incarceration, where he talks about working in prisons and whatnot. Listeners might be interested in checking out Lee's other video on socially-engaged research on the Community Music Learning YouTube channel. That's a good point, Roger. Another one of our guests, Brydie-Leigh Bartleet from Australia, she appeared in episode five, spoke very eloquently about her efforts to design a framework for evaluating what she and others describe as the social impact of community music. I want to have a conversation with our field. And the most recent one I published was around a framework for thinking about social impact in community music. Because I really felt there's a need in our field to have a robust conversation about projects. And there's a lot of them that seek to have social justice or social impact outcomes. And I think we're very flimsy and loose in how we actually describe how we get to those outcomes. We just say we want to do them and then we presume magic happens and everybody will trust us that they did happen and all social ills were cured by community music. I think we can do better. And so that article was just the start of a conversation. Of course, I'm already revising that framework and thinking about even more dimensions to it. But it was trying to sort of say, how do we think about moving beyond just those individual outcomes, which we so commonly report in really tiny, small scale little projects and research programs? How do we think about them at a much more macro scale? And how do we think about social change and how that happens through community music? And we need a bit of a framework that... takes a social-ecological approach from that individual right up to the meso- community level up to the macro. So that was deliberately trying to start a conversation with our field. And it's been really interesting because lots of people from the field have written, but so too have people from community sports, from health and wellbeing and all these other fields that are saying we've got the same problems. And it's been interesting to see how you articulate them. Brydie also has another video on the Community Music Learning channel, which is about an article published, Open Access, in the International Journal of Community Music. It's called ‘Social Impact of Community Music’ and if people want to learn more about this, check out her video and also the article, which is, as I said, Open Access. Don also talks about the gap he found in articles in the International Journal of Community Music. assessing what the impact of community music activity is in episode 4. This is what he has to say. One thing that from coming to a lot of conferences and seminars, people are talking about over the years is assessing what the impacts of CMA activity is. Realising we have to justify and explain to funders about this so the idea of assessment efforts. I expected to see something about that and there's virtually nothing other than an offhanded comment about we should be doing more of this or this is hard and so I see this as a sort of a vacuum in what's being put out there and that might be something people would like to work towards contributing. Knowing this is a concern of mine, I will give a shout out to Brydie-Leigh Bartleet’s article that appeared in 16.1 of last year about measuring the impact of community music. I think it's a good place to launch future research. And he mentions Brydie-Leigh's article on creating a framework to describe the social impact community music activity has on a macro level. So we might hear more about this topic in the academic field of community music in the next few years. Yeah, I think you're right. And for anyone who hasn't seen episode four with Don Coffman or episode five with Brydie-Leigh Bartleet, they are really worth a watch if you're watching on YouTube or a listen if you're on one of the podcast services. Alicia and and Brydie talk about the diverse practices that come out of the Asia-Pacific region, for example, and the challenges and opportunities in the field of community music, amongst other things. And Don tells Alicia how he got involved in the field of community music and talks about his relationship with the journal. I really found those conversations insightful. Yes, I think every episode really has memorable and interesting moments. You already mentioned episode three with Lee Higgins. So now I have a question for you, Roger. Lee Higgins tells us about his journey as a senior editor of the International Journal of Community Music. Here's a clip where he talks about his 16 years of being senior editor. I think at the time if I had said, so Lee, you're gonna do this for another 16 years, right? I think that might have seemed a little bit far-fetched, but I mean, I know that we, none of us have a crystal ball, but Lee, 16 years is a long time. I mean, what, can you speak about that? it is. And of course, when you start these things, you don't think of it as I said to you, it wasn't like a lifelong ambition to be editor of a journal. It wasn't something that ever crossed my mind, but it did feel like part of my work. So during that period, of course, we got Community Music in Theory in Practice came out. We got the Oxford Handbook came out and the journal was very much part... and the ISME CMA event and all those things that were part of that. The journal was very much part of that and I suppose I carried that along with me. So I really saw that as just part of my ongoing broad work that was bringing me into contact with people and at the same time giving me the opportunity to have some vision of where I thought community music might need to sort of work in this and that. And it gave me that space to do that, but always mindful that this wasn't, you know, just mindful of my role in that. Roger, how do you imagine your future as the editor of the International Journal of Community Music? That's such a tough question because of course everybody I suspect has big dreams and aspirations and I guess I would say... I don't want to predict the future because I don't have a crystal ball. But I'll just talk about, you know, in terms of the things I've been doing. You know, there have been some operational aspects of the journal, you know, in terms of instituting some procedures and policies and, you know, I've worked with the editorial board and holding regular meetings and whatnot. But in terms of, let's say, trying to shape or influence the field, I think you know the special issues are a really great way to try to do that and and right now like Dave Camlin has a special issue on sustainability that's coming out right now. That's obviously a critical topic in our world right now and we also have a special issue in the works right now. It's currently being curated and developed on indigeneity (indigenous issues) that has been indigenous led, indigenous everything, which I think is fabulous. And we do have one that I mentioned earlier on thinking more about community music, which is in response to Lee Higgins's latest book, and this presents an opportunity, I think, to really think critically and reflectively on where we are in the field. So the only thing I'll say in terms of my own role as senior editor is that I'm definitely not going to do it for like 16 years like Lee did. So this season has been such a rewarding experience and I want to thank you, Alicia, for instituting this and for initiating this particular project. I think it's amazing. And I want to thank all our guests and all the listeners for sharing and supporting. Please subscribe because of course this is a nonprofit, non-monetary activity, but it still helps to get the word out and to sort of boost all those things that algorithms do. So, anything to look forward to, Alicia? Yeah, we just recorded an episode with Kathleen Turner, which I'm really excited about. We've got a number of guests lined up. Again, we're still looking at the different regions where community music happens. Yes, there's a season two. And also, I want to thank our amazing production team who've been... incredible, we couldn't have done it without them and that includes Laurie Hall, Anu Aldenhoff and Gabriel Vincent. So thank you so much for being in the background and being crucial to this project and we will see you soon. Fantastic. See you in season two.