Community Music

This course seeks to explore and critically examine various perspectives and understandings of community music and collective-oriented music practices. Students are challenged to explore what the concept of ‘community’ in art is and to create activities that strengthen the sense of community and inclusion in formal, informal, and non-formal learning environments. Students learn about artistic approaches and pedagogical strategies that aim to support and facilitate participation in music and art, where ethics in practice are carefully considered. The course is based on the view that music and art are social practices in a multicultural and diverse society, where cultural relevance and the ability to be culturally responsive are significant, and where differences and diversity are seen as a value. Knowledge of music, dance, and drama as inclusive and exclusive practices, and as creative, performing, and transformative activities is emphasized. Relevant topics include music, social justice and change, sustainability in social activities, local-global perspectives on music, music and well-being, music and identity, and music project management, aesthetic learning processes, embodied learning, and interdisciplinary art activities.

Knowledge

The student

• has thorough research-based knowledge about different perspectives on community, and community music

• has advanced knowledge about questions in community music, and how to connect these to aesthetic learning processes and bodily learning in diverse contexts

• has in-depth understanding of music, dance and drama as inclusive and exclusive practices, as well as difference and diversity as resources for art-making

Skills 

The student

• can, on an advanced level, collaborate with different learners and teachers and other stakeholders, plan and carry out a community music project with the purpose of strengthening a sense of community and inclusion in a way that is culturally relevant, sensitive, and responsive

• can on advanced level use own professional skills in music to design music activities that combine artistic qualities with a view on difference as a value, while also considering sustainability, power, and privilege within community encounters and contexts

• can critically evaluate and discuss their own and others' community music projects, with the help of relevant academic and professional questions from the field and research

General competence

The student

• can use and present perspectives from community music to contribute with new perspectives on quality in music and the arts more broadly and maintain inclusion and diversity in educational settings

• has reflective and explorative perspectives on their own professional knowledge in music, pedagogy, and artistic approaches

Workshops, seminars, lectures, presentations, developing and working in communities of practice, self-directed learning.