Mercedes Pavlicevic-Groups in Music - Strategies From Music Therapy (2003)

Groups in Music
of related interest
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Mercds Pavlicevic
ISBN 1 85302 692 1
Music Therapy in Context

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Mercds Pavlicevic
ISBN 1 85302 434 1
Beginning Research in the Arts Therapies

A Practical Guide
Gary Ansdell and Mercds Pavlicevic
ISBN 1 85302 885 1
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International Perspectives
Edited by Julie P. Sutton
ISBN 1 84310 027 4
A Comprehensive Guide to Music Therapy

Theory, Clinical Practice, Research and Training
Tony Wigram, Inge Nygaard Pedersen and Lars Ole Bonde
ISBN 1 84310 083 5
Groups in Music
Strategies from Music Therapy
Mercds Pavlicevic
Jessica Kingsley Publishers

London and New York
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been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
First published in the United Kingdom in 2003

by Jessica Kingsley Publishers Ltd
116 Pentonville Road
London N1 9JB, England
and
29 West 35th Street, 10th fl.
New York, NY 100012299, USA
Copyright Mercds Pavlicevic 2003
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 1 84310 081 9
Printed and Bound in Great Britain by

Athenum Press, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear
In memory of Charlotte, whose long painful
dying accompanied this texts emergence into the world,
and
for Tania, whose generosity of soul
allowed me time for each.
Contents
List of Tables 11
List of Figures 11
Acknowledgements 12
Introduction: Music, Society and Shifting Music Therapy 13
Where does this book come from?
Who should use this book?
How does this book work (and play)?
Part I Planning: Thinking Ahead 21

1. Planning Our Discourses 23
1.1 What am I doing here?
1.2 Professional territories: Having music in common
1.3 Improvising our meanings
1.4 How considered is your discourse?
1.5 Re-meaning comfort zones
2. Institutions, Idiosyncrasies and the Larger Picture 32
2.1 Institutions as systems with a bit of help from Systems Theory
2.2 The first approach: Overt and covert mission, vision and values
2.3 Staff, hierarchies and power
2.4 Getting trapped
2.5 Summing up
3. In-groups, Out-groups, Norms and Membership 40
3.1 Why spend so much time on this kind of planning?
3.2 In-groups and out-groups
3.3 Group members hip: Being selective about selections?
3.4 Group process: A brief introduction
3.5 What kind of group? (How long, how short?)
3.5a The one-off group
3.5b The short-term group
3.5c The long-term group
3.6 Setting norms
3.7 Closed, open and semi-open groups
3.7a The closed group
3.7b The open group
3.7c The semi-open group
3.8 Re-grouping
4. Instrumental Thinking and Sound Thoughts 56
4.1 Sound advice
4.2 Instrumental range and sound thinking
4.3 Making links: People and instruments
4.4 Making instruments
4.5 Personal property
4.6 Concluding notes
5. On Being Formed by Music 66
5.1Music and society
5.2 Working and playing cycles
5.3 Owning the music
5.4 Music and you!
5.5 How predictable? How spontaneous? How structured?
5.6 Musical structure (and group systems?)
5.7 Making links
6. Considering the Music Space 79
6.1 The pre-music space
6.2 Tuning in to spaces
6.3 How vital is the music space?
6.4 Limits of time, place and person
6.5 Final thoughts
7. Aims, Tasks, Roles and the Outer Track 87
7.1 Roles
7.2 Your tasks
Divertimento: The inner track
7.3 Group aims and briefs: Generally speaking
7.4 External aims and briefs
7.5 The inner track
7.6 How clear are your aims? (and revisiting discourses)
7.7 To conclude: Keep track
Part II Executing: Doing 101

8. Forming Groups and Groups Forming: Quick time, music time
and sound deeds 103
8.1 On becoming a group
8.2 In the mood musical thinking
8.3 On receiving the persons
8.4 Split-second musicking
8.5 Wrapping up
9. Group Flow, Group Pulse Finding the Groove 115
9.1 Grouping asynchronies or falling apart?
9.2 Learning from not-flowing
9.3 Unflowing roles
9.4 Concluding thoughts
10. Whose Group? Whose Music? (and Whose Expectations?) 125
10.1 The cohesive group(s)?
10.2 Whose session is this?
10.3 The split focus
10.4 The hidden group outside
10.5 The volunteer group
10.6 Whose music?
10.7 The concert performance
10.8 Concluding rites
11. Group Rituals 138
11.1 Social rituals and group music
11.2 Emerging rituals in group music
11.3 Developing a ritual
11.4 Imposing rituals (at your own risk)
12. Live Meanings Listening to Music 146
12.1 Music and social context
12.2 Whose music? (And whose meaning?)
12.2a Prescribed meaning
12.2b Episodic meaning
12.2c Grammatical meaning
12.2d Direct meaning
12.2e Iconic and symbolic meaning
12.2f Episodic meaning and associations for listeners
12.3 Divertimento: A listening exercise
12.4 Musical choices for social rites
12.5 Closing notes
13. Team Building and Conflict Resolution 161
13.1 What kind of flops?
13.2 In- and out-groups
13.3 Sticking to the plan
13.4 Whos in charge?
13.5 Whos running this show?
13.6 Think before the group flops
13.7 Whose conflict is this?
13.8 Building bridges
Part III Reflecting: Thinking Back and Forth 173

14. How Formed is Your Listening? (and How Informed is Your
Speaking?) 175
14.1 Making sense of music: Listening to Greensleeves
14.2 Grouping principles: Basic percepts
14.3 Musical grammar (or, can you hum What shall we do with the drunken
sailor?)
14.4 Perceptual prominence
14.5 How are we talking? (And what are we talking about?)
15. Persons as Music (and Finding the Groove) 183
15.1 Negotiating the flow: Communicative musicality
15.2 Spotting the flow, creating the groove
15.3 Physical disability: Is grooving possible?
15.4 Persons as music: Flowing and grooving
16. Group Music, Identity and Society 193
16.1 Identities and roles: Shifts and stabilities
16.2 Public and collective stereotypes
16.3 Identity and health
16.4 Identity and music
16.5 Whos who
16.6 Sounding ourselves (i)
16.7 A little divertimento
16.8 Sounding ourselves (ii)
The inner track
16.9 What shall we sing-a-long?
16.10 In conclusion
17. Absence, Presence and Climate Control 205
17.1 Absence and presence
17.2 Shifting alliances: Musical and mental
17.3 Being present to absence
17.4 Thinking through
17.5 Present conclusions and absent certainties
18. Group Process and the Inner Track 213
18.1 Structure and directive work
18.2 Group phases and points of view
18.3 Cohesive and disruptive forces
18.4 Whos the leader? (And whos following?)
18.5 Keep listening!
18.6 Inconclusive thoughts
19. Evaluating and Ending 221
19.1 Evaluate what (And whats evaluating)?
19.2 Why evaluate?
19.3 How do we evaluate?
19.4 What do you want to know?
19.5 The focus group evaluation
19.6 What do we do with all this information?
19.7 What to leave out?
19.8 End notes: How to end
In Conclusion 237
Recommended Reading 239
Subject Index 246
Author Index 252
List of Tables
Table 1.1 The discourses we use in generating meaning 29

Table 3.1 Selecting members? 43
Table 3.2 Leaving the group 45
Table 3.3 Group expectations and negotiated norms 50
Table 3.4 Kinds of groups and kinds of membership 52
Table 4.1 Sounds and instruments 59
Table 7.1 Multiple aims: The public discourse 91
Table 7.2 Primary and secondary aims and professional overlaps 94
Table 17.1 How present is your absence? 207
List of Figures
Figure 1.1 Fit(s) of meanings 30

Figure 5.1 Overlapping cycles of the working year 69
Figure 7.1 Aims, work contexts and discourses 93
Figure 7.2 Group musicking 95
Figure 8.1 All SIT DOWN! 109
Figure 8.2 Are you ready, evry body? 113
Figure 14.1 Grouping: Similarity and difference 176
Figure 14.2 Foreground and background 178
Figure 19.1 Evaluation in context 226
Figure 19.2 Collecting information 227
Figure 19.3 The bottom line 228
Figure 19.4 The questionnaire 234
Acknowledgements
Although writing is, as always, a lonely task, various people made a

difference. Gary Ansdell read the manuscript and said, you need major
restructuring. Adri Prinsloo read many chapters and her detailed comments
are every writers dream. I listened to both. Grant Davison was available, on
hand, and at the end of the phone, ready to placate and to pop over when
technology got the upper hand. Tania Leurquain said take the time you
need, and see you when I see you, which gave me permission to become
present to my Inner Track; while my family fed me when the fridge was
empty, and kept my spirits on the hop. Finally, Chris Walton, Head of the
Music Department at the University of Pretoria, was supportive and
generous in allowing me time to get on with it. I thank them all.
Introduction: Music, Society
and Shifting Music Therapy
Vignette
Were driving home from Lake Malawi, where weve been camping,
fishing, snorkelling, painting, reading and swimming for the past
three weeks.It is evening,we are some 50 km from the border with
Mozambique, and since it is not safe to drive through Mozambique
at night, we look for a place to pitch camp. Noticing a dirt track to
our left, we leave the tarred road and drive slowly into the bush,
hoping to find a small village. Soon enough, children appear. We
signal to them that we would like to sleep on the land.
The children run off and reappear with an old woman.Using sign
language we explain our needs and she graciously allows us to pitch
our tent. The children bring firewood, enabling us to have a quick
supper and pitch our tent before nightfall. We find some gifts to
offer the old woman,and walk to her hut in the darkness,led by the
children.
The old woman emerges from her hut with a grass mat, and we sit
in a circle on the ground around the mat. My companion gently puts
the gifts on the grass mat, and the old woman smiles and claps her
hands in thanks.When the handing over of gifts is over we sit in silence,
unable to speak with one another. The sky is brilliant, and we point to
the stars, the children giggle, I am sleepy and want to retire.
We hear some thudding music, and the children jump up and run
off in the darkness from which two young men emerge carrying a
ghetto blaster, which they proudly put on the mat in the middle of our
circle, and then squat down to join us. The music is an urban Western
disco genre and I am astonished at this intrusion into the quiet
13
14 GROUPS IN MUSIC
noisiness of the African night. My companion signals to me to calm

down, and tactfully and gently signals that the bush sounds are magnifi-
cent. Eventually, the fellows turn off the music.
We once again sit together,harmoniously unable to speak with one
another, until we are able to take our leave and, led by the children, we
return to our tent.
Where does this book come from?

My past 11 years of (at times reluctant) living in the southernmost tip of the
African continent has alerted my music therapists sensibilities to two things:
the compelling power of groups in music and the power of music to create elec-
trifying collective experiences of social bonding. This in a nation with an inglo-
rious history of social fragmentation, and a mistrust of difference. Like many
places in the world, South Africa is not entirely comfortable with celebrating its
social diversity; imbuing social difference with nuances of inferiority with
implicit derisiveness, nose-thumbing and racism. However, I have also experi-
enced exhilarating public combustions when we have all, by magic, become as
one, moving and being moved together by music that seemed to enter our
bones and collect us, in spite of ourselves, as one society celebrating itself. It is
these experiences some of which appear in this book that have brought me
to reconsider group music as meaning something vaster (and possibly more
valuable) than listening to music or making music together.
The core strategies of thinking and reflecting in this book are unambigu-
ously embedded in the theory and practice of music therapy, which is my own
professional background. The emergence of core music group strategies in
other words, of strategies that apply to all kinds of music groups were precipi-
tated by various experiences:
an increasing curiosity and questioning of musics capacity both to
alienate and to bond people socially
the distance between music therapy discourses and social musical
contexts, and
my tentative beginnings in the realm of music work with groups
that did not want music therapy sessions, but who insisted that I run
the music groups because of my music therapy work.
From all of these experiences grew a cluster of group music work throughout
the 1990s in South Africa, named team-building, stress management,
conflict resolution, improvisation groups and other such parlances that
INTRODUCTION: MUSIC, SOCIETY AND SHIFTING MUSIC THERAPY 15
framed the high-functioning world of adults who seemed to want group

musical experiences, usually for non-musical ends. Here I dipped in and out of
diverse contexts mainstream schools, non-government organizations
(NGOs), religious communities, counselling services, community support
groups and academia, as well as offering music groups and improvisation
workshops at home, for mothers and toddlers, busy adults, artists, womens
spirituality groups, musicians, arts therapists, mental health professionals and
trainee priests.
All of this felt a significant extension of the traditional music therapy terri-
tories of hospitals, mental health drop-in centres, centres or institutions for folk
with disorder or disabilities; psycho-geriatric settings, residential nursing
homes, special schools and so on. While this group work was not music therapy
group work, my music therapists mind began playing with the meanings
created by these rich and complex musical and personal experiences. At the
same time, this non-music therapy work was generating thinking that began to
impact on my music therapy thinking and practice, so that these began to shift.
For a start, in Africa, the notion of a group self has primacy, which, of course,
has fascinating resonances for any discipline or practice embedded in concepts
that include notions of the person as an individual, and concepts such as
self-development, personal autonomy and subjectivity.
Another set of experiences informs this text: that of training and supervising
music therapists in South Africa at the University of Pretoria. Here, an extraor-
dinary range of practical contexts challenged my inherited Western/European
music therapy thinking about therapeutic notions of boundaries, the thera-
peutic frame and even of group music therapy itself. In African settings the
notion of privacy is spurious, and some wonderful scenes remain in my memory.
One is of running group music therapy sessions with young children in a
Soweto clinic while, in the same physical space, their mothers and grand-
mothers had noisy gossip sessions, and every now and then called out
comments or requests to their children. The music therapy session would slow
to accommodate these requests, and eventually resume its momentum, once the
mothers and children had concluded their exchanges some of which involved
singing songs, on request. Another scenario is of nurses at a hospital coming
quietly into the music therapy room with their cups of tea and tired bodies, ap-
parently recuperating by watching children have music therapy while they put
their feet up and sipped their tea. At the time, I saw these as interruptions to the
session.
Here, again, was my Western music therapy mindset! I came to understand
that the nurses were doing far more than that! Far from intruding upon a private
16 GROUPS IN MUSIC
therapeutic space, their presence felt warm, nurturing, engaged. They were
angels watching over us at work and play. And yet the boundaries were clear:
the children and I were engaged in therapeutic, confidential work which
could at the same time, be public. The quality of this publicness was not that of
voyeurism or detached curiosity: quite the contrary, our work seemed to receive
something from those in the room who were outside the therapeutic frame.
Another shift has been in terms of understanding time. As musicians, we
already know that music time is another kind of time: hardly linear or sequential
and apparently unrelated to chronos. However, we all know that part of the
social context in which we work has everything to do with chronos: rehearsals,
sessions and lessons begin and end at a certain time. The African notion of time
is maddeningly different to Western music therapists chronos-bound rigidity.
More extraordinary still, the beginnings and endings of music sessions (and
indeed of the music itself ) have had to be rethought. There is no place for
thinking that the session begins in ten minutes, and the session will last for
forty minutes, or even thinking when everyone is there the music will begin.
Weve learnt that the music needs to begin, even in the empty room. And, in any
case, the room is not empty, because the music invites and calls the spirits and
ancestors to join us. Bit by bit, folk trickle in and trickle out and somehow
the group music goes on regardless. The session lasts for the amount of time
needed for the music to sound and be sounded, and this has another time alto-
gether, which we might think of as social-music time.
Finally, in South Africa, selecting musical material for group sessions is
tricky. It is not enough to know how to sing and dance the indigenous musical
repertoire: its social functions (and taboos) need to be equally known and
respected as well see in a moment. This, incidentally, is one reason why this
book does not suggest musical material. I have learnt, in Africa, that music is
context sensitive rather different to the (Western) modern and material notion
that music is an object that can be transported from one social context into
another.
Music therapy in South Africa is developing different social, musical and
spiritual sensibilities, and I believe that these sensibilities may be useful to
groups musicking in other social and regional contexts.
All of these experiences and shifts in thinking combusted with the
emergence of a new movement in music therapy calling itself Community
Music Therapy a movement drawing from the music-centred approach
flagged insistently by Gary Ansdell and Rachel Verney in the UK, Ken Aigen in
the USA, and Brynjulf Stige and Even Ruud in Norway. The latter two, interest-
ingly, have added social and cultural dimensions to this emphasis, allowing the
theoretical landscape to be broader and more richly textured.
This book emerges, then, from these splendid collisions between modern
(i.e. post-Enlightenment) and traditional and indigenous understandings of
time, music, space and person; privacy and confidentiality; and traditional and
indigenous embedded social norms and values. It seems to me that these
meetings of different cosmologies to do with music, healing and society
apply universally, in these times of mass immigration, refugees and deep crises
of suspicion about social difference.
It seems to me that music therapy theory and practice does and must offer
something rich, complex and acutely inspired to group music-making across
the boundaries of healing, teaching, learning, relaxing, performing and
simply living in music. It is time I believe for us as music therapists to share
the less visible aspects of our work and skills with others and, while doing so,
also cultivate clarity about those aspects of group work that belong exclusively
to music therapy, and those that are shareable, and open to being inspired and
informed by other, adjacent practices.
Who should use this book?

This book, then, is for anyone involved in group musicking. The word
musicking is from Christopher Smalls book of that name, and explains that
rather than think of music as an object or product that exists separately from us
as human beings, musicking denotes that we are engaged in music, with music
and through music whether we listen, play, hum, dance or imagine it in our
minds.
In other words, if youre a music teacher, music specialist, music therapist,
church musician, community musician, orchestral conductor, choir leader, this
books for you. If youre a rock band musician, if youve been asked to run a
music listening programme or a music appreciation group, if youre a composer
of music for groups, and if youre looking to employ a musician in your institu-
tion, then read this book. If youre training to be any of these, or thinking about
training, the same applies. This book does not expect you to have knowledge or
understanding of music therapy, neither will reading this book turn you into a
music therapist.
A special invitation, here, goes to musicians who work in religious contexts
of whatever persuasion or culture. One of the epiphanies of the South African
work has been the very thin distance between sacred and secular work. I have
learnt not to confuse sacred with religious (or secular with a-religious or
18 GROUPS IN MUSIC
agnostic). I have learnt, also, that the sacred belongs within the secular and,
possibly more often, vice versa. The profound nature of collective musical ex-
perience in Africa has kindled some questions to do with our role as musicians
in collective social rituals with a parallel awareness that religious collective
rituals can be amazingly secular in flavour! Hence various sections throughout
the book deal with the role of music in rituals and the group musical event as a
form of social ritual.
Thus, I hope that this book engages anyone involved in group musicking and,
for this reason, the group music session is called just that (rather than therapy
session, orchestral rehearsal, group improvisation, etc), even if the context or
the focus of your work is clinical, community, religious, the concert stage or the
classroom. The person running the group I call the group leader or group facil-
itator so as to include those whose work does not quite fit into neat profes-
sional categories, but whose imagination will enliven their reading of this book.
Also, to avoid confusion if some of the contexts in the book seem inappropriate
for your own kind of work, there is a paragraph near the beginning of each
chapter that alerts you to what aspects of each chapter may interest your kind of
work especially. It is important that you do not confuse the context of some of
the vignettes and discussions with their content: although the context may
seem unfamiliar and irrelevant to your own work, read on! The content of much
group work is surprisingly familiar.
How does this book work (and play)?

Ive divided the text into three parts, planning, executing and reflecting. Each of
these parts offers strategies, to get you to think about, and revisit, your own
work: how you plan it, how you do it, and how you review it. In this sense, this
book does not quite work like a normal book, in fact, this book is for playing
with ideas incidentally, a core strategy from music therapy thinking is the
notion of play. Not just music, but playing with ideas, with planning, and within
sessions. You do not need to read the chapters sequentially, and you might
prefer to leap across sections and read the various bits to do with music and
identity, or to do with group dynamics, musical structure or group norms.
What I hope youve gleaned from all this is that this book does not tell you
what kind of musicking to do in your groups; neither is this a handbook or
manual, providing ideas for songs, pieces of music or other musical resources.
Other books do this more than adequately. In any case, I am assuming that you
have some group musicking experience. Having said that, the vignettes scattered
throughout the book will give you plenty of ideas as well as resonating with
what you already do.
Finally, I hope that my own professional community of music therapists will
find this text useful even if there is not too much traditional territory. The
challenge for us, possibly, is to extend our practice, and contextualize it outside
as well as remaining inside traditional territories of clinical work. Another
hope is that group work might become a more significant part of music therapy
practice, rather than something that we think about doing as well as individual
work.
Johannesburg, September 2002
Vignette
It is the closing dinner at an African Continental Medical Conference,
and after two hours of sitting with delightful colleagues, our table
decides that it is time to party. The background music is bland and
nauseating. However, nobody wants to get up and get the ball rolling.
You are the music therapist, they say, why dont you do something?
An irresistible challenge.
Zandile approaches me: I hear you want to dance, he says. We
hatch a plan: to do a song-and-dance together on the stage and invite
others to join us. Since my knowledge of African songs is limited, I
assure Zandile that if he starts, Ill join in. After asking for the back-
ground music to be turned off, we do our impromptu performance.
The applause is bored and condescending. Zandile slinks off. My
musical blood is up and I am determined to continue. I approach a
group of nurses from one of our music therapy training hospitals, and
discuss with them how best to liven things up. They agree to do
something together, calling another table to join us.
We return together to the stage and I find myself in the middle of
a group of women singing, swaying, dancing and ululating in that
delicious sensuous African way. Our group gathers energy and
momentum,and within minutes we have expanded to some 50 people,
on their feet cheering, hooting, clapping, whistling, swaying. The
dancing group grows, we become more energetic, pouring with sweat
and our bodies propelled by each others singing and dancing. It
continues for almost two hours, making our own music as we sing,
stamp, whistle, clap and move our bodies.
The room has become one huge organism moving in music.
20 GROUPS IN MUSIC
The following morning the last day of the conference there is a

new knowing between the conference delegates. We greet one
another warmly,and comment on the fun we had the evening before.
PART I
Planning: Thinking Ahead
This section takes you through seven chapters, each to do with issues that need
to be thought through and addressed before you begin your work with groups.
Chapter 1: Planning Our Discourses clarifies distinctions between
professional disciplines and insists on being selective and adventurous in
generating discourses that enhance the quality of our work. Chapter 2:
Institutions, Idiosyncrasies and the Larger Picture considers aspects to do with
the work context, be it school, community hall, hospital, village square, church
or the concert stage, and its potential to hinder or support group work. Chapter
3: In-groups, Out-groups Norms and Membership, talks about group
membership and explores how we select group members, and describes the
implications for your work of open, closed and semi-open groups, as well as
long-term, short-term and one-off groups. Chapter 4: Instrumental Thinking
and Sound Thoughts covers selecting instruments for your music-making
sessions, and thinks about linking instruments, and instrumental roles, with
players. Chapter 5: On Being Formed by Music dips into musical form and
structure whether for listening, performing or improvising and considers its
social impact on your groups. Chapter 6: Considering the Music Space
considers the nuances of the physical setting for group work, and also considers
the group as a physical, social, musical, mental and emotional space. The final
chapter in this section (Chapter 7) is about Aims, Tasks, Roles and the Outer
Track and explores how you describe your work.
There are few direct bibliographical references in this text. Rather, the rec-
ommended reading section refers to books that have been helpful in formu-
lating some of these ideas, as well as additional material that you may find inter-
esting.
CHAPTER 1
Planning Our Discourses
Everyone in your group and that includes you as group leader is much more than a
person whos come along to have a group musical experience. Each of us brings our
physical, mental and social experience of ourselves in the world; we bring the nuances and
flavours of our social culture and identities, our cultural cosmologies, our musical prefer-
ences and past musical experiences. We also each bring our propensity for human relation-
ships and for creative engagements with life.
This chapter teases out the complexities to do with talking about groups in music, given
the multilayered and multifaceted meanings generated by the act of group musicking. It also
clarifies how we might use the distinctive and common aspects of various bodies of
knowledge, working contexts and professional disciplines, to help us make sense of groups
in music.
While too much thinking about group music can distance us from the immediacy of
doing, Id like to suggest that too little thinking risks narrowing the group experience. In
some instances, too little thinking can do harm. As youll see throughout this book, group
musical experience can be exclusive as well as inclusive, alienating as well as bonding,
wonderful as well as dreadful. By taking time and trouble to make sense of your own work,
your experiences will be that much more exasperating, complex and rich.
1
1.1 What am I doing here ?
This question reminds us that when people come together for a group session,
they each bring with them aspects of their collective and individual past and
present life experience, their social and cultural experience of music, as well as
all the layers and complexities of being a person in the social world. The
group, by definition, offers an experience of self in relation to various other
persons, and these experiences of being in relation to other persons are con-
1 The title of Bruce Chatwins marvellous writings on travelling in foreign parts.
23
24 GROUPS IN MUSIC
stantly shifting, constantly being revised, and constantly enhancing and inter-
fering with the groups musical experience. In this sense, any kind of group
musicking, whether to do with listening to music, rehearsing, improvising, per-
forming, dancing or learning music, is as much about the persons as it is about
the musicking.
Another complexity is that we cannot simply separate the individual person
from the group context. Thus, the way I experience myself here, with this col-
lection of persons, is specific to this group and is also formed by it. This way of
being includes the entire group in my mind (of which I am also a part), as well as
myself as a distinctive person, and member of this collection of persons.
Groups offer a complicated and rich context for persons to engage with one
another, and there is something fundamental about the nature of these engage-
ments that is common to all kinds of groups in music: whether folk are standing
as a choir, watching you, the conductor, and apparently not directly engaged
with one another; or whether they are improvising together, acutely listening
and receiving cues from one another as they play. The fundamental nature of
these engagements can result in some persons feeling an immediate and
powerful bond or antipathy to other members of the group. These feelings
of antipathy or sympathy, naturally, impact on the groups musicking, and this,
needless to say, impacts on you as group leader. For example, think of times in
your own work where the group is apparently singing all the right notes and at
the end of the rehearsal you are exhausted, uncomfortable and not sure why.
After all, the rehearsal has gone according to plan. At other times, your class
has been disruptive, chaotic, and music seems to have taken a minor role in
todays lesson and you feel exhilarated and excited by your charges.
There is another complexity in group work generally: the endless tension
between individual and group needs, demands and expectations. As group
leader you need to be aware of these, and at times hold both in mind at the same
time. As well as the multiple, concurrent relationships between group members
(which at times need formidable powers of tracking), various alliances form
between certain members of the group, and shift, and reform, often several times
during one session. There are distinctive sub-groups within each group and, in-
evitably, some group members experience themselves as being marginalized by
what they feel is the core group. Incidentally, the person who is excluded from
the in-group might well be you, and if youre not alert, youll constantly
encounter the groups sabotaging of your intentions, week after week, without
knowing whats going on.
How do we begin to make sense of any of these scenarios (of which there
are plenty more throughout this book)?
PLANNING OUR DISCOURSES 25
One way of making sense is to plan meticulously and be ready to ditch all
plans in a micro-second if these suddenly feel inappropriate while we are
executing. We then need to think about what we do. Although Part Three of this
book focuses on reflecting, here, at the very beginning, we need to think about
how we can draw from existing bodies of knowledge to help us ask, and answer,
questions like: How does musicking happen in groups? How does musicking
impact on my sense of an individual and a group Self ? And how do we make
sense of group musicking?
First, I want to define the professional territories that inform this book, by
focusing on music therapy.
1.2 Professional territories: Having music in common

This book does not pretend that we all do the same thing or think the same way.
Each of us belongs to, and identifies with, a professional discipline whether it
is community music, music education, orchestral conducting, choral music,
music therapy or whatever.
Also, the physical and social territories and localities in which we work
impact on what we do and how we think about it. This raises a slight complica-
tion since, increasingly, there is a crossing over of traditional professional terri-
tories. What I mean is that community musicians, orchestral and choral
musicians, as well as music therapists, might all work in the same contexts. For
example, outreach programmes take orchestral musicians into hospitals
(generally the territory of music therapists) and community spaces; while
music therapists might work in mainstream education,which is traditionally
the territory of music educators; and music specialist teachers work in contexts
to do with health. In other words, it is not the context that defines what we do
and how we do it. Thus, working as a community musician in a medical context
does not make me a music therapist any more than working in a church setting
makes me a priest. However, the context does have a context-specific discourse,
which means that when each one of us (lets say, for example, a community
musician, music teacher and music therapist) talks about our work which
happens to be in the same context (say, the context of a special needs school),
there are aspects of our thinking and talking that will overlap, and aspects that
will be distinctive to our discipline. In other words, the discourse that each of us
generates will draw from a common, context-bound discourse that belongs to
that special needs school, and will also draw from our distinctive professional
discourses of music education, community music and music therapy.
26 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Some of the vignettes in this book reflect this cross-over of work and terri-
tories. They describe work in contexts that may be unfamiliar to your own pro-
fessional discipline, and to your own work. This does not mean that they have
no relevance for your work! On the contrary, many vignettes are the focus for
describing and speculating about what goes on in a way that you can use in
your own approaches and working contexts.
Although this book crosses over contexts and contents of practice, locality
and approaches, it is not my intention to blur professional boundaries. On the
contrary, my premise is that music therapy theory and practice, as a distinctive
professional discipline, has something to offer to group musicking in general,
and is open to receiving from any of these disciplines. In my opinion, this
sharing and receiving does not compromise either music therapy or any other
discipline, but rather hopes to enrich them, and be enriched in return.
As youve read in the introduction, the core group musicking strategies in this
book come from many years experience of musicking in and with all kinds of
groups; as well as from those aspects of music therapy training, theory, applica-
tion and reflection that I consider useful for group musicking in general. In other
words, there are other music therapy strategies that are not presented here and
even having an excellent grasp of this book will not turn you into a music
therapist.
Music therapy training and practice is not only about working with
disabled, disordered or diseased groups of people, but working with music in a
specific way, with all kinds of people, old and young, highly able and healthy
and ordered, as well as with those who are socially marginalized, exiled from
their countries, and invisible in social life. Here is a recent definition:
Music therapy provides a framework in which a mutual relationship is set
up between client and therapist. The growing relationship enables changes
to occur, both in the condition of the client and in the form that the therapy
takes By using music creatively in a clinical setting, the therapist seeks to
establish an interaction, a shared musical experience leading to the pursuit
of therapeutic goals. These goals are determined by the therapists under-
standing of the clients pathology and personal needs. (Association of Pro-
fessional Music Therapists (APMT) definition in Bunt and Hoskyns 2002,
p.10)
We might think of music therapy work as being essentially about learning to
listen, in a multilayered way, to the person in the music therapy room. Some of
this listening is musical, some is personal and interpersonal and, critically, the
music therapist listens as closely to what the person does as to what they do not
do; to what the person brings to the session and what they do not bring. In
other words, music therapists give as much value to what is hidden as to what is
presented.
At the same time, the music therapists quality of listening and being in the
music therapy space is a multiple one: as well as being engaged with the client,
music therapists are equally engaged with how they themselves experience the
client in the moment, and the relationship between them. We can describe this
listening and being as an engagement with the outer track of the session, and at
the same time, with the therapists own inner track of what is going on in the
moment and that includes speculating about the clients inner track.
Finally, part of music therapy practice is ongoing reflection, processing and
speculating about what happened in the session. In other words, for the
therapist the session does not end when the client (or client group) leaves the
room and the time is up but, rather, continues in the therapists mind as well as in
her reviewing of the session and in the supervision sessions with her clinical su-
pervisor. Here, the therapist has another listening mind, to help her to make
sense of the work and the client in as complex and inclusive a way as possible.
This inclusive meaning includes the therapists personal feelings during the
session, her feelings about the client and herself in relation with the client. This
book encourages you to reflect about your own work: not just put it out of your
mind at the end of your own group session, but to think about it, and, if
necessary, to seek a mentor who can accompany your own reflections.
This book, then, will, I hope, kindle your interest in that fascinating disci-
pline and also, possibly, clarify for you the limits and boundaries of your own
work. It will also alert you to overtones and undercurrents in your groups,
and clarify for you when what goes on in your groups requires a bit of help or
even referring to a music therapist (or psychologist, counsellor, social worker).
Lets now leave aside music therapy, and think about the various discourses
that might be useful in thinking and talking about group musicking.
1.3 Improvising our meanings

The way that we understand, describe, and reflect about our work is inevitably
informed by words and, as we know, words are not always helpful in talking
about music. However, in these days of the information highway, most of us
have access to the language of allied bodies of knowledge that are verbal, and
are useful for our work, such as psychology, sociology and anthropology,
musicology and music therapy, social music psychology and music sociology
to name a few.
28 GROUPS IN MUSIC
These bodies of knowledge each have a distinctive discourse as well as over-

lapping discourses common to more than one discipline. Any of these can help
us to make sense of what we do, and here we need to be careful about how we
use other discourses. For example, as a church musician, you will most likely
talk about what you do using the discourses of religion, religious music and
music performance. However, in talking about your work, youll do much more
than just import bits of discourses and hope that they more or less fit together!
First of all, youll borrow what you need and discard what you do not need a
complex and highly selective mental process. Also, you will weave these various
bits of meaning together in the way that best means what you need to be
meaning when talking about your work.
In this book, then, I present meaning as that which we generate and
construct as we think and speak. Thus, rather than there existing this body of
pre-existing meanings that we can dip in and out of in order to make sense of
our group work, we are all engaged in generating meaning. We also, at times,
challenge it, extend it and discard it. We improvise meaning as we go along
and our meaning is no less rigorous for this!
Meaning is highly dynamic, rather than fixed and static. It is also context
bound: highly specific to what we do and where we are doing it. Thus, in a
hospital we generate meaning about our work in a way that draws from the
hospital discourse, while in the village hall we talk about our work another way
altogether even if we do very similar work in both places. As we saw earlier,
our professional disciplines contribute to our creating of discourses: as a music
teacher, I might speak and mean in a way that is different to the choir master
who works in the same school, and possibly with the same children. This is not
just because we do different things, it is also because our disciplines each have a
body of knowledge, and discourses that informs how we talk about our work.
Although, as musicians, we know that music also has its own meanings,
with its own rigour and logic, the implication so far is that I am talking about
meaning as tied to verbal language. This I am choosing to do since, even though
what we do as group musicians is musicking, this book is about how we mean
what we do, and how we describe what we mean. It is the describing and ex-
plaining that I am interested in, for the moment. Lets continue.
If we now think about language as dynamic and socially generated, then we
all know, for a start, that the meaning of words changes in different contexts, in
different social groups and in different eras. Language is highly dynamic and
context bound, and is also very subtly nuanced according to sub-cultures and
social sub-groups. Some aspects of language are universal, so that most English
speakers will understand the basics of the language, while other aspects of
English are highly context specific (which is why I understand not a word of
my brother-in-laws Geordie-speak, which he assures me, is also English). Like
meaning, then, language is socially constructed, and both universal and context
specific. Lets now think about existing discourses and how we might use and
abuse these.
1.4. How considered is your discourse?
Table 1.1 The discourses we use in generating meaning
Discipline
Social psychology
psychology
Social music
therapy
Community music
Medical sociology
therapy
Medical music
Music education
Community music
Ethno-musicology
Discourse
Sociology X X X X X
Music X X X X X X
Psychology X X X X X
Therapy X X
Medicine X X
Education X
Anthropology X X X X
Table 1.1 above shows different disciplines in the top row, making selective uses
of discourses in the left hand column. These selections can be thought of as
being woven together to generate meaning. Implicit in the Table is that some
discourses are useful and some are not. Also implicit is that this weaving
together is a considered act: we do not use a discourse when it is not useful to
our context, discipline or approach.
30 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Figure 1.1 suggests that some discourses fit snugly with our own, whilst others
are more challenging. However, what we also see is that those discourses that
fit are not necessarily more helpful to us than those that that do not.
We see that where discourses fit comfortably with our way of meaning there
is potential for rich thinking and also for laziness and making assumptions
about the building blocks of our work. In the same way, discourses that feel
distant, and that do not fit easily with our own, can nudge us to think more inci-
sively, and encourage us to negotiate and question what we mean. At the same
time though, less comfortable discourses can be discouraging. We might feel, at
times, as though there is so much to be understood about what discourse means,
before we can begin using it for ourselves.
Potential for rich meanings
Too many assumptions of basic concepts
Discourses fit Complacency/lazy thinking/closed to

generating rich/new discourse
constant
revising
Need
False or forced meanings are borrowed
Sporadic/coincidental meanings
Discourses discourage reflection
do not fit
Basic concepts need
questioning/negotiating
Potential for generating rich/other/new

discourse
Figure 1.1 Fit(s) of meanings

1.5 Re-meaning comfort zones

I hope, then, that this brief discussion (and this book) challenges you to think
about your work, discourages you from drawing meaning too quickly, and
encourages you to pursue your own improvising of meaning, even when you
feel that making sense of your work remains somewhat obscure and complex.
I also hope that you enjoy the vignettes: each is from a real life scenario, and
some of the more spectacular flops offer the most potential for reflection, and
learning.
CHAPTER 2
Institutions, Idiosyncrasies
and the Larger Picture
All of us work within contexts that, whether or not we are aware of it, impact on our work,
our group, and on ourselves. This chapter links with Chapter 7: Aims, Tasks, Roles and the
Outer Track and also with Chapter 19: Evaluating and Ending.
2.1 Institutions as systems with a bit of help

from Systems Theory
Systems Theory (Developed by Kurt Lewin and excellently described in De
Board 1978) is useful in helping us to think of any group of persons as a whole
comprised of different parts according to a particular scheme or plan. If we
think of any group as a system, we see that various parts are interconnected,
associated and interdependent.
Most organizations and working contexts whether universities, schools,
community centres, hospitals or NGOs (non-governmental organizations)
can be seen as a complex system of interrelated parts, each of which has a partic-
ular role and is mobilized according to the needs of the whole institution. Thus,
the university accounts section is on high alert towards the end of the financial
year, whilst for the faculty offices, registration week is the most critical. For
teaching staff, the beginning of term and exam times are stressful, while for the
departmental administrative support staff, the summer recess period is highly
demanding, with a clearing away of old information and preparation for the
new academic year and so on.
Some systems are closed, independent from other systems, or from the envi-
ronment in which they exist and operate: here, we may imagine no exchange of
energy between the group and its environment. The group apparently exists as a
sealed entity. An example of a closed system is the cell battery, which has its own
internal workings and eventually gets used up (although, of course, the speed
32
INSTITUTIONS, IDIOSYNCRASIES AND THE LARGER PICTURE 33
with which it dies depends on the kind of usage it is put to in other words,
what environment it operates within). In contrast, open systems are intercon-
nected with one another and import/convey and exchange energy between
them. They continuously change and adapt in relation with one another and,
critically, they need the boundary between them to be sustained in order to
maintain a dynamic equilibrium.
In terms of this book we can think of a collection of persons in music as
closed or open systems, existing within a larger one, whether a school, suburb,
clinic or corporate organization. Thus, within the larger system, one of the
smaller systems is the music group: the choir, orchestra, classroom, hospital
ward, improvisation group, and so on. There are also other smaller, neigh-
bouring systems, each of which is structured in specific ways in terms of hierar-
chies, skills, roles and expectations. All these smaller systems should be
co-ordinated with one another, depending on the aims, tasks, needs and expec-
tations of the whole system. As we know, however, there is often precious little
co-ordination.
The usefulness of Systems Theory here is that it alerts us to the fact that
group musicking in whatever context and of whatever kind does not happen
within a systemic vacuum. It is highly unlikely that you can sustain your music
group as a closed system, separate from the larger system. This suggests that you
need to develop a sense of acuity as to what is happening within the social/in-
stitutional context of your music groups. You cannot simply arrive each week,
do your group work and leave. You need to develop a sense of how the greater
system is structured; how its various parts relate and co-exist with one another;
which part of the whole system your work belongs in, and who your systemic
neighbours are. If you find that you dont belong in the greater system, you
need to consider where and how your work might find a place within the
whole.
Before doing this, however, you need to have a good idea of how this system
works, and what its about.
2.2 The first approach: Overt and covert mission, vision

and values
Most groups, institutions or organizations have some kind of purpose that is
overt and stated tangibly, e.g. training, entertainment, care, worship or develop-
ment. Here is the public face of the institution, how it chooses to present itself to
the world. At the same time, though, there are strata of institutional values,
ethos, hidden agendas and less visible nuances. All of these are part of the
34 GROUPS IN MUSIC
system, and you need to get a sense of the institution as a whole and as a sum of
parts, in order to grasp how the larger system works, and where and how your
work fits with it.
Whether youre approaching a special school, a residential nursing home,
an orphanage, a drop-in centre, parish church or training institution, you need
to familiarize yourself with the institutions values, vision and approaches to
fulfilling its purpose.
As well as their public label or brand name, some institutions have a mission
statement or vision, usually crafted by the institution itself. Other institutions
have no overt vision or mission statement, and youll need to decode this by
talking with people across the hierarchies in the system which takes time and
energy. At the same time, though, you do need to get a sense of the ethos of the
place in which you hope to work. Thus, while the public label may be care
centre and the mission statement may say something about dignity in old age,
the ethos may be bio-medical, religious, holistic or whatever.
You also need to be clear about your own working ethos, mission and vision.
For example, you may present yourself as a community musician, and have an
ethos grounded in religion which results in your overriding interest in a
gospel choirwhich is all very well, but how does this fit with the vision and
ethos of the context in which you hope to work?
If, from what youve managed to find out, your work or approach does not
fit, then at least you are aware of this, and can negotiate with the institution and,
one hopes, generate mutual respect about your differences. If you dont know
that your work does not fit, then you risk operating as a closed system, inde-
pendent from your environment. Rather like the cell battery, youll run out of
juice eventually. If, on the other hand, you take time and trouble to inform
yourself and negotiate (rather than impose) your work and aims with those of
the institution you should have the beginnings of an open system, whereby
your work and theirs will exchange energy, sustaining a dynamic mutual equi-
librium between you. There is always potential for change in attitudes and views:
those of the institution as well as your own (!) If you do not feel that you connect
with, or fit with the ethos, and assuming that you have decided to work there
in any case, then maintain open channels of communication and believe in your
work. Rather like an open system, allow for exchanges of views and opinions
between you!
I mentioned briefly the need to form relationships with staff at all levels of
the hierarchy. The next section explores this.
2.3 Staff, hierarchies and power

In my experience, members of staff from the context in which you work can be a
source of invaluable support: friendly, welcoming and helpful. They can also be
amazingly obstructive: obdurate, inscrutable, unhelpful: by simply ignoring
you, forgetting (week after week) that it is music time; or by not informing you
that someone has resigned, left the group, been discharged from hospital or has
died so that you find out by walking into the room and finding someone else
in that bed. Unsurprisingly, when these sins of omission happen regularly, your
work energy will plummet as soon as you think about that bit of the weeks
work. It is time to do some homework.
The rule is, quite simply, to cultivate co-operative and mutually respectful
working relationships with everyone involved in, and around, the music group. If
you run community music groups, make sure you know whos who, from
funders, managers, caretakers to cleaners and volunteers. As a part-time music
teacher/conductor/music therapist, you may have to do an inordinate amount
of groundwork before even beginning your music work, as well as continuing
to monitor whats going on in that context. This all takes time and energy and
is the only way to ensure a smooth journey for yourself and your work.
Here are some fundamental guidelines about sustaining open channels with
staff and colleagues. (Feel free to add others of your own.)
Take time to greet people each week (living in Africa, this is a given:
one does not begin to engage with anyone, until the proper
greetings have been attended to). At times, staff at the bottom end of
the work hierarchy have low self-esteem, are used to being ignored,
yet in my experience can be an invaluable source of support.
You need to walk with kings and keep the common touch (to
misquote Kiplings poem). Those with more power are not
necessarily your best allies in terms of offering you support and
advice. And vice versa.
Find out about the global as well as the local hierarchies and
channels of communication of the workplace. Large institutions are
amazingly complex, and you need to inform yourself about their
structure. You do not operate in a vacuum as a closed system.
Ask to attend a staff/parish or community/board meeting and
introduce yourself and your work before you begin or, at least, at
the very beginning of your work to make sure that everyone
knows who you are and what you hope to do.
36 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Find out about channels of reporting/thanking/complaining (both

formal and informal).
Establish what kind of reporting/feedback is wanted from you: this
may differ from place to place, and the board that funds your work
may want different reporting from the staff who are on the ground
in your place of work. Be flexible in providing for different
expectations and demands.
Be meticulous about feedback to staff. In clinical/rehabilitation or
specialized contexts make sure that you report on anything you
notice that is different or unusual about someone or the group as a
whole. Ask staff for feedback, suggestions and support.
Inform staff especially in residential institutions when youre
leaving each week. Say goodbye! This is an excellent way of
reminding them of your presence and departure.
Inform staff if youll be absent, on leave, when youre ill, doing
exams and so on.
Be sure to have the necessary contact details of the institution in case
you need to call or fax, and leave your own details in the
ward/school/institution. Also ask staff to inform you if there is a
planned (or unexpected) outing so you dont arrive and find an
empty school.
Engage with the ward/school/nursing home social celebrations and
festivals by offering to be a part of the Christmas concert, or
rituals at Easter, Eid, Hanukkah or whatever the local culture
happens to be.
Ask for help when you need it you may need to learn about past
history and customs: there may be existing institutional traditions to
do with particular days or times of the year.
Maintain a visible profile contribute to the institutional
newsletter/magazine/community mouthpiece/circulars to
parents/local church group/local newspaper, etc.
Dont be a martyr or a messiah if something doesnt work, talk
about it with staff, ask for suggestions, advice and so on.
Vignette 2a
Some years ago I approached a large psychiatric hospital for permis-
sion to introduce music therapy training placements on the wards.My
request was received with enthusiasm by the Medical Superintendent,
the Head of Psychiatry and a consultant psychiatrist, all of whom
pledged their support, and assured me that they would spread the
word around the hospital.Some weeks later,assured of their backing,I
began to approach the various wards and was met with blank gazes,
lack of interest and passive hostility.
I got the message and quickly regrouped. I introduced myself to
the Head of Nursing Administration, and eventually she suggested a
meeting with all the nursing matrons.The meeting lasted almost three
hours.In true African style,it began with greetings and introductions
with each of us saying something about who we were. I talked very
simply about music, asked them what music meant in their own lives,
and introduced the notion that we would like to do mainly group
music sessions with hospital patients how did they feel about this,
would the nurses be interested in joining in, and so on. By the end of
the meeting I was noting down suggestions from the matrons as to
what music they thought the nurses and patients might like to sing and
play.
The music therapy clinical training programme at this hospital has
never looked back. Bar one or two wards with complicated dynamics,
the nurses welcome us, they know that I supervise the students and
often greet me with a story or two about the students work. In
return, I keep in close contact with the matrons of the ward, give
regular feedback on the most helpful and most supportive wards
(and, by omission, on the less helpful ones); and last year, at the Head
Matrons request, the students presented a half-day symposium on
music therapy, hosted by the hospital, to which matrons and senior
nursing staff from all hospitals in the province were invited. Over a
hundred attended.
Had I side-stepped the nursing hierarchy, this story would read
rather differently. By choosing to ask the nurses for their support, our
programme gained the support of those on the ground. Practical
support from the (more powerful and senior) medical staff continues
to be rather thin in this hospital.
38 GROUPS IN MUSIC
As this story shows, it may not necessarily help to have enthusiasm and support
from the higher echelons only. Often staff members on the ground (whether
nurse aides, care workers, teaching support staff, cleaners) are your best allies.
They know the children/adults/pupils as well as the entire set-up better
than most, and certainly better than doctors or nursing matrons. You need to get
to know them and them you.
2.4 Getting trapped

All these suggestions assume rather naively a homogeneous and harmonious
whole system, rather like some great symphony, into which you will fit
smoothly and find your part in the system. The realities in any institution,
whether church, school, community centre, hospital or therapy clinic, are often
different, with envy, professional jealousies, rivalries and a close guarding of
professional turfs. You could unwittingly find yourself in a minefield, tres-
passing innocently on others professional turfs, or seriously annoying someone
who secretly hankers after your role.
Intra-institutional conflicts can cause enormous personal stress especially
when unacknowledged, unidentified and unaddressed. This is generally to do
with how the institution works, or does not work, rather than with you person-
ally although, of course, you may be fuelling conflicts and dynamics that
already exist.
You, as the music person, may symbolize to bored, burnt-out or envious
staff members, something to do with fun, entertainment, creativity and caring.
Moreover, as a part-time incomer, you do not have to deal with the daily wear
and tear of cleaning, caring for residents, nor are you subjected to the ongoing
dynamics of the institutions. A consequence of any of these, often invisible, in-
stitutional dynamics is that you become the target of some uncomfortable digs
or even overt acts of aggression that sabotage your work and youll need
insight, alertness, self-reflection and courage to keep your head when all about
you are losing theirs and blaming it on you (to further misquote Kiplings
poem). In other words, you need to be clear as to which aspects of these acts (or
nuances of acts) levelled at or against you have to do with you, personally, and
which have to do with the institution itself, or with that persons own issues.
Here, the persons own incapacity to acknowledge and deal with their own dif-
ficulties can be greatly alleviated by blaming it on you. You can become the
target of their negative feelings, which will make you feel awful, and them
powerful.
Another complication is that there may be overt and tangible alliances in the
institution, and each tries to get you onto their side. This can be enormously
stressful and complicated since, as a newcomer, you do not want to offend or
receive unpleasantness from the other side.
Music therapists generally have supervision from a peer or a professional in
allied fields e.g. social workers, psychologists, psychotherapists or other arts
therapists and this is an invaluable source of support, helping the therapist to
sort out what is going on; how it makes sense emotionally and how to
manage the complications within the institution. Although supervision is
generally part of the therapy professions, there is no reason for you not to find a
similar person: someone able to listen openly and non-judgementally, and help
you to gain insight as to what is going on in the work-place.
What is critical, in any case, is for you to remain alert to the inside track of
any work context: in other words, to what is not always overt and tangible, and
impacts on you and your group musicking. Keep open channels of reporting,
listening and communicating; keep yourself informed of literature on group
work (like this book); seek support from your line manager and most
important sustain a self-reflective stance. The more you are able and willing to
think about what is going on, the better for you and for your group work.
2.5 Summing up
In this chapter weve looked at the wider context for music groups. Weve used
basic concepts from Systems Theory to underpin the notion that any work
context is made of parts which do not always co-exist comfortably with one
another. Weve considered the nature, ethos, mission and visions of the struc-
tures external to your group work, which we might think of as the scaffolding
that can support and obstruct your work. Weve also seen that the institu-
tional structures, staff roles, hierarchies and dynamics can have significant
impact on the internal structures, roles and dynamics of your own work and on
the group musicking.
In the next chapter, we zoom in a little closer: how you form groups, how
they fit within the institutional context, and how you understand and describe
the aims, tasks and roles of your work within the institution.
CHAPTER 3
In-groups, Out-groups,
Norms and Membership
Whether youre auditioning folk for your rock band, advertising for a music appreciation
group, selecting folk for your music and social skills group or working with a class group,
with no say in the group membership, this chapter is for you. We all need to think about
whos in the group and whos out. We also need to think about what we say were doing in
our sessions, and what were not doing, and how any of this meets or might not meet with
the groups expectations.
This chapter is not context bound. In other words, irrespective of whether you have a
say on the nature of your music group, these planning strategies will help you to consider
issues to do with group management.
3.1 Why spend so much time on this kind of planning?

Music therapists generally think carefully about what kind of music therapy
groups to institute in specific settings: this is to do with whether the group is
open or closed, long-term or short-term, and selecting membership. Each of
these has an impact on the relationships that develop within the group and
between the group and the working context or institution. It is these planning
strategies that are presented here, to help you consider the complexities and
nuances of setting up a music group.
Rather like the idiosyncratic nature of institutions, group membership is a
multilayered phenomenon. As we saw in the last chapter, the group exists
within the context of a larger group, be it the school, community centre,
hospital, college or church, and needs to fit within this whole system. Also,
although the group is a collection of persons with a common focus and purpose,
at the same time, constantly emerging and shifting sub-groups form within the
music group. These shift within each session, and from one session to the next.
These subgroups are not necessarily defined by the explicit roles of the
40
IN-GROUPS, OUT-GROUPS, NORMS AND MEMBERSHIP 41
members. In other words, I am not suggesting that sub-groups are defined by,
say, the instrumental sections of an orchestra, the different voices of a choir, or
even the different kinds of abilities (e.g., high, medium or low) within a
classroom or group who have come together to play music. Rather, I am
thinking of the interpersonal alliances and allegiances that emerge whenever
folk come together, and how these can impact on your own role as group facili-
tator. It is because of these group dynamics, which are often invisible and intan-
gible, that the external scaffolding of your group work is given so much
attention in this chapter.
This chapter, then, considers this external scaffolding in some detail,
beginning with the selection of members for your group, and then considering
various kinds of group formats, and the duration of your work together. Even if
you have little choice in group membership or in the length of the groups work
together (e.g. as a class music teacher or a musician-in-residence at an institu-
tion), this chapter will alert you to issues that can impact on the group as a
whole.
3.2 In-groups and out-groups

In his classic book on group work, psychologist Irvin Yalom begins by talking
about the fundamental distinction between groups with in-patients or resi-
dents (i.e., folk who know one another through being in the same place on a
daily basis), and groups with those who do not know one another and come
together specifically for the group session. Each of these scenarios impacts on
your work.
People who live or work together whether in a school setting, a private or
public sector organization, a residential home, church, hospital ward or prison
have an experience of one another beyond the music group. This group of
people may together have other group sessions like art classes or a life skills
group with another facilitator. Here, the very same group has another way of
relating not only to one another, but also to a facilitator. You, as the group
worker, are the outsider. These pre-existing relationships have a separate and
ongoing history, timbre and momentum, and are embedded in a different life:
one that parallels your group sessions. Also, what happens inside your sessions is
likely to impact on the other relationships that continue between group
members in-between your sessions. Here, were thinking about contexts where
people bring into sessions this other knowing of one another, which is likely to
be different from their experience of one another during the music group. In
42 GROUPS IN MUSIC
other words, your group work potentially creates other relationships between
the same persons in a residential or daily-living context.
You might think that these other group dynamics might not concern you.
Wrong! You need to be alert for pre-existing relationships and dynamics
between people in the group. This, incidentally, is similar to sustaining alertness
to how the parts fit in with the whole as discussed in the previous chapter.
Here too, the parts of the system can overlap, resulting in some split loyalties
amongst group members. (For instance, Andrew is the rebel in the art group,
constantly challenging Mrs Xs patience. Since in the music group he is with the
same group members, he may feel compelled to be the rebel in your group too
as a result of peer pressure and group expectations when, in fact, hed like to
be one of the group without a prominent role.) Another scenario may be that
the group lets you know that you are a far better facilitator than Mrs X; or that
they have much more fun with the gym teacher, and so on. This is about playing
off one part of the whole system against the other (which is why you need to
establish and sustain open channels of communication with colleagues in the
working context!). If the group insists that you are better than or worse than
the other facilitator(s), you need to reflect, with someone else, on what this
means. Beware of literally and personally feeling approved of, or criticized, by
the group. You, as leader, symbolize all sorts of figures of authority and leader-
ship, and the group will very quickly tend to imbue these figures with all sorts of
feelings that may have little to do with you personally.
Here, again, music therapists have access to supervisors who accompany
them in their work, and there is no reason for you not to find a mentor to help
you sort out issues that arise in groups. This may be your line manager, or a
colleague or group specialist outside the institution. It is critical that you have a
platform to discuss, reflect and exchange experiences about your sessions within
the institution too: you need to liaise closely with teachers, nurses, care-workers
or whoever and, if necessary, provide support for one another.
In contrast to residential or unchanging daily settings, the out-group
members may be rivals, strangers, nodding acquaintances, siblings, friends,
lovers, and a mixture of all of these. Here, although not paralleling relationships
in other sessions or other contexts, the group dynamics will be as complex as
that of in-groups.
Also, out-groups may present the issue of whether, and how, to select people
for your groups, with the inevitable implications of inclusiveness and exclu-
sivity. There are at least two kinds of scenarios here: people who do not know
one another, which, in one sense, makes the selection process less rivalrous; and
a pre-existing group (for example a church congregation or village community),
only some of whom are selected for your session. The latter is a specific group
that is also part of a larger group. On what basis is the church choir distinct
from the church congregation? Think about it is your screening transparent,
in the sense that the selecting of members is clear; or is it slightly blurred, with
the inevitable (at times hidden) feelings of resentment at being excluded, and a
kind of snobbishness at being in?
3.3 Group membership: Being selective about selections?

The out-group scenario has naturally given rise to the issue of who is in the
group and how they get there.
Lets tease out some possibilities as to why you might be in a position to
select your group members and why not. Table 3.1 shows that this is often out
of your hands, and is more likely to be the result of what kind of group youre
doing and the context for your work.
Table 3.1 Selecting members?
You have a say in selecting On the basis of:

(Group members have some say in musical screening (auditions)
self-selecting)
psychological screening (interview)
nature of disability (fit with group)
musical/personal fit with group
You have some say in selecting On basis of:

(**Group members have some say in referrals/requests from colleagues
selection)
responses to an advertisement**
response to a call for volunteers**
coincidental time and place of
persons (e.g. traumatic event or
rehearsal schedule)
You have no say in selecting Pre-existing group (class, ward)

(**Group members have some say in You have an open door policy**
selection)
44 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Were beginning to see that whether and how you select group members
depends on the nature and ethos of the group context, your brief from the insti-
tution or employer, and on your own theoretical orientations. For example, with
the church (or school) choir or instrumental ensemble, youll select people on
the basis of musical skills: generally youll have an audition to screen potential
members. In other settings, you may select folk on the basis of needs, such as
support groups for recovering drug addicts, for single parents, for parents of
disabled children or cancer survivors. Another way of selecting a group is on the
basis that all members have in common a particular interest, e.g. a love of
Wagner (for your music appreciation sessions on The Ring) or a love of singing,
or a shared interest in de-stressing, or rehearsing for the Christmas concert in
the local village hall. If your theoretical orientation is psychoanalytic, and you
are setting up a group that focuses on the relationships that emerge within the
group, then you may wish to select people who do not know one another, and
make it a condition of group work that they do not have contact with one
another outside sessions. However, where fees are involved, there is inevitably
another self-selecting process. Even after you have selected the group
members (e.g. by advertising a music appreciation course on Wagners Ring on
local radio) the ultimate selection hurdle is the payment of group membership
fees.
On the other hand, you may have no selection procedure at all and have an
open door policy, where whoever feels like coming at any time, arrives. This is
not a great idea if you are preparing for a performance or public musical event!
At the same time, you may have little say in how to select members or whether
to select them at all since this may be part of the ethos of your working
context. You may simply be asked to work with the whole of class X or ward B.
You may also at times need to consider whom to remove from the group
and why (see Table 3.2 on page 45). To some extent, this depends on the
selection procedure.
Any of the acts or behaviours listed in Table 3.2 may suggest a persons un-
readiness to be part of a group: as a result of social, physical-neurological
problems; emotional-relational disturbance or disorder; or because the group
musicking does not meet their needs or expectations. It may also be that you are
not paying attention, and not aware that this person needs something different.
You need to be alert to balancing group needs and individual needs and, where
the group cannot meet a persons needs, you need to refer them to another
group or to a professional colleague, or review their membership with them
directly. This, of course, depends on the kind of work youre doing, and the
premise on which the group is formed (and members selected) in the first place.
Table 3.2 Leaving the group
Group considerations Person disagrees with the group norms and

negotiates to leave
Person interferes with the needs of the group (e.g.
needs your individual focus and energy)
Person prevents the group from realizing its
potential (e.g. musical/personal skills are
insufficient)
Person prevents you from doing your work (e.g.
passive or active sabotaging of your aims)
Individual Person has poor sense of personal boundaries

considerations Person is disturbed by group experiences
Person has insufficient musical/inter-personal
skills
We see, here, that even before you begin working with your groups, the issue of
whos in and whos out has all kinds of implications, both for those who become
members and those who do not. Lets leave aside group selection for the time
being, and take a small detour into group dynamics and group process, which is
already colouring the planning and preparing of group music work.
3.4 Group process: A brief introduction

We will explore group process in much more detail in Part Three of this book.
For now, this brief introduction serves to alert you to the undercurrents and
overtones of any music group work. In other words, things are not necessarily as
straightforward or uncomplicated as they seem.
Group Theory1 informs us that people who come together in a new way or
for the first time tend to be well disposed towards the group facilitator and to
one another. Once members become more familiar with one another, all sorts of
relational issues begin to emerge, as well see throughout this book. What is
helpful in any kind of group work is for you to have a basic understanding of
1 The term Group Theory is used loosely here, and refers to a vast literature about group
work.
46 GROUPS IN MUSIC
group process, generally understood as the dynamic relationships, undercur-

rents, various nuances, stages and phases that ongoing groups tend to go
through. These processes are generally invisible, but once you inform yourself
about these, it can help to understand why, for instance, youve had a particu-
larly difficult rehearsal and everyone seems unco-operative (and you feel so
exhausted and stressed), or why your improvisation group was so successful
(and you feel satisfied and exhilarated), even if the musicking was not that im-
pressive. These feelings are not coincidental, and neither has more value than
the other, and it does help to dip into other bodies of knowledge to help make
sense of what goes on during groups musicking.
There are many formulations of group process by various psychologists and
group analysts. One useful (and fairly simple) model is Tuckmans, which
describes four phases of group life: norming (everyone identifying what they
have in common), storming (identifying how different they are from one
another), forming (coming together once again with a more realistic and
balanced understanding of one another), and performing (the group functions
as a whole, aware of similarities and differences, and performing its tasks).
In other words, when a group is being especially fractious and difficult, and
you understand the theoretical concept of the storming phase, this can help
you to manage and contain the fractiousness without feeling that you are losing
control, losing the plot, or necessarily a bad musician, teacher, conductor,
2
therapist or group worker. This can make an enormous difference to the quality
of your group work, and to building trust in the group with the spin-off, inev-
itably, of the group musicking as a cohesive unit. Similarly, while it is always
tempting to take credit for ones efforts and preparation, this may have as much
(if not more) to do with the dynamics in the group at the time, as with you.
The point about understanding group process and dynamics is that this
helps you to reflect on, make sense of, and prepare for your sessions. If you have
a mentor who can help you to process what is going on in your work, your acts
as facilitator will be qualitatively rich, which will have very subtle and
powerful spin-offs on the quality of the group relationships, the tasks of the
group and the end product of your work together.
For the time being I leave aside group dynamics (although you can read
more in Chapter 18), and return to considering what kinds of groups to set up.
2 This is an over-simplistic link, inevitably, to alert you to existing theory and literature.
3.5 What kind of group? (How long, how short?)

Lets now think about ongoing groups, short-term or one-off groups, since each
of these has different profiles that impact on what musical activities you
prepare, as well as how you think about the work.
3.5a The one-off group

In my experience, one-off groups are usually on a consultative basis. For
example, as a string specialist you are asked to do a workshop with the string
section of an orchestra or, as an African musician, you rehearse a choir for
fine-tuning some pronunciation. Or you may be doing team building or
conflict resolution or simply music improvisation group with a school staff
team, or whatever.
How you manage the one-off session depends on numerous factors, some
already stated: i.e., whether folk come together for only one session or whether
this is a pilot session, prior to longer-term work at some later stage; whether or
not they already know one another; whether your brief is clear; whether the
group is clear about your brief, and so on.
For one-off sessions you need to be especially well prepared and in some
ways, this is the most difficult setting. Consider the purpose of the session: your
brief; what the institution/employer want; how adequately theyve briefed you;
what the group itself hopes to achieve; how the group sees its own focus and
aims; what you are able to provide during this time, and so on. Here, especially,
you need to spend time setting norms at the beginning of the session. Setting
norms can be as brief as going round the group and checking that everyone
knows why they are here, and why youre there youd be surprised! (More in
3.6 about Setting Norms.) Also, make sure that you do a group evaluation at the
end of your session. This is very useful to check how useful folk found your
session, what suggestions they might have to change some of the things you
did. (Be sensitive as to whether the group is only telling you what they think
you want to hear.) Often it is useful to state, at the beginning of the group evalu-
ation, that this is not about wanting to know that it was a good or useful
session but rather, to check how the group found the session, and what sugges-
tions they have if this kind of session were to be repeated either with them or
another group. This can be an unthreatening way of giving the group permis-
sion to say what worked and what did not provided, of course, that you have
the courage and openness to hear the whole story. Also, dont for a minute
think that because your experience of the session was positive, this was the same
for the group or vice versa.
48 GROUPS IN MUSIC
3.5b The short-term group

Here, a scenario might be that youve negotiated a fixed-term contract with a
group of people or with an institution, e.g. six sessions on a weekly basis, with
the same people attending each week. Critical here is to have the commitment
of full attendance from all members. In other words, youre wanting a closed
group, which well talk about later. Even if your brief is overtly musical (e.g.
preparing the end-of-year concert or offering short-term music training for
brass players), remember that this is also a context within which group members
will get to know one another. If they already know one another, then they will
get to know one another in a new way, and also bond with one another through
the shared experience. For you, the short-term group offers intense personal
dynamics, and you need to be sensitive to emerging relationships, ways of
relating, alliances and cliques, since these will amplify, especially towards the
end of your work together. By keeping track of the emerging group dynamics
(without necessarily acting upon them), you are well placed to offer optimal
musical and personal experiences. This is surely one of the aims of any kind of
group work.
3.5c The long-term group

Some of the vignettes in this book present long-term scenarios such as a weekly
session over the period of one year. Here Im thinking of the university choir,
the regional orchestra, the class music period in a school or ongoing music im-
provisation, appreciation, or therapy group. There is plenty of time for all of you
to form relationships with one another through music, and to get to know one
another in an ongoing way. Incidentally this does not mean that the relation-
ships will be deeper and more intense than in the short-term group. They will
be different, with more time (in the sense of chronological time) to get to
know one another. This is provided that the group membership remains stable
over a period of time.
This brings us to other kinds of groups: closed, open, and semi-closed
groups. And once again, were facing the issue of group norms: what does the
group expect, and what do you expect from them? Are you sure you share a
common understanding of expectations?
In reading the next section, bear in mind that each of the sections and
sub-sections in this chapter interact with one another. This means that you need
to think about group norms within your own work setting, and also within the
context of the preceding sections, as well as those that follow, on closed/open
groups. Each of these converges with one another.
3.6 Setting norms

Ive already hinted at the notion of setting norms. This can be understood as the
negotiating, by the group, of group goals, eliciting expectations from group
members, setting group values as well as a code of conduct. Setting norms is an
external process, which is stated and done explicitly at the beginning of your
work together as a group.
Incidentally, although the setting up of group norms has psychological and
relational implications, youll soon see that most work contexts have group
norms, even if these are not necessarily negotiated or talked about overtly. It is
critical for the optimal functioning of your group that group norms be negoti-
ated with group members rather than you imposing the norms as a condition
of group membership, and then forgetting about them. Thus, even if pre-set
norms include session time, duration and place (e.g. rehearsals every Tuesday,
20h0022h00 in the community centre), the purpose of sessions and condi-
tions for granting absence from sessions, and even if these are part of the condi-
tions of joining the group, most of us know that these need re-visiting, with the
group, from time to time. Setting norms needs to be done at the very beginning
of your work together and, be warned, it may take a bit of time to reach a
common understanding. Also, norms may need to be re-negotiated.
In his excellent book Working More Creatively with Groups, Jalrath Benson
(1987) suggests keeping norms simple. Although he talks from social work/
psychology/therapeutic perspectives, some of the norms will resonate with
everyone. He suggests that group norms include punctuality, full attendance,
mechanisms for notifying you of absence, criteria for missing sessions, commit-
ment to homework between sessions, non-judgemental attitudes, confidenti-
ality, and so on. Your norms may include payment of fees at the beginning of
each session, tidying up the music room, taking care of instruments, ensuring
that the music space is securely locked and alarmed, and so on. Table 3.3
presents norms negotiated at a community arts group, at the beginning of a
three-day workshop. These norms were a natural extension of first eliciting the
groups expectations. As facilitators (there were four of us), we then responded
to the groups expectations, clarifying what we could and could not offer during
the three days. In this sense, the norms were negotiated by us all and this
process took two hours.
50 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Table 3.3 Group expectations and negotiated norms
Groups expectations Group contract

Heal ourselves Mobiles off (or buy everyone chocolate)
Play Active participation
De-stress Take care of ourselves
Enhance our existing skills Honour one anothers experiences
Discover/learn other ways of working Be non-judgemental
Tap our creativity Create our own safety and holding
Unblock/release our creativity Work at our own pace
Help children to play Confidentiality
Help children through the arts Be punctual
New ways of thinking about what we do All help with cleaning and tidying the
Network amongst ourselves space
Exchange and share ideas and skills Respect one anothers

languages/culture/work
Communicate our needs
Be direct and honest in feedback
Setting norms allows you all to invite expectations, share your visions as a group
and also share what the group does not want from the sessions! You also need
to discuss how, as a group, you ensure that the norms are respected by all
members. You may need to enter into a contract with the group, and discuss
how to address the breaking of norms.
What we see here is a co-operative attitude towards defining how the group
will operate. Of course, some work contexts have pre-set norms as part of the in-
stitutional ethos. Make sure you familiarize yourself with these, or you may find
yourself setting group norms that go against the institutional ethos and be in a
bit of trouble! Alternatively, if the institutional ethos and norms do not quite
work for the kind of group you are running, then you need to discuss this very
clearly with your line manager, head teacher, employer or whoever, and
formulate some mutually acceptable territory for group norms before you begin
your sessions!
Vignette 3a
I was recently part of an Arts in the Community twelve-day
workshop. The twelve days were structured in four three-day
workshops, spread over three months. Those who signed up were
required to sign a contract stating that they would attend all twelve
days. As arts facilitators the four of us (art, drama, movement and
music community workers and arts therapists) were also required to
commit ourselves to the twelve days.
During the first plenary session, we went through the group
norms: the expectations of how the group would run for the next
twelve days. The norms included issues to do with punctuality, accep-
tance of one another, confidentiality, honesty and attendance. Sasha
raised her hand and explained that there was a family wedding on day
4, and she wanted to check whether she could miss that day. The
director of the project reminded her and the group that their ac-
ceptance for the workshop had been conditional to their signing a
contract in which they undertook to attend all of the twelve days.
Moreover, numerous people had been turned away because they
could not commit themselves to full attendance.
There followed a plenary discussion as to how best to deal with
this, and the agreement was reached that since it was not an
immediate family member but a second-cousin who was getting
married on the day of the wedding Sasha would leave the workshop
at 14h00 instead of 17h00.
Three days into the workshop, during the facilitators morning tea
break, we all commented that Tom was looking stressed and seemed
to be mentally and emotionally absent. We then heard that his aunts
funeral was the following day and he was in agony about asking for per-
mission to miss that day, having witnessed the discussion around
Sashas request. Naturally we were upset that Tom had not felt able to
raise this issue with any of us, and at our lunch-time facilitators
meeting we wondered whether we had been inflexible in dealing with
Sashas request in the opening plenary. Luckily we still had the
afternoon to address Toms dilemma, and decided that one of us
would do this with him on a one-to-one basis,since we felt that he was
emotionally fragile, and to discuss this in the days closing plenary
might have been overwhelming for him. We addressed Toms absence
52 GROUPS IN MUSIC
at the following days opening plenary, and after the funeral Tom was
welcomed back into the workshop with much gentleness and warmth
by the whole group.
I am sure the point has been made: of course we need group norms and a
commitment from group members for any closed group, whether short- or
long-term, but we also need to be realistic in terms of peoples life events and
circumstances. If issues regarding attendance, trust, confidentiality and
expectations are worked through in a realistic way as part of the setting of group
norms, then these will not interfere with group work. At the same time we need
to be acutely alert to the discomfort, anxiety or extreme stress that these norms
may cause someone, due to unforeseen circumstances. In other words, norms
may need revisiting at various points, especially with long-term group work.
Generally, for the short-term closed group, a commitment to attend all sessions
is critical for group commitment and cohesion, for optimal group work,
especially if preparing for a performance, or if your focus is for the group
process to emerge and be addressed meaningfully.
Table 3.4 Kinds of groups and kinds of membership
One-off group Short-/fixed- Ongoing group

term group
Closed group ( ( (
Semi-open group ( (
Open group ? (
3.7 Closed, open and semi-open groups

We have already touched on the distinction between one-off, long- and
short-term groups, and also on the in and the out group. Each of these in
various combinations foster different kinds of musical and personal interac-
tions. To complicate (and enrich!) matters further, the issue of open, closed or
semi-open groups also impacts on your work.
3.7a The closed group

Here the membership is stable, and all members are expected to be present for
all sessions. Closed groups may be short-term, as with the coming together of a
group for a specific purpose, after which the group disbands. Remember that in
residential settings or schools, you need to negotiate a commitment from staff
to support you and the group members in attending the sessions. As weve
already seen, keeping open channels of communication with all parts of the
system is essential to quality group work, especially in settings with live-in
residents. This can go some way to ensuring that group members especially
truant children and adolescents dont fob you off with excuses for absence
that are rather hollow (since youve done your homework and know that the
institution is 100% behind full session attendance). Even if the purpose of your
work is explicitly musical or task orientated (e.g. preparing for a performance)
you need to be alert for the potential, in sessions, for some powerful relation-
ships. Think, here, of the feelings of belonging, group bonding and achieve-
ment generated by a group working together towards a performance. Now
think of a parallel scenario: the three-day conference. People come together for
an intensive, collective focus. There are, inevitably, rivalries, jealousies, flat-
teries, attractions, and the scenarios of attraction courting consummation
divorce. Although I am caricaturing the closed short-term group setting, you
need to hold in mind that folk may be going through powerful internal expe-
riences that are not always tangible or visible. However, once you begin to
think about these, youll inevitably be able to make much more sense of group
members actions and reactions, whether musical, personal, individual or col-
lective.
3.7b The open group

Whether in a residential, familiar or community setting, the open group means
that people come and go as they will, and there are no expectations from you
with regards to attendance. You may have totally different people each week, or
you may have a mixture of old and new faces. Open groups work well in both
long- and short-term contexts, whether hospitals, schools, prisons, colleges or
community centres, but you need to be clear about what you offer, and what can
be achieved.
The important thing, also, is that you are there each week, at the same time
and in the same place, doing the same thing. This enables people to hold the
group in mind, so to speak, even when not attending the session. In long-term
residential settings (such as a prison or a hospice), open groups are an option,
since people can feel that they have a choice as to whether or not to attend
without feeling guilty, and without arousing disapproval or resentment in those
who do choose to attend.
54 GROUPS IN MUSIC
At the same time, though, do remember to invite people to sessions. A gentle

invitation each time may be decisive in folk deciding to attend. They may like to
feel invited (and enjoy refusing your invitation), although you need to be
careful not to tacitly or unconsciously coerce folk into coming. Ive found it
useful, at the beginning of open-group sessions to check whether anyone
present knows of anyone else who might like to come and then suggesting
that someone from the group might like to do a quick invitation.
Open groups can be hard work. They can feel like starting anew each time,
even though the context is the same and some of the members attend regularly
and become familiar with one another and with you. Think carefully before you
undertake to do an open group, and think about the nature of your task before
deciding on whether or not an open group is realistic. If you are preparing for a
performance, then (unless this is an in-house event and anyone is welcome to
participate) open groups are not a great idea. In contrast, if you are providing
weekly improvisation groups or sing-a-longs, open groups may well be
essential to ensure that anyone and everyone, at some time or other, can drop in
and enjoy themselves.
3.7c The semi-open group

Here there is a core membership, as well as a fluctuating one: i.e. some new folk
arrive for a few sessions and then leave, some return after an absence, some are
one-off attendances, others attend erratically and so on. At the same time the
core group attends regularly.
Your sessions are regular and ongoing say a weekly group but participa-
tion in the weekly sessions is optional or voluntary. In certain instances such
as in medical or hospice settings this is a useful format, since patients may have
periods of feeling unwell and being unable to attend sessions, while others may
appear every week, or once or twice a month.
Again, think about your group tasks! If youre preparing for a performance,
then choose music that is familiar to most folk, so that the core group can
prepare the more demanding parts and provide musical stability, while the visi-
tors can be part of the more popular/less demanding parts. You also need to be
careful of musical or group rivalries the core group may feel rather resentful if
the visitors seem to be getting a bit more of the limelight than the core group
feel they deserve. Incidentally, scratch concert performances of Handels
Messiah can be thought of as semi-open, one-off groups: with the core group
being the soloists and orchestra, and the audience being the visitors. Similarly
with preparations for conventional concert performances where the orchestra
and choir are the core group and, at the last two rehearsals, the soloists arrive
and naturally take the limelight!
3.8 Re-grouping
This chapter has considered the issues of group membership and different kinds
of groups. Implicit in this has been that, to some extent, the kind of group you
run depends on your employers brief, the aims and tasks of the group, as well as
whether or not there is to be an end product. Well consider these aspects of
planning for your groups later in Part One. The next chapter addresses the
basics about musical instruments, kinds of sounds, and instrumental roles in
groups.
CHAPTER 4
Instrumental Thinking
and Sound Thoughts
This chapter is practical and some might think pedantic. This vast area of what instru-
ment shall I play/buy/definitely never want to be associated with is largely coloured by
personal preferences, social, gender and (sub?) cultural identity; the kinds of groups you
work with; the places you travel to, the security aspect of transporting instruments; what is
available locally, what kind of after-sales service/repairs exist in your area, and so on. The
chapter takes you through the nitty-gritty of purchasing, using and swapping musical in-
struments: thinking about personally owned versus shared or public instruments; their
shape, size, colour, sound qualities, building up a basic kit; gender and group roles linked to
instruments and trying out different roles, both instrumental and in terms of physical po-
sitioning within the group. In this sense, those of you who work with amateur and profes-
sional instrumentalists might find the latter part of the chapter interesting as, inciden-
tally, will choir/singing group leaders. Those of you who run listening groups may be less
interested in parts of this brief chapter although the section on linking instruments to
persons may interest you too.
4.1 Sound advice

In Chapter 6, youll find a vignette describing the music group facilitator
arriving for a session carrying a guitar and two bags of instruments. She makes
one trip from the car to the music place. An itinerant employee, she works in
four different places each week, none of which has a fixed, locked room or
cupboard for her instruments. Shes organized herself in such a way that she can
manage to carry all her instruments in one go and has a free hand to hold an
umbrella if need be. Moreover, she does not seem to need physiotherapy to
repair shoulder or back stress caused by carrying heavy loads. How does she do
it?
56
INSTRUMENTAL THINKING AND SOUND THOUGHTS 57
This section considers how you might think about purchasing instruments
for your group music work here I am thinking of shared or group instruments,
rather than personal instruments on which youll develop specific musical skills.
Also, I am assuming that it is your responsibility to purchase instruments, either
out of your own pocket, or on behalf of the school/community/institution that
employs you. By the way, if you are writing a fundraising proposal, this chapter
will help you to plan carefully! Once youve got money to spend, its best not to
buy everything in one go: find out what instruments work when, why and how,
and then think about whether you want more of them (or less), or switch colour,
timbre, weight or register.
Here are some general thoughts about purchasing instruments:
Price buy the best you can afford. Here I am not thinking only of
money, but finding the right place to purchase instruments. Find out
about their after-sales service: do they have an in-house repair
workshop; are they friendly and interested in your work (or only in
making a sale); do they love music? In my experience, these factors
are possibly more important than getting the best deal in terms of
amount of cash you spend.
Dont compromise on sound quality. Toddlers, young children and
in fact, most of us who manage to avoid being terminally deafened
by noise pollution, enjoy sounds. We want instruments that sound
nice! They make us feel better about playing and about ourselves.
Also, if youre working with folk whose physical condition means
that they use an enormous amount of physical effort to produce a
sound (think of someone whos had a stroke, or who suffers from
cerebral palsy) they deserve the best sound possible when their
beater finally makes contact with the cymbal, chime bar, cow-bell or
whatever.
Get instruments that tolerate frequent washing/cleaning, whatever
your work context! You need to keep instruments sterile, which can
mean several washes a day with a sterilizing liquid. Make sure your
instruments can tolerate this.
Think about size: large, medium, small, tiny depending on the size
of the people youre working with. It is offensive for an adult
woman to be handed child-size castanets (and vice versa!).
Weight is critical and often confused with size: small instruments
can be heavy and large ones light. Think about the combination of
58 GROUPS IN MUSIC
these two factors. Old frail people cannot hold heavy hand drums or
bongo drums, neither do they want child-sized instruments just
because these are lighter. Look for large lightweight instruments or
small weighty ones, as necessary.
Colour is also a neglected area. Bright colourful instruments are
wonderful for young children and toddlers. But can you use the
same ones for adults? Having said that, some musicians I know
decorate their personal instruments, painting their trumpets, hanging
tassels on cellos, and so on.
Think about height; whether your groups are sitting on the floor, on
small chairs, adult-size chairs, are in bed or standing. Think about
the height of your instruments for example, Djembe drums are
played sitting on an adult-size chair. Anyone in bed would struggle
to play these, as would someone standing up unless theyre strong
enough to sling it over their shoulders (generally not recommended).
Be practical and realistic. Get advice from others (or borrow
instruments if you can) before purchasing your own.
Finally, if you have to carry your instruments with you, then get a
good bag or rucksack that protects instruments from the elements
and from hard knocks and bumps (and repels thieves).
Keep an inventory of what you own and mark everything! Nail
polish and correction fluid work well.
4.2 Instrumental range and sound thinking

What to buy and where to start? I strongly recommend building up your kit
gradually. How you begin and what you buy obviously depends on the
needs of your group and the size of your purse. I cannot stress enough that you
need to do some homework, to prevent instrumental calamities. For a start,
make sure that you have some instruments from each sound, shape, role and
skill category.
Think about instruments in each category of sound. Table 4.1 lists only
hand-held instruments, and even here remember that different kinds of beaters
for the same instruments give you different kinds of sounds. I dont pretend to
cover all possibilities: rather, this is to get you thinking about the kinds of
sounds you need and want.
Table 4.1 Sounds and instruments
Kinds of sounds Kinds of instruments

Short untuned sounds Hard (wood block + hard-tipped
beater, castanets)
Medium (hand drum +
medium-tipped beater felt)
Soft(er) (hand drum + cotton/wool
tipped beater) bongos, side/snare
drums, congas, Djembes (played
with hands/hard sticks, snare drum
brushes or soft-tipped beaters)
Longer untuned sounds Blown (whistles, reed horns,

recorders, pan pipes)
Scraped (guiros)
Struck and reverberating
(bell/chime bars/triangles/cymbals)
Shaking sounds Untuned (maracas, egg shakers)

Resonating (bells, tambourines,
wind-chimes)
Struck tuned sounds Single (chime bars)

Multiple (xylophone/metallaphone/
glockenspiel, keyboards)
Plucked/strummed tuned sounds Guitar; portable keyboard; autoharp;

Celtic harp
Here are a few other things to think about:

The spatial qualities of the instruments, and the kind of motor skills
needed to play them. For instance, instruments such as xylophones,
marimbas, pianos and glockenspiels require the capacity to move
from left to right (and cross the mid-line), whereas drums and chime
bars only need up-down movements. Plucked instruments require
finer motor control, and so on.
60 GROUPS IN MUSIC
It is helpful to have a good range of beaters: hard-tipped

(wooden/hard rubber); medium-tipped (softer rubber/plastic tips);
and soft-tipped (cotton or wool). Also make sure you have beaters of
different weights and sizes depending on your clientele. Keep them
clean and bind them together with a broad elastic-type band and
have a light portable jug/large tin in which you can stand them
together during sessions.
Hiding instruments may be necessary, especially with folk who are
easily distracted. When I am working with the very young, my
instruments fit inside a plastic red box, which doubles as my seat.
This gives the children a clear signal as to when they have access to
the instruments and when they do not.
Think about your own valuables: car keys, purse, mobile telephone.
I have a small bright bag that slips into one of the holdalls
because of its colour, I always remember seeing it somewhere.
(Obviously, others too can see the brighter objects, so be careful!)
4.3 Making links: People and instruments

Studies by psychologists reveal interesting profiles of childrens choice of in-
struments for learning music, often tied up with personal identity, role models,
gender identity, pop stars and so on. Think about who is going to play what in-
strument and what instruments you are using for todays session. Leave the rest
out of sight.
Bear in mind that some may have strong feelings about what instruments
they want and do not want to play in sessions. Drums or guitars may feel
powerful and virile, while playing the triangle may feel wimpish to some. To
others, the triangle or cymbal may be the perfect instrument: not requiring too
much effort, while having the potential to be prominent in group music-
making.
Lets think through linking people and their instruments:
Rather like people, some instruments are noisier than others. Think
about who might find a noisy instrument distressing or
over-stimulating; and who might find a quiet instrument difficult
because of the effort they have to put into playing, or because they
need to make a noisier sound.
Levels of motor activity. Someone who has poor impulse control

and moves constantly needs an instrument that is not going to wind
up their neighbours because of constant clanking or blowing. Give
them soft-tipped beaters for a start!
Size, weight, colour as discussed earlier, be sensitive about
whether a particular instrument really suits that persons age, stage,
size and so on.
How many instruments does your planned activity need? If there are
five people in your group and only three instruments in the activity
you have planned, how are you going to decide who plays and who
does not? Will you double up certain instruments so that each
person plays? (You may need to rethink your kit.)
How you distribute instruments. Most of us appreciate being given a
choice rather than having instruments handed out to us. Inviting
folk to choose an instrument can be an important part of the session.
Who holds the instruments. If children are hyperactive, is it a good
idea to hand them all parts of the instrument? Think about whether
you or one of your helpers need to hold a part of the instrument,
e.g. the beater or the triangle but not both.
When to distribute instruments. Handing out instruments at the
beginning of the session spells trouble, unless you are using them
straight away. Keep them in the bag or aside, get them out when
you need them and put them away afterwards.
Think about the role that each instrument takes: supporting, holding
the group together (like a bass drum giving a steady beat); a solo or
more prominent role (e.g. a melodic instrument); or a punctuating
role (like a cymbal crash at the end of certain phrases). This may
help you decide who plays what instrument, according to their
personality and how they need to be challenged!
Keep track of who plays what each week. Youll find that some
develop an affinity or aversion for certain kinds of instruments. On
the other hand, the affinity/aversion may be for the role that the
instrument suggests rather than how it sounds.
These ideas seem basic, but if you dont think about them beforehand your
session can be chaotic. If you do think about them before your sessions, folk in
your group will feel known and acknowledged by your thoughtfulness.
62 GROUPS IN MUSIC
4.4 Making instruments

I feel hesitant to write too much here, since I have always been impractical, and
rather impatient with making instruments, preferring to get on and play music.
However! In contexts where purchasing instruments is not an option at all
(for those of us who live in the so-called developing world), then making instru-
ments out of scrap material may be a necessity. Also, making instruments out of
scrap materials can make the more privileged (and impatient) of us try out
different kinds of sounds, shapes and sizes to those we are used to playing and
can be a welcome change from the run-of-the-mill musical instruments used to
make music. If you have access to a community artist, art therapist or sympa-
thetic art teacher, youll get practical ideas as to decorating instruments so that
they become a personal statement, imbued with all kinds of personal and col-
lective meanings to do, also, with the time and place of the making.
Try it my limited experience is that most people need no guidance they
get on and do it, as long as you give them ideas about the kinds of sounds that
can be produced, and get them to think about what kind of sound they would
like their instrument to make. Generally, youll need to ask the group to bring
scrap materials such as yoghurt cartons, soft-drink bottle tops, empty tin cans,
rubber piping, glad-wrap (cling film), soft wire, pulses (or rice or small stones).
You need to provide wood or all-purpose glue, string, staplers, soft wire,
ribbons, glitter, paint and scissors to get folk going.
Vignette 4a
As part of our Community Arts group, we have planned an instru-
ment-making session. I feel incompetent and impractical. Hayley, my
art therapy colleague,suggests I put aside my anxieties and simply walk
around and observe what (adult) folk are doing. For an hour the art
room resonates with sawing, hammering, cutting, and then smells of
glue and paint begin to infuse the air.There is an intense feeling of focus
and working, with only curt bits of talking such as pass me the
scissors, whos got the glue?, and so on. After the tea-break we
assemble in the large room each person with their beautifully made
and decorated instrument.
I suggest that we walk around with eyes semi-closed (i.e.looking at
the floor rather than around the room), each playing our instrument,
until we find another sound that resembles ours. The room fills with
magical soft hues and colours, quite other to the less ambiguous
sounds of musical instruments.
Eventually there are small clusters of sounds dotted around the

room, with one person unable to move since her sound sculpture is a
tray of sand with different bottles filled with water, which she is gently
tapping, and also blowing across. Together with Kirsten, the drama
therapist, I walk around, and, starting with the softest sounds, lead folk
in such a way as to create a spiral, both of sound and of shape, in the
large room, with the centre point being the sand-bottle sculpture. As
folk are led through the room to form the spiral, there is a vast, quiet
silence and space in the room, with the sounds moving towards the
sculpture. Eventually the room is re-sounded and re-created with the
spiral.
Kirsten and I then begin at the tail end of the spiral, removing one
person after the other, and silencing them: gradually the vast sound
sculpture begins to change, as instruments are withdrawn, until only
the glass-bottle blowing sounds remain, eventually merging with the
still silence.
There was something about the distinctive nature of the sounds and their
personal significance for each person, that resulted in great delicacy of
sound-making. I am not wholly convinced that off-the-shelf instruments would
have had the same effect.
4.5 Personal property

Even where we dont make our own, the experience of owning and possessing
an instrument and spending time with it each day results in a sense of intimacy
as well as protectiveness: towards the instrument and our relationship with that
instrument. Playing our trumpet, piano or cello or singing (!) each day for hours
on end is part of our personal and musical identity. For a start, our bodies spend
time in a particular position, guided by the needs of the instrument and the
music, which result in some physical distinctions: the violinists jaw mark, the
guitarists hardened fingertips, the trumpet players hand muscles, the singer
and pianists comportement, and so on. These become part of how we experience
ourselves in space.
Now think of the instrument that you play (including your voice): what does
it do to your own sense of who you are? There is something, for me, about
pianists who can launch into Brahms and Tchaikowsky that I envy: I imagine
them to have a sense of power, rather different to my own rather wimpish
penchant for Mozart and Haydn in my pianist days (long long ago).
64 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Now imagine letting someone else play your instrument. Your flute (what
about their oral hygiene?); your viola (how clean are their finger nails, how
clumsy are they generally?); your beloved guitar (what if they bash it or break a
string?); your piano (have they got greasy hands?).
Imagine yourself playing another instrument. Which other instrument
would you choose and why? (And what kind of music would you play with each
of the instruments you imagine yourself playing?)
Where all this is leading to, is that to exchange instruments can give us
another sense of ourselves and our roles altogether. In your group work, where
youre wanting to do group improvisations with instrumentalists, various possi-
bilities emerge. If youre wanting to extend players notions of what their instru-
ments can do musically (here I am thinking especially of classical musicians who
are notoriously reluctant and unconfident in improvisation), what can help
them to loosen up musically is to make the instrument different. This will make
them think about the sounds in a different way for a start. You might begin by
encouraging them to play their instruments in different ways using the
opposite hand/different techniques/registers/timbres and doing what is not
normally associated with their instruments. For instance, get them to use
soft-tipped beaters to lightly tap a cello/viola/violin bridge with fingering; or
use a violin bow on a guitar or drum and so on.
The other issue is more tricky and this is encouraging people to swap their
personal instruments with someone else. This is where a sense of intimacy and
possessiveness may creep in. Who would you absolutely not ever want to touch
your instrument? (I can think of some.) Perhaps you need to introduce this idea
gently, though not apologetically, or folk will sense your own discomfort! Also,
you might get them to think for themselves as to which instrument they might
like to swop with what the subtext being that the instrument will be associ-
ated with a person that they trust. In a choir, you can get the different vocal parts
to sing one anothers parts: how does the music feel? (They can sing it in their
own register, by the way, with some interesting resultant sound textures.)
Another possibility is to keep instruments but change positions in a
musical ensemble, get folk to swap places; same with your choir: mix your
voices and see what happens! How do you relate to folk being in different places
and how do they experience themselves with different neighbours?
You also need to be sensitive, in group work, not always to position yourself
in the same place!

This chapter has ranged from the nitty-gritty and rather practical aspects of
group music work, to the more fanciful notions of exchanging roles, instru-
ments, and even making your own. I hope youll receive these not just as trendy
ideas for their own sake. The point is to free folk from their mental/musical
constraints, and get them to imagine group musicking in an extended, richer way!
The following chapters in this section zoom back to a wider lens: thinking
about the physical, musical, mental and emotional space within which music
groups happen and, with the final chapter, how you think, talk, and sell what
you do.
CHAPTER 5
On Being Formed by Music
Much of this chapter is for all group music practitioners: whether you use pre-recorded
music in your listening groups, or improvisation or pre-composed music in your music-
making sessions. Although this book does not provide music or ideas for musical activities,
here I consider the kind of music you might use. Again, this is part of the thinking before the
session not a last-minute, haphazard decision. For some kinds of group work (choir-
conducting or preparing for performances) the music that you prepare is dictated by
external factors: the kind of occasion, the music traditionally sung or performed at this time
of the year, or for this festival or occasion, and so on. However, even here, or when using
pre-composed songs, recorded music or writing/arranging your own music, you need to
take all kinds of factors into account. This chapter considers how music impacts on us: by
associations with times in our lives; by resembling or portraying moods and feelings that we
have and by affecting us directly.
There is a considerable literature on music and emotion that addresses these complex
issues, and here I touch only on aspects that are relevant to group musicking. This chapter
links with Chapters 12 and 16.
5.1 Music and society

Music is part of our personal, social and cultural life, and there are times when
our musical experience becomes a pivotal moment in our personal and collec-
tive lives: in other words, to imagine these moments without music is unthink-
able. Conversely, we cannot easily think about certain pieces of music without
also thinking about their contexts in our lives.
As well as thinking about our personal lives, music also has powerful
personal associations to do with our ethnic ancestry, geographical region of
origin and of current living, our culture and sub-cultures, world events and so
on.
66
ON BEING FORMED BY MUSIC 67
Vignette 5a
I recently heard a live performance, by school-children, of Stings Eng-
lishman in New York. I found myself indignant and critical of the per-
formance (which was possibly rather good), and realized that this had
to do with my own feeling that this is my song, and by singing it, the
children had made it into theirs.
This made me realize that the song has powerful associations for
me: not only for the time of my life when I got to know that piece of
music, but also because its lyrics reflect my own sense of being alien,
and of having a different accent and name from others around me.
At the same time, the song helped me to clarify for myself
something about the privilege of having lived in many different
countries,and the difficulties of being uprooted.All of these were part
of my response to the childrens rendition of my song.
This vignette suggests that our personal as well as social identity can be
reflected and generated by music that we come to know intimately at different
times in our lives. These kinds of understandings can be used in thinking about
what music we might choose for group sessions, and how individuals and the
collective may respond to the choice, in the sense of musical ownership and
musical and personal/collective feelings of identity. Lets think through various
aspects surrounding musical and personal experience that you need to consider
when choosing music for your work.
Age: theres nothing less sensitive and more offensive than playing
music that is not age-appropriate. I mean using childrens songs with
an adult group (even if youre told that they have a mental age of
five and in any case, what does this mean, for goodness sake?);
singing Perry Como love ballads with adolescents; Britney Spears
with a group of middle-aged men and so on.
Culture: those of us who work in multicultural contexts need to be
sensitive to the cultural, social and musical norms. In South Africa,
for instance, certain songs that are sung by specific sectors of society
at specific times, and one needs to be informed and sensitive when
selecting music for sessions. For many cultural groups there may be
religious or historical associations (and sensitivities) around certain
music. Dont, therefore, assume that since everyone has chosen to be
a part of your choir or musical ensemble, they will all sing/play the
68 GROUPS IN MUSIC
music with similar attitudes towards that piece of music. The same
goes for using instruments: there may be cultural/religious taboos
regarding certain instruments and specific members of society such
as pre-adolescent girls, widowed women or whatever. Here,
although the specific examples are multicultural, even monocultural
settings need some sensitivity before launching forth into music
without reflection.
Social bonding, social space: music creates social space and
generates social bonding or social alienation! In other words, the
creating of social bonding and creating a social space by implication
excludes some people. So, while making music together can
generate a powerful sense of belonging, and gives shape, texture,
colour to ones personal experience, equally ones experience can be
of being excluded from the collective social space, because of
cultural/historical familiarity or sensitivities. Even if these moments
of social bonding or alienation are fleeting, their after shocks
remain enormously powerful.
Music of sub-cultures: inevitably, certain working contexts bring
together folk from different sub-cultures. Here, I am thinking of a
unit for adolescents, which provides mental health care for
youngsters from a diverse social range. Some may favour hip-hop
while others find this excruciating, others may be into religious
rock, and so on. While adolescent identity especially resonates
powerfully with musical genres, youll need great astuteness to sift
through what music is acceptable to all the group, and how as a
group youll manage your music in such a way that there is
something for everyone.
Institutional context: each of the points above applies to the
nature of the institution within which you work. For example, if
youre working in a high-security prison, think about the words of
the song youre choosing to sing. (Im not saying that you should
not choose songs about freedom or captivity. Not at all!)
Time of year/religious calendar: also useful in terms of selecting
music is to be sensitive to the seasons, the time of year in terms of
social traditions (e.g. harvest, midwinter, Holy Week, Ramadan,
Rosh Hashanah). There is more about this in the next section.
Some of these points alert us to being aware and sensitive about musics signifi-
cance for you and for the group members, and its potential complications or
appositeness for all in the room. The playing and learning of songs from other
cultures can also provide direct insights and emotional timbres to do with that
culture and society. In this sense, it may be very important for, say, asylum
seekers, refugees or even folk from traditionally hostile cultures to learn one
anothers songs, as a way of fostering social tolerance and understanding.
5.2 Working and playing cycles

The calendar year is generally punctuated by summer holidays and other
holidays, religious or traditional festivals, as well as regional, institutional and
community events. These punctuations naturally segment the year and can
help to structure your group work as well as your choice of music and musical
activities. Here are external cycles of different length and social significance
that impact on your working cycle. Figure 5.1 shows various concurrent cycles
of the working year: your overall, longer-term vision of the group; the yearly (a),
termly (b), and weekly (d) cycles. Also, a cycle of certain festivals (c) may need
your attention.
(a) Year beginning End
(b) Term
(c) Festivals
(d) Weekly groups
Figure 5.1 Overlapping cycles of the working year

70 GROUPS IN MUSIC
These cycles all form a counterpoint to one another, each with its own rhythm,
phrasing, dynamic rather like a fugue!
Incidentally, part of your group tasks may involve together thinking
through what kind of music to choose, rather than you choosing everything on
behalf of the group.
Lets complicate matters further, and pretend that you work at four different
places in a week, with different populations (lets say, adult mentally handi-
capped; elderly people; toddlers and mums; and young offenders). For each
population youll need a long-term annual view as well as shorter cycles. At the
same time, you happen to have been brushing up on the blues idiom and you
want the group to experience its magic. Your careful musical planning is out the
window, and you find yourself looking for blues music to play with your group.
The ideas below are not set formulae or prescriptions as to how to make
your group work more interesting: rather, the idea is to alert you to the com-
plexities and personal richness resulting from how you choose music for
your groups!
5.3 Owning the music

Here Im thinking about how the music belongs to the group in an emotional
sense. In other words, owning the music is not so much to do with you as
group leader selecting music for sessions but rather with respecting the fact that
some people in the choir, class or ensemble may have strong feelings of posses-
siveness for a particular piece of music, which you need to keep track of in your
session notes. This sense of ownership which may be acknowledged collec-
tively in the group can impact on how the group receives that song/piece of
music at any time, and this can in turn depend on the roles and relationships
within the group.
For example, in a weekly group sing-a-long at a local community hall, Bob
may request that the group sings the song, Mr Tambourine Man. The group may
well come to know this particular song as Bobs song even when he is absent
from a session. One week, it transpires that Adam is pretty fed up with Bob, and
begins complaining when someone suggests that the group sings Mr Tambou-
rine Man. Even if Adam does not refer to the song directly as Bobs song, this
will have become part of the group culture, so that you need to be alert to
Adams complaint as having to do with an implicit knowledge and acceptance
by the group that this is Bobs song (rather than a song called Mr Tambourine
Man).
The same goes for hymns that have strong personal associations for, say, a
particular section of the school or congregation. In choir practice, there may be
unspoken sabotages and lobbyings going on as various hymns are suggested
and rehearsed. If youre alert, youll get the picture quickly.
For example, in my student years, the university orchestra conductor often
chose music that was challenging to the string section, and he seemed to spend
an inordinate proportion of time rehearsing the strings. As wind players, we
behaved appallingly constantly muttering about the feeble strings, and being
unresponsive and obstructive to the conductors attempts at getting us to play as
a cohesive entity. We were evidently punishing the conductor for choosing
what we felt was music that belonged to the strings, instead of music that the
entire orchestra might own. This constantly risked spiralling into conflict,
since the group was clearly not working cohesively. I eventually left the
orchestra out of boredom, and joined a small contemporary music ensemble,
where my playing seemed to be more valued and the music owned by all.
What weve been touching on in these last two sections is that choosing
music for group work can get rather complicated because of social, cultural, his-
torical as well as personal and collective experiences and associations. In some
instances, having made a choice for the group you may need to assert yourself as
group leader, and insist on seeing through the music you have selected. If this
is a total disaster, then you need to be flexible (and confident enough!) in
realizing that your choices were unwise for whatever reasons and do
something about this.
In the next section, I consider how you might prepare the music that youve
chosen and how you might use it in your group work. Here I am thinking of
active music-making (rather than music listening), in contexts where you may
use improvisational techniques as well as performing pre-composed music. Inci-
dentally, choosing music for listening groups is discussed in some detail in
Chapter 12.
5.4 Music and you!

Once youve made your musical choices, how prepared can you be? Very
prepared so that you can be as free and spontaneous as possible and keep the
music alive! Here are some ideas for you to play with when thinking about
how the group will work through some music with you. The ideas are to help
you try out the music in different ways, to glean its multiple hues not always
obvious at the beginning, as we all know.
72 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Select contrasting music and activities for your session. Conducting

the whole session using music in jolly major keys does not provide
an optimal range of musical moods and experiences. Rather like
compiling a CD, think about what musical mood and colour you
want for the beginning and end of your session and what you
might want in between.
Be adventurous find new music!
Be cautious dont lose your group by only providing new or
difficult material: some old favourites are important. Be alert as to
when the session needs to change tempo and intensity, and relax
into doing an old favourite.
Practise singing or playing musical material in different keys. Not
everyone can sing in D major all the time besides, it is
excruciatingly boring to remain in the same key. Practise
modulating, singing high, low, medium voiced and so on. You need
to be as flexible as possible if youre to include everyone in the
musical activity while youre providing the music live.
Practise your music at different dynamic levels, with different
textures, and dont assume that slow music is quiet or fast music
loud.
Practise major songs in minor keys and vice versa listen to the
effect these changes have on your experience of songs! Also practise
songs in other modes for example, try a major song in the dorian
or mixolydian mode see how its colour and flavour changes.
Practise the musical material at different tempi, and be flexible about
making rubatos in the middle of a musical phrase if necessary. For
example, if Freddy, whos confined to a wheelchair and moves very
slowly, is going to beat the drum while the rest of you sing
Gershwins Summertime, it is no use your charging ahead in a
tempo that feels comfortable to you! You need to adapt how you
play and sing it in order to fit in with his tempo, and deviations from
the pulse as a result of his spasticity, if the music is to have any
meaning for him and for the group.
If using pre-composed music/songs, then learn them from memory.
You cannot conduct a group session, keep an eye on each person
(and their instrument), conduct and read the words or the music at
the same time. You need to know your musical material inside out
whether youre conducting to recorded music or providing the
music live, and whether or not the group is familiar with it.
This list is getting awfully long. Lets take a break from it and think about the
music itself: things to do with predictability, familiarity, symmetry and sponta-
neity.
5.5 How predictable? How spontaneous? How structured?

While pieces of music or songs that are familiar carry a degree of comfort, the
parallel risk is that these become predictablerepetitive And before you
know it, your group work has lost its zing. Spontaneity (in life) means doing
something unexpected useful for keeping a group on their musical toes. In any
case, if youre alert, youll pick up frequent spontaneous cues from group
members, which give you ideas for which way to go in music. Here I tease out
spontaneity, predictability and unpredictability, while also considering shifts
that are congruent and incongruent with the current musical material.
When groups music spontaneously, music tends to be predictable in terms of
structure (phrasing, metre, tonality and general musical style), in the sense that if
the music provides enough repetition, then it can begin to make sense fairly
quickly both for listeners and players. Thus, a steady pulse, similar phrase
lengths or regular cadential points, may give a feeling of familiarity and
inclusivity, since there are enough clues for folk to know whats coming next.
They have a sense of being a part of the group and the session. Incidentally, it
is no coincidence that collective social music generally has clear points of
stability, whether exaggerated accents on the same beat of the bar; songs with
recognizable bits that we can sing along to even if we dont know the whole
song (or all the words); or bits in dances that are simpler than others at regular
intervals so that the more fumble-footed amongst us have a chance to be a
part of it. On the other hand, predictability can be stifling and too prescriptive
in terms of group roles people may begin to chafe against it. Here, you or
someone may need to be spontaneous!
Spontaneity refers to your capacity to depart from your plan of action, the
musical structure or your mindset, and change direction at any moment. You
might need to do this for a non-musical purpose, for example, to fit with the
group energy, or in order to shift the group to a different relational mode. Here,
the quality of your spontaneity is crucial! Even when rehearsing or workshop-
ping a familiar tune, if you suddenly decide to spontaneously shift the metre +
harmony + melody + rhythmic pattern, you risk losing the group. Here, your
74 GROUPS IN MUSIC
shifts have been too multiple, resulting in incongruency in all musical dimen-
sions. You may also, of course, wake them up. You need to think about how
much congruence and incongruence how gradual or sudden your shift, and
what aspects youll shift. For example, if you decide to try a group improvisa-
tion on the melodic theme that youve been practising, it is best to retain the
same pulse but switch from a 2/4 to a 6/8 and then to a 3/4 metre. Then try
the new metre together with a minor or modal tonality instead of the major.
Then add a different musical style. And so on. The point is: think, and think
quickly. And spontaneously. When you return to your original melody, the
chances are that after this bit of spontaneity, the group will be alert, and more
interested and focused on the musics hidden nuances!
The above suggests that you neednt stick to the music, in the sense that if
youve selected a pre-composed piece (i.e. structured), you may want to
introduce some deviations (or variations) that render the music semi-structured.
As in the example above, you may be playing a highly structured piece of music
lets say a chorus-and-verse structure. This is predictable, everyone knows
whats coming. As the verse comes up, you spontaneously switch key. Youre
being slightly unpredictable harmonically, but in fact youve not changed the
structure of the music; youve merely altered the key. However, you may decide,
instead, that rather than play through the verse section, different parts of the
orchestra are going to improvise freely. Here, youve shifted the group into
semi-structured playing not unlike extemporization in Bachs time.
This is not an exercise in all the possible combinations, but an attempt to get
you to think about what kind of music youre going to use in your sessions; how
structured you will be; how predictable your music needs to be for the sake of
the group members, and so on. In other words, weve been touching on how
you can use music in order to respond to what the group needs in that moment
(e.g. a bit of livening up, confidence in departing from the script). The point
about all of this is to keep the group (including you!) on their toes, musically and
interpersonally. Try it and see what happens.
5.6 Musical structure (and group systems?)

In this last section I consider musical structure whether as part of
pre-composed music or spontaneous improvisations. Especially with the latter,
musical structure has a dynamic relational purpose: helping to situate and
orientate the players towards one another and, at times, to propel them
towards the same musical moment. Here, you need to know where/how the
structure is evolving, especially where the group is co-creating a free/sponta-
neous improvisation, not based on a common theme or musical idea. (The ideas
discussed here link with Chapter 14 in Part 3, in which well see how we make
sense of musical information.)
Lets begin by considering musical structure in a more general sense. Music
psychologist John Sloboda (1985) tells us that we assimilate musical structure as
part of our development as children as we hear and sing the music of our culture,
whether lullabies, nursery rhymes, playground songs, etc. This means that those
with no musical training have an intuitive and naturally acquired sense of
musical structure, even if they do not know the name for different kinds of
pieces. Music sociologists caution us against making fixed links between
musical structure and social structure on the basis of each being dynamic, and
society being anything but homogenous.
The same principle, I would posit, applies to linking musical structure and
group structure, roles and tasks. In other words a musical form that works one
way in one of your groups, may work quite differently in another. However,
different musical structures do call on distinctive responsibilities from members
of a group. Like open systems, group members are interconnected, interdepen-
dent and adjacent to one another. Here, for example, refrains (like chorus in
chorus-and-verse, the A section in rondo form and the themes in theme-
and-variations) can provide stable and familiar pivots for the group, to which
they can return collectively and possibly with relief after having played
spontaneously, less predictably and, for some, rather terrifyingly.
In other words, think about why you might use one kind of musical
structure over another. Incidentally, in rehearsing or performing pre-composed
music (be it choir, class music, ensemble or whatever) remember that the
audience, too, is part of the larger system. They might also appreciate rondo
form type structure, or a chorus-and-verse providing familiar and repetitive
moments. We all need familiar moments, to feel included in the event!
The structure of a piece of music, whether pre-composed or improvised, can
give you ideas as to what instrumental arrangements you can make, how each
person might have a say and when. Having a grasp of the musical structure also
enables you to let go and be utterly spontaneous while also keeping track of
what youre doing when being spontaneous you may suddenly feel that you
need to return to your first musical theme: when will you do it, how, and how
will you lead up to this return? I consider some fundamental musical structures
below.
76 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Rondo form: A b A c A d A e A f etc

Rondo form is very useful for group improvisation work, enabling you to
combine a familiar, predictable point of stability (the A sections) with
sections (b, c, d, e, f, etc) that are less predictable. Incidentally, even in
concerts youll note that audiences recognize the A section, and perk up.
One possibility in group playing is that everyone plays together during the
As (and youll have to cue them in); while one person improvises solo
freely (with or without you) during b. When b has finished, you cue in
the group to join you with A, the familiar pivot of the music. When A is
finished, you cue someone else to improvise freely for c. And so on. This
structure can keep everyone on their musical toes, since they need to be
ready for the group A each time, as well as anticipating their solo spot
which need not last too long if the person runs out of steam or confidence.
Also, unlike strict rondo form, the improvised sections (b, c, d, etc) can be of
varying lengths, metre, tempo etc.
Verse-and-chorus: A (v1) A (v2) A (v3) etc (chorus + verse 1+

chorus + verse 2 etc)
Here, the chorus section remains the same, while the verse sections differ
from one another in their words. You can use the same format as that
suggested in rondo form, with all playing during the chorus, and one
person singing/playing during each of the verses. This structure gives folk
an opportunity to shine i.e. have a solo spot and at the same time feel
musically safe in the sense that the verse is pre-structured musically and
only the words change: so that if you are playing rather than singing, then
the fact that different soloists play different verses is what adds variety.
Verses only: A1, A2, A3, A4

Rather like some hymns, here is a musical structure that offers the repeti-
tion of a set of musical phrases: the music can become familiar quickly.
Think about what you can do with this structure. Have you written a
specific instrumental arrangement, repeated in each verse, for example?
Does everyone play all the time? Think about it!
Ostinato: Ab/Ac/Ad/Ae/Af
Here the point of stability A is concurrent with less predictable music,
rather than alternating with it as in rondo form. The implication is that even
in spontaneous improvisation, where some folk might be nervous of
getting lost, the group can feel anchored by the A section of the group that
holds the ground like the descending and repeated bass-line in the
Pachelbel Canon. Thus, one part of the group repeats a rhythmic or

melodic phrase (A), which provides a ground over which others can
improvise freely (b/c/d/e/f), either individually or in small clusters like
duets, trios, solos and so on. Here the ostinato (A A A) provides stability,
and is unthreatening in the sense that those improvising can play
something very similar to the ostinato when it is their turn in other
words, it can provide rhythmic or melodic ideas for the others in the group.
Spontaneous, evolving structure: Ab.c.DEF

(The odd positioning of letters signifies the evolving structure keep alert
as you may need to revert to earlier bits in order to offer the group some
stability.) Lets say that someone in your group starts tapping on a
woodblock in a half-hearted manner. Youre busy preparing the instru-
ments for the next activity and at the same time tune in to what this
person is doing. You decide to respond to them, and begin singing very
gently in a way that mirrors their tempo, pulse and rhythmic pattern. Your
melody is free flowing, following what the person is doing. At some point,
you may sing your opening phrase again, which the person may recognize
and beat that bit more firmly when you sing it. After a bit more musical
wandering, you sing that phrase again with acknowledgement from
them. And so on. Here, together, very gradually, the two of you are creating
your own musical form and structure as you go along. With resulting
intimacy and shared adventure! Try it! It works!
Theme-and-variations: A, A1, A2, A3, etc

Here you have a theme that forms the basis for your activity (A) it is the
anchor in the sense of providing a structure that is familiar. However, you
may decide to do some variations on this theme (A1, A2, A3). You need to
decide how the variations will work: do you keep the same rhythmic
pattern but change the melody? Keep the melody but alter the rhythm or
the metre? How will you ensure that everyone recognizes that the varia-
tions are related to the theme?
Binary (AB) or Ternary form (ABA or ABC)

It can be useful in a free improvisation to explain to the group that the im-
provisation will have two or three sections. We may discuss the quality of
each section, for example, section A is loud, slow and large, while section B
is light and canters along at a comfortable pace. Once everyone under-
stands the sections, go ahead and play them! I have done this with groups
of young-ish children (six and seven-year-olds) as well as with large groups
78 GROUPS IN MUSIC
of adults. Incidentally, this can be the basis for humorous musical portraits
with each person playing a theme in a way that portrays them or their
best friend or their parent, you grouping the players according to the
qualities of their theme, and then have an improvisation with each section
playing at a time.
No structure: (I dont know how to represent this graphically.)

What I mean here is a free improvisation that unfolds as you improvise
together, rather than having a pre-determined structure within which you
improvise together as a group. This can be confusing for anyone whos not
used to group improvisations with the accompanying feelings of terror or
exhilaration. Try this if youre confident that your group can tolerate a
free-for-all. Generally, youll note that sooner or later (probably very much
sooner) someone will find a structure, to which much of the group will
gravitate. This can be as simple as a regular pulse, or a simple repeated
rhythmic pattern, which most folk will pick up and use as the basis for their
improvisation. It is human nature were not very good at collective
free-for-alls.
5.7 Making links

This chapter has homed in on aspects to do with the music itself: how to choose
music and on what basis; becoming sensitive to how folk respond to familiar
and unfamiliar music; being included and excluded and, finally, getting you to
think about musical structure. The next chapter looks at the music space, and
how you need to plan what goes into it, what is alongside it and what does not
belong near it.
CHAPTER 6
Considering the Music Space
This chapter is for everyone, irrespective of whether you work in the same place, with the
same people every week, whether your group membership is haphazard, whether youre
doing a one-off group or a short-term music appreciation group. The vignettes describe a
music group in a hospital ward, but as youll see, the content of the discussions applies
across contexts. I consider the multiple aspects of the social space that is any music group,
and this sets the scene for most of the discussions in this book.
6.1 The pre-music space
Vignette 6a: The ward session. Arriving.

I walk onto a paediatric orthopaedic ward in a general hospital for the
weekly music session carrying my guitar and a variety of hand percus-
sion instruments in two bags.There are twelve beds in the ward with a
floor space in the middle and a television and play area in the corner.
My mood is light and cheerful, and my energy feels good. I notice that
three beds are occupied by children in some form of traction theyll
not be able to get out of bed for the session. Another child is sleeping.
Two girls of around six are playing cards on the floor,next to the televi-
sion which is showing an animated cartoon. Two boys of around eight
and nine are sitting together on a bed watching television, whilst one
child, who was dozing, looks at me and smiles in recognition. I
remember him from last week. The others give me a brief glance and
continue with their games.Tommy, an ebullient five-year-old,rushes to
hug me around the legs, almost knocking me off my feet with his
plastered arm.
Lets consider the different kinds of spaces implied by this brief scenario before
beginning the music session.
79
80 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Physically all the children are in a defined physical space. They

have in common the fact that they are hospitalized for a similar
(orthopaedic) reason, and are more or less familiar with the daily
routine hospital and ward. The children also experience varying
degrees of physical pain and changed experiences of their bodies
and mobility.
Similarly, the children in a class, orchestral musicians or choir members are in a
defined physical space. The question then is whether they are all mentally and
socially present in the same way.
Socially the children have been removed from their daily
environment of family, friends and schoolmates. The ward has its
own social structure and dynamic, with the older children, and those
who have been in hospital for longest, likely to be near the top of
the social order. Some children may be more gregarious than others,
and the age-group clusters and gaps between the various clusters
will impact on the nature and fluidity of social interactions.
All groups, whether formally constituted or not, have implicit as well as explicit
social structures and hierarchies, with nuanced social roles being created that may
have little to do with the more overt roles that the group demands. (One of the
tenors in your choir may be the dominant male in terms of gender status in the
group, while the woman in the last second violin desk is the most threatening to the
other women, because she is always impeccably dressed.)
Mentally the children are of different ages, and at different
developmental stages of knowing and understanding what has
happened to them and for how long they are to be in hospital.
Depending on their ages and pain levels, they may be in need of
entertainment, distraction or stimulation to keep them alert and
engaged with their environment.
Although in more homogeneous contexts these developmental or cognitive differ-
ences may not be present, dont assume that because youre all (apparently able to
be) doing the same thing at the same time, you are all in the same mental space. The
same goes for emotional states and feelings.
Emotionally the ward is tinged with a range of feelings: there may
be various levels of distress at being hospitalized and separated from
familiar environments; some feelings of being special associated
with the families concerns and interest which the children may
CONSIDERING THE MUSIC SPACE 81
not experience in everyday life; anxieties about painful procedures;

apprehensions (tinged with pleasure) about returning to home
environments; and feelings of numbness and despair at being left in
hospital, anger at being abandoned, especially at night, and so on.
There may also be anxieties about the social dynamics on the ward:
a child may cry incessantly and upset the others; an older boy may
be constantly rushing around and taking up most of the ward staffs
energy; while two eight-year-olds have formed an exclusive
friendship that marginalizes almost everyone else on the ward.
Even in these brief and rather superficial considerations, we have a sense of the
complexities of the pre-music space. In this instance, this is complicated by
different ages, developmental stages, physical and mental capacities, different
levels of mobility and, critically, the fluidity of the ward population. Some
children are familiar with the music group session because of their longer stay in
hospital, three are new, one child was here last week, and so on. Clearly there
are various sub-groups within this collection of young persons should we take
any of these into consideration or ignore the lot, get the children together and
hope that they will all sort themselves out?
Lets continue thinking about the music space and see what happens with
our session. (And you continue to transpose this scenario into your own work
context.)
Vignette 6b: Whos coming to music?

I find an uncluttered space in the middle of the ward,within everyones
view,and put my instruments on the floor.I find a few chairs in the play
corner which I arrange in a circle around the instruments. These are
still in their bags/cases. I know from experience to leave them out of
sight until everyone is assembled. While doing this I am tuning in to
the collective energy on the ward. Today it is fairly low-key except for
young Tommy who is still rushing around.As I put the chairs together I
notice that two of the children in traction are watching closely,
another two are walking towards the chairs and sit down.Tommy runs
to the card players to tell them that the music lady is here and is
ignored.
The children watching television are glued to the animated
cartoons, and I see that the programme is ending, with the titles
beginning to appear on the screen. I walk to the television and inform
82 GROUPS IN MUSIC
the children that this programme is ending, it is music time so Im

going to switch the television off during session time. They look at me
with glazed television eyes for a while, but as I return to the music
space I notice one watching me and he begins to move as though to
get off the bed. You coming? I ask. He looks at his friend and then
nods. The two of them hobble to the chairs which are too small for
them. I quickly walk to the nurses station and ask for two adult chairs:
I dont want to waste time and risk losing their decision to take part.
Finally, there are five children with me in the circle, and I look
around, checking who may still want to, or be able to join in the
session.I make a note of the two children in traction who are alert and
present, even though they cannot leave their beds. The sleeping child
is not remotely awake.
I begin the session.
All this detail! Is it really necessary, you may be asking yourself, it all seems so
obvious, and what has it to do with the music space and with the music
session? The devil is in the detail, is my reply, as is the sublime. Lets think in
terms of tuning in.
6.2 Tuning in to spaces

Unless you tune in very finely to all aspects of the physical space from the
moment you enter the ward, classroom, concert stage, community centre or
rehearsal room, youll miss the fine nuances that make people feel that group
musicking is special. And besides, Id like to challenge the last sentence in the
vignette: I begin the session. The truth is that the session begins the moment
that you begin thinking about your session as youre walking towards the music
space.
Tuning in is not only a musical or a psychological phenomenon. Tuning in
needs to happen with all of our senses, all the time. What do I mean by this
rather overused phrase? I mean using the whole of ourselves as an instrument to
sense and to make sense of (not in an intellectual or theoretical way) how the
music space in the ward is at that moment. This is a musical and a bodily, as well
as a mental, tuning in.
Here we need to begin thinking about music in a broader way: the qualities
of loudness, quietness, liveliness, gentleness, flatness, smoothness, suddenness,
dispersed-ness, hardness and so on, are qualities that as musicians, we know
well. We also know them as human beings. These qualities tell us something
about the state of the children not just their mood-states or their physical
states, but the whole of them, both as individuals and as a collection of persons
sharing time and space in that moment. And you of course. What mood are you
in? What is you energy level today? How is your body feeling? Loud, fast,
smooth or loud, fast, fragmented quiet, fast, hard and so on. Are you
mentally alert, or is it that after-lunch lethargic time? Are you irritable and
slightly rushed you couldnt find parking and youre running late?
As I said earlier, tuning in does not just happen when the session begins, but
needs to begin as soon as you start to think about the session. Tune in to how
you are feeling in yourself today, how you feel about the hospital, the nurses
(one of them was rather offhand last week), the children (Tommy annoyed you
with his loudness last time) As you enter the building, continue to tune in to
the energy of the day, the place, and as youre on the ward, arranging the chairs,
you need to monitor constantly whos doing what and how. The how is critical
for, as music therapists, we are trained to read and to work with the very
elements that have to do with quality of acts and moods and general states.
This understanding has been greatly helped by the concept of vitality affects,
developed by Daniel Stern, discussed briefly below.
6.3 How vital is the music space?

Psychologist Daniel Stern (1985) has enhanced music therapists thinking
about the underlying qualities that exist within us, in music, and also in our
physical environment. Stern talks about vitality affects which are essential
qualities of what we might explain as energy and movement, present in living
things including ourselves and including music.
Think of the quality of energy in a concert hall filled with people: theres a
sense of expectancy, a rustle of excitement, a frisson. Unthinkingly, you feel this
and know the feeling or rather, the quality of feeling. But how is it that you
know it? Think about it for a moment. Stern explains this in terms of the
unity of the senses drawing from Aristotles idea of sensory correspondence:
in other words, we experience the same quality across various senses. Critically,
we have, from birth, these knowings (not to be confused with knowledge as in
information or cognitive knowing) to do with time, intensity, shape or
contour, and duration. For example, think of time, or tempo: quick, quickening,
slow, slowing. These qualities are present in a smile, a movement or walk, in
music, in our emotional feelings and in the branches of a tree being moved by
the wind. Think of the quality of intensity: like time, intensity can fluctuate
constantly. Think of the build-up of intensity in the weather before a storm;
84 GROUPS IN MUSIC
think of the varying intensity in a childs cry, the build-up of musical energy
intensity in a Tchaikowsky symphony and now, finally, the intensity of the
cyclists on the Tour de France, all bunched together on their way to the finish
line. The intensity is a quality common to all and also common to feelings
within ourselves.
It is these qualities of smoothness, bursting, of rhythmicity or flow, and
arrhythmicity or non-flow, of smoothness of shape, or spiky energy that con-
stitute vitality affects. Critically for musicians, these can be portrayed in music.
And it is here that the notion of tuning in is critical, since what you manage to
tune in to, in the music space, will inform how you begin your session,
musically.
By tuning in to the qualities of energy, intensity, shape, tempo, in all aspects
of the moment ourselves, the hospital, the day, the ward, the nurses, the
children we know how to play the music in the session. The music needs to
reflect these qualities: the tempo and dynamic level of the ward (or classroom or
ensemble), the quality of shifts from slow to fast or soft to loud. (Are there
sudden bursts of loud laughter? Is there an overall slow quiet heavy murmuring?
Is there a silence that feels flat and devoid of momentum?) Tune in listen to the
feel of the room before you begin, and also listen to your listening: if the room
feels flat and devoid of energy, you may need to begin singing and playing in a
way that reflects those very qualities. Sing slowly, quietly, and with an intensity
that reflects that in the room. For a start.
As is becoming clear by now, the dynamic qualities that you glean and sense
as youre setting up the music space will help the transition from the pre-music
to the music space and time to be smooth; one that does not jar with how the
space feels when you arrive. At the same time, as you begin with music, you
need to listen to how the group tunes in to the way that you are playing, this
will inform whether and how you might begin to shift towards a different
quality of musical energy (e.g. very gradually subdividing the beat, to give a
feeling of momentum while sustaining the quietness), or remain right where the
group is, with the same quality of energy. The magic of music is that it is highly
flexible: you do not need to play loud and fast the same piece of music can be
sung quietly and slowly, when necessary.
Similarly in your choir practice, or your music listening group, begin with
music that feels right for the group and the space in that moment. This will
make for a smooth beginning, and offer the group a sense of being acknowl-
edged in other words, they will have a sense that you know them in an
essential way (rather than know about them).
6.4 Limits of time, place and person

By setting up chairs and instruments in a specific part of the ward, youre an-
nouncing that the music event is going to happen within a physical space: the
music space. However, some children are unable to be part of that physical space
(they are in traction), but are or become a part of the mental musical space,
for of course, music and sonority are not confined to a circle of persons. In this
instance, the music space is not a private one, although it is clearly delineated
physically. It is transparent and permeable seen and heard by others around
the ward whom you both include and exclude by the circle of chairs. Perhaps,
you can begin thinking of the music space as a physical entity as well as a
temporal one: punctuated as an event that begins and ends with a clear and
tuned-in signal, which is the music itself.
Were also beginning to see that who is in and out of the music space is
complex since this is a physical as well as mental, musical and social space. Some
children are able to be physically present in the circle, some are absent but
mentally present and engaged and others seem to be disinterested, mentally
absent and clearly not group members. Who is part of each of these possibilities
may shift during the session, and we need to be alert and manage this fluctu-
ating membership and the permeable space.
Also, since in this particular context the number of children is unpredictable
depending on whos in the ward and whos been admitted/discharged each
week the space will be made up of an open or a semi-open group although
some core members have been here for a few weeks and know the structure of
the session: its length, frequency, some of the music, the instrumental activities,
and they know you. Others are new, and curious about whats to come. Both of
these have to be managed the core members need to be kept engaged, while
new members need to feel included, while unfamiliar with the session, the ac-
tivities, and with the nature of the event.
Implied in all of this, of course, is the issue of the institution external to your
music space, and also the issue of sub-groups. Since a hospital ward is not like a
classroom (where the children are more or less the same age and stage of devel-
opment), we need to consider two kinds of sub-groups: those that are
pre-determined by age, condition, physical position (in bed and engaged; phys-
ically in the music circle; tearing around the room but part of at the same time;
etc); and the sub-groups that emerge during the session. The latter, here, has to
do with the interactive dynamics during the session and will emerge and
fluctuate throughout. Were in the territory of group dynamics: that which is
invisible and powerful, and needs your constant alertness. (Weve already
86 GROUPS IN MUSIC
touched on group dynamics and group process in Chapter 3, and there will be
more in Chapter 18.)
6.5 Final thoughts

To conclude this chapter, it is becoming obvious that we cannot separate the
notion of the music space (and sub-spaces) from the people who, by being a part
of the music group, create and define both what is inside and outside the music
space. Also, there is a clear and subtle distinction between what you can see
within the space, as group leader, and what is invisible: that which happens
inside peoples minds. Even where your group is homogeneous: for example,
adults assembled because they all have good singing voices and are part of your
choir, or children of the same age in a classroom, remember that the music space
remains dynamic, complex and incredibly rich in potential to generate special
experiences for all within it.
The last chapter in Part One of the book returns to the external workings of
your music session: how to think about the nature of your aims, your brief, your
role, and how to explain all of this to those who are part of the external scaf-
folding of the music space: your line manager, head teacher, parish priest or
potential funder.
CHAPTER 7
Aims, Tasks, Roles

and the Outer Track
We all need rigorous ways of describing what we do in group musicking. In these times of
accountability, auditing and funding proposals, it is often not enough to do what we do. In
this sense, this chapter is for everyone, whether or not the content of your work is dictated by
the National Curriculum, institutional demands, an idiosyncratic line manager, orwith
no external dictates. You and your group might know that your work is meaningful and
important but are you really sure that you know how to explain itto someone who is
not a musician?
This chapter has links with various chapters in this book, and also has a sub-text: that
knowing how to talk about aims, tasks, roles and skills does not replace good work, some of
which is very difficult to describe. This chapter gives voice to the outer and inner track of
group music work.
7.1 Roles
Since you are responsible for the groups musical experience, we need to think
about how you, as group leader, make this experience happen. An overall de-
scription of your roles includes providing for the group in terms of a physical
space, the session times, the music you learn/improvise/listen to; providing in-
struments at times, as well as providing for the musical and social experience.
You negotiate the group norms, keep track of group progress or develop-
ments; you monitor the overall quality and level of group and individual
energy levels; and you also ensure and facilitate optimal group functioning.
Your musical and personal support and acknowledgement also offers members
self-confidence and enjoyment, musical skills and a collective musical and
personal experience. Your role is also to listen from a particular stance, and to
signal to the group your intentions, requests and demands: whether these be for
them to listen, to play, to stop playing, to change what they are doing and so on.
87
88 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Each of your signals has degrees of energy and clarity: at times a quick look will
do, while at others, your entire body signals what you want.
Lets very briefly consider different kinds of musical signals that are a part of
your role. There are musical conventions to do with signalling, which range
from highly stylized and conventional signs that musicians know (like con-
ducting a four-beat bar, or putting your index finger to your lips to signal softer
dynamic levels), to signalling in less stylized ways that you and the group
negotiate as you make music together.
Leading is rather like taking someone by the hand: showing them
directly when and how to do something. Here you may be in a
modelling role, showing, doing and looking out for how the person
responds to your signal.
Cueing can be thought of as less overt and possibly more personal
you may need to discuss with the group how you will cue them,
or how they would like you to cue them. Also, all of you may be
playing together, and you may need to cue while playing yourself,
giving them a signal which is quieter than conducting.
Guiding is rather like leading except that here you may be waiting
in the wings, so to speak, and intervening when the person loses
track of or gets lost in their playing or singing.
Conducting is an overt, usually fairly conventional signalling, and
here the conductor is in control: you give a signal that directs a
person to do something rather like an orchestral conductor.
(Incidentally, dont for a minute assume that you as group leader are the one
who does all the conducting or directing. Children especially love conducting
and this can be part of a musical exercise, with different children having a turn
at getting others to play, stop, speed up and so on. Also, as in our university
orchestra, there may be others in your group who would like to try your role:
in fact, they may be the ones who subvert your position and, if youre not awake,
may be running the group, rather than you. Give them a turn, and see how it
goes.)
Whats clear from this very brief and by no means comprehensive
incursion into your various roles as group music worker, music therapist or facil-
itator, is that these are multifaceted. Their complexity increases exponentially
the more group work you do, and the longer you work with a group! Also, roles
shift constantly sometimes we remain stuck in one role, sometimes we are
AIMS, TASKS, ROLES AND THE OUTER TRACK 89
different things to different group members all at once, at other times we seem
to fluctuate constantly between roles.
In the work with the children on the orthopaedic ward, your role as the
group musician is to monitor not just the musical activities, but how these
emerge and develop, how each child participates or not, the quality of their en-
gagement, co-operation, awareness of others, responsiveness to one another
and so on. As important is to be aware of what is not happening in the group. You
also need to monitor how you experience the group as a whole, the individuals
within the group and the various relationships within the musical event.
Here were approaching some of your tasks: in other words, the work that
you do inside the group. These are less public than your role, and the group
may not be aware that this is part of the work that you do.
7.2 Your tasks

Here are some suggestions as to how you might describe your tasks, in whatever
group context. (Think of your own working context as you read through these.)
To enable individual and collective creativity to emerge; to foster
musical and human relationships.
To allow for richness, individuality, community, for music to
sound!
To monitor what is happening at any given moment and all the
time, in music, within persons and between them.
To guide and support this is rather different from directing or
prescribing what happens! Guiding means being attentive to the
moment, and accompanying persons in music, in their personal and
collective group experience.
To facilitate not only in the sense of making easier or smoother
but at times to make a very simple intervention in order to help
the music or the group event to shift in whichever way it needs to.
Facilitating may also mean managing conflict or allowing discord to
be sounded.
To lead yes, at times you do need to be the leader! From the
front! Providing music, setting the tempo, rhythm, melody and then
somehow gathering the group at the same time so that in leading
you are not miles ahead of everyone else.
90 GROUPS IN MUSIC
To follow this means allowing (even in subtle, nonverbalized

ways) for others to try out roles of leading, initiating musical
activities, and taking cues from them.
To sustain when the group music is flowing, you may be needed
every now and then to sustain the energy in order to continue the
momentum.
To end at times groups are not moving towards ending, either
within the music/improvisation, or in terms of allowing the session
or your work together to end. You need to be alert, and monitor
how and when the end will begin to happen. Just as in a piece of
music we begin to hear the ending a while before it comes, you
need to listen to the groups readiness to end. You may also need
courage in order to bring a group session to an end. Ending a period
of intensive work with a group over several weeks or months may
need considerable sensitivity, especially in terms of the relationships
and bonding between group members, and between them and you!
To hold Your presence can be one that creates and sustains a
sense of rich collective musicking with its accompanying feelings and
personal experiences. Music therapists speak of holding the group
and group space: allowing experiences to be felt in a way that feels
safe for the group. One way to create feelings of emotional and
relational safety is, as we saw earlier in Chapter 3, through
negotiating and respecting group norms.
In thinking about these internal tasks, we can also use other vocabulary, such as:
witnessing being present and attentive to the moment, and
sharing in it with others
intervening using our expertise in the best possible way and with
clear intent
changing where an activity or music does not feel right, then
change it!
listening the most important of all. Listening with focus,
commitment, openness and attentiveness.

I want to divert briefly from describing, for a moment. What is clear,
in reading these descriptions of your role, is that these descriptions as-
sume your own total commitment to being in music, to making music,
to generating and receiving musical energy, and to flowing with the
group momentum while also monitoring and reflecting on it con-
stantly. Without your absolute commitment, your work risks remain-
ing half-hearted and mediocre.
Lets now return to the outer track, and see how you might describe your aims.
Here I am thinking of the public face of your group work, and its fit with the
discourse of the context in which you work.
7.3 Group aims and briefs: Generally speaking

Here I link together the notion of aims and briefs to make a crucial point: in
terms of talking about and describing aspects of your work, you need to be clear
about the nature of your brief, how this fits with your own skills; what discourse
your employers/ institution uses, and how your aims fit with this discourse.
(Refresh your memory by re-reading Chapter 1.)
We see in Table 7.1 that aims are multifaceted: some are pre-determined by
the institution and in this sense, common to other staff members; while other
aims have to do with your specific work, where your brief is prescribed by the
work context. Both of these are fixed in the sense of being prescribed by your
employers.
Other aims emerge during sessions and continue evolving, and are specific
to your group members; in other words, these are internal to the group even if
they are part of the public discourse.
In terms of describing your aims, the list below and Figure 7.1 give you
ideas for describing different aims of group music work. In both instances, some
of the aims are specifically musical, some interpersonal and some straddle both.
In this sense, these are not necessarily mutually exclusive distinctions.
92 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Table 7.1 Multiple aims: The public discourse
Institutional brief Music specific Group specific aims

brief/aims
Common to all/many Specific to your kind of Specific to particular
staff or volunteers in music group work group and its members
institution
Fixed aims Fixed aims Fixed and emerging
Examples:
To perform at Easter Provide, coach and Grow community

service perform music
To prepare for year-end Develop music skills + Enhance self-confidence/

exams pass exams group skills
To enhance Develop music + Enhance self-esteem +

neuro-rehabilitation neuro/motor skills confidence
To develop group social Develop group music + Address group conflicts

skills social skills
To teach Wagners Ring Listen to + critique Develop critical thinking

various recordings
Fundamental aims may include the following:

Addressing needs or problems: e.g. institutional tensions or
needs, musical needs, or difficult experiences arising out of
socio-economic contexts here you may be called in to
troubleshoot, do a conflict resolution, community building or offer
support.
Developing/enhancing/sustaining social or life skills is
another way of talking about solving problems or addressing issues.
Here your brief may be to help rehabilitate those who have been
removed from society, e.g. young offenders, prisoners or persons
with brain injuries. All of these may need to re-learn certain basic
life skills.
Ensemble rehearsal
Cognitive-perceptual
The wedding ceilidh

Musical
Music
Develop/sustain Create performance
Neurological skills community
-motor Religious ritual
Repair/address/ Generate social

prevent problems identity
Social
Class teaching
Relational-emotional
Music therapy group
Institutional
Figure 7.1 Aims, work contexts and discourses
Developing/enhancing/sustaining cognitive skills (e.g.

memory, attention-span and focus) through developing and
extending musical activities.
Developing/enhancing/sustaining listening skills, musical,
verbal and non-verbal in rhythm, melodic contour, phrasing,
dynamic levels, timbre and also the prosody of spoken language.
Developing/enhancing/sustaining music and
communication skills to do with, for example, anticipating,
responding to, extending and initiating musical utterances and
events.
Another useful way to think about your aims is to think in terms of
primary and secondary aims. Here, once again, I stress that you need
to be clear about the limits of your skills and the focus of your work.
Table 7.2 suggests that although the locus of your work is in the
94 GROUPS IN MUSIC
area of your primary aims, there are spin-offs or tangential effects

of your group work. These I call secondary in the sense that they
may be hidden: they may not be words that you necessarily use to
portray your work, but rather, these help you to remain alert to the
function of the group as a whole.
Table 7.2 Primary and secondary aims and professional overlaps
Primary aims Secondary aims
Music therapy To explore To create group/social

emotional/relational issues bonding
To repair damage To enhance feeling of
To address belonging
conflict/trauma/illness/issues To enhance music skills
To prevent To enhance
deterioration/illness self-esteem/confidence
To develop
social/cognitive/speech/
group skills etc)
To enhance
creativity/self-expression
To sustain health
Music education To develop music/social To enhance

/group skills etc cognition/co-ordination
To enhance To enhance
creativity/self-expression self-esteem/confidence
To play music
To develop group music skills
Community To play music To address social

music To develop group music skills fragmentation
To enhance creativity To prevent conflict
To create community To develop group skills
To invite community musicking To enhance social identity

Your institutional context as well as professional discipline helps you to define

your work, using, for example, medical, religious, social, psychological or edu-
cational discourse. At the same time, as we saw in Chapter 1, there are funda-
mental discourses to do with group musicking, irrespective of your working
context. Here is a model for thinking about group musicking in general terms
(Figure 7.2).
Self-development/
skills Create community
Sustain
Prevent skills Musical community/group
loss/worsening bonding/sense of
problems Social
belonging
Psychological
Create
Repair/address musical/social
problems identity
Figure 7.2 Group musicking
If youre feeling confused, or that Ive been repeating myself, good! What is
clear from the confusion is that there are many ways of thinking about the aims
of your work! Ive purposely not offered a neat formula, since your aims are
context bound, and best generated by you in combination of various factors:
your work context; your skills; your professional discourse; the group members
and your audience.
7.4 External aims and briefs

Some group briefs are music-based, preparing for specific performances and,
here, the groups life may last only for the period of preparation up to the per-
formance (e.g. a school or college may decide to put on an opera performance,
and bring together musicians, singers, costume and set designers, as well as a
director/conductor). The aims are explicitly musical.
96 GROUPS IN MUSIC

Although the aims of a group may be explicitly musical, this does not
mean that there are no interpersonal nuances or group dynamics going
on during and after rehearsals, but are they your business? Do your skills
include addressing these? And if you are aware of non-musical issues,
do you remain firmly on the musical track?
The pre-determined brief is the basis for the group coming together
in the first place and, more importantly, will be part of the groups expec-
tations of group activities and of your role. There are two possible
courses of action here: one is to refer any interpersonal issues that sabo-
tage your work and that you are ill-equipped to address to someone
whose expertise is in this area; the other is to find a mentor skilled in
group process who will help you to work out what is going on within
the group that is making your work so difficult. This should help to clar-
ify how these issues can be addressed without too much disruption in
achieving your aims.
Conversely, your brief may be interpersonal or psychological rather
than musical. Here too, you may find yourself excited by the groups mu-
sical work. What do you do? Do you switch your focus and move to-
wards more explicitly musical work; do you ignore the music-making
and remain firmly on the psycho-track?
These kinds of dilemmas are part of the paradox that being human
and musicking can be indistinguishable from one another. As a musician
who may not be trained in psychological work, it is inevitable that your
musical sensibilities will kindle and be kindled by sensitivities that are
other than just musical. Incidentally, music therapists have similar dilem-
mas, where improvisations touch our aesthetic sensibilities. How to
manage these two can be complex and enriching while at the same
time, we need to be utterly clear about the limits of our skills, and our
aims, briefs and tasks!
Any of this is what makes shared musical experience so powerful as a
collective human experience, and of course, human experience need not
only be psychological, but may be just human, in terms of learning
about ourselves and experiencing one another through sharing musical
experience.
As were seeing in this chapter, group musicking has other nuances and spin-offs,
aside from giving people the opportunity to develop music skills, revisit an
earlier love for music (which may be profoundly significant socially and person-
ally), meet other people, share life experiences, create history together and so
on.
7.5 The inner track

Ive already voiced the inner track in parts of this chapter. Lets listen to this
more closely.
Group experiences by their very nature foster interpersonal relationships.
Even if, as teachers, community musicians, conductors or church group leaders,
youre not trained to work at an interpersonal level, it will help you to at least
think about the existence and power of this less tangible track, since being alert
to these nuances may go some way towards addressing them, and youll note
that your musical and non-musical acts and responses become shaped by your
awareness.
Music therapists are acutely aware of these internal nuances and have
trained antennae, so to speak, to spot, acknowledge and address these with the
group where appropriate. Here, any part of the session e.g. choosing instru-
ments, deciding on activities or songs, playing music, not playing, etc can give
you valuable insights and cues about the individuals, their relationships with
one another and with you. Whilst as a non-therapist it would be inappropriate
(and indeed unethical) to use your (untrained) awareness as the focus of
in-depth personal group work, you can invite the group to discuss their experi-
ences of listening and playing, if this fits with the aims of your work and with
the group norms that youve negotiated together otherwise you may be trans-
gressing your role and your brief.
Incidentally, I would suggest that anyone with human sensitivities and
group experience usually picks up these undercurrents and manages to address
them quite naturally. The main point of all this discussion is to be aware that un-
dercurrents exist, and to make sense of them possibly with the help of an
external mentor, especially where you are working with people whose personal
needs and difficulties render your work more complicated. There is more on un-
dercurrents and overtones in Chapter 18.
All of this is good and well but how on earth do all these ideas help you to
describe and explain your work to others: especially those who may not be
altogether sympathetic to your work, and consider music to be a luxury or
optional extra (to use John Blackings words)?
98 GROUPS IN MUSIC
7.6 How clear are your aims? (and revisiting discourses)

If you recall, at the beginning of this chapter I distinguished between aims as
the public face of your group work, and tasks, as the private or inner track of
your sessions. In terms of publicizing or marketing your work, you need to be
able to state what you do, why you do it and how the group members benefit
from your work. These are often external, public necessities, and musicians need
to think especially carefully about using words to describe and portray their
work.
In Chapter 2 we considered institutional values, ethos, mission and visions.
Weve seen that each of these feeds the institutional discourse, whether it be
educational, religious, musical, medical, psychological, correctional or
whatever. It is this discourse that informs your marketing strategy! Go back to
groundwork if necessary: revisit the institutional discourse, draw from your
own professional discourse in a way that makes sense to non-musician col-
leagues, and then think about formulating your aims.
Many of the aims we discussed earlier (and there are many others that youll
have to think up, to do with your own work) have to do with more than mu-
sic-making. In other words, music is the means to something else. What this
something else is or rather, how we describe it has largely to do with the
context in which we work.
For example, in a medical rehabilitation context, we might define our aims
as enhancing motor skills and life skills although the latter may be used also
by prison services or contexts for young offenders. Educational contexts may
need us to speak of cognitive or learning skills, while a music college needs us
to develop orchestral skills or whatever. And so on. Any of these contexts need
to be considered when describing what it is that is expected of you and how
what you do can fit with the needs of the context.
Theories also offer discourses that help us to understand and to explain to
others the tasks of our work. The danger here is that if we are too invested in
one theoretical discourse and use it unthinkingly, it can become a personal ide-
ology that blinkers our listening to what is going on, in the sense that we are
invested in whatever happens being made to fit with the theories that we have
grasped. An example here (to be extreme) would be someone who works only
behaviourally in other words, within the framework of behavioural psy-
chology. Unless there is an openness of thinking and vision, this group worker
will see everything in terms of stimulusresponse or operant or classical condi-
tioning and so on. This is a rather narrow and rigid lens, and certainly this book
encourages you to think broadly and fluidly. The more discourses you can
choose from the better but you need to be informed about them.
I conclude this full chapter with something self-evident: keeping track of
what you do (and why you do it). This will help you enormously in terms of de-
scribing what has happened in your session, how this impacts on future work
and selling, advertising, marketing, and publicizing your work to potential
employers, funders, donors and colleagues.
7.7 To conclude: Keep track

It is absolutely crucial that you keep track of your sessions, lessons or rehearsals!
Who was there, who was absent, what you did, how you planned it, how it
turned out. Also, in clinical settings you need to keep a record of how each
child/person was each session, what you noticed that was unusual anything
you may want to report back to the carers.
I find it useful to have a file for each place where I work, and within that file
have dividers for each group. Then within these dividers, I have several sheets of
paper for each group member, on which I keep track of each session with
dates and times. Generally it is best to make quick summaries after each session,
since by the end of your working day youll have forgotten what you did and
how it went. Be sure to keep copies of any reports you write on a person, and file
reports that you receive from your colleagues. I also have a separate section for
any music I might have composed that I may want to use again. The golden rule
is simple: you need to keep a record of what you do, from week to week.
Also, keeping a record of your work will help you to revisit your brief, and
the fit between this and what you have actually done. This will help you to rene-
gotiate your contract, revisit your aims, and possibly, even, reconsider your role!
Your reports, funding applications and public speaking will be all the richer for
your records: especially if you are meticulous about noting unusual aspects of
your sessions.
This is an apposite conclusion to Part I of this book: Planning: Thinking
Ahead. By keeping a consistent record of my own work over years of group
work, I have been able to draw from a rich source of information, descriptions,
reflections and insights: the basis for this book!
PART II
Executing: Doing
Part II of this book describes various kinds of groups musicking together in

different contexts.
Chapter 8 describes Forming Groups and Groups Forming, implying that
groups continue to group and regroup throughout your session. Group Flow,
Group Pulse (Chapter 9) describes the musical signals that convey how the
group is flowing and not flowing , while Chapter 10, Whose Group? Whose
Music? considers how we work with the distinctive sub-groups that make up
the whole group, as well as the absent group outside the music room. Group
Rituals (Chapter 11) describes the roles that we are called upon to fulfil at
times, as musicians, to create or participate in a social ritual, while Chapter 12,
Live Meanings describes how listening to music generates individual and col-
lective meaning for groups. Chapter 13 describes work with groups, doing
team building and conflict resolution.
I want to reassert that this book is not a handbook, and does not tell you
what to do, what music to use or how to do your musicking . This section of the
book, rather, describes various acts of musicking in order to help you think about
what can go wrong and why, how we can all learn from spectacular failures, and
how we need to be constantly alert and able to change our carefully laid plans,
in the interest of optimal group experience.
CHAPTER 8
Forming Groups and Groups Forming

Quick Time, Music Time and Sound Deeds
This first chapter in the Executing section of this book uses various group work vignettes to
illustrate aspects of group work that affect everyone whatever their context. Although the
vignettes draw from work with children, do not be fooled! One reason why children are
useful learning models is because, on the whole, they act their thoughts and feelings overtly,
without protecting your group facilitators feelings or ego. It is their acts that I use here to
present some practical strategies for work in all groups, including adult groups. Inci-
dentally, one of the complexities of working with adults is that they are less likely to let you
know directly or clearly that your group management is unsatisfactory. They may vote
with their feet and leave the group, sabotage your work covertly or be utterly
co-operative, with their own vested interests in mind, rather than yours or the groups.
8.1 On becoming a group

In Chapter 6 we looked at beginning a session with children in a hospital ward,
and thought about how this loose collection of children would become a
group. This chapter zooms right into music group sessions, and explores the
ongoing, fluctuating and highly nuanced shifts in groups, which are generally
determined by each person impacting on others. These events may remain
unknown at our peril as group music workers. When rehearsals, music classes
or sessions dont work, you have a choice: to shrug your shoulders and
consider it as part of a bad day, or to reflect on why and how things were dis-
appointing or catastrophic, and why youre left feeling exhausted and stressed.
Your work will be the richer for these reflections. This chapter introduces some
basic group music concepts from music therapy work, in the hope that you will
discover that whether or not the group or the music works, or whether your
session is good or bad is not necessarily the most important issue. More sig-
103
104 GROUPS IN MUSIC
nificant is whether and how the group musical experience can leave each
person including you the richer for having been a part of the music group.
Becoming a group is more than being together in the same space, and
together playing or listening to music. For a start, music itself can draw us
instantly into the present, even where, paradoxically, a piece of music can
suddenly propel us inwards to retrieve a forgotten event in our life. This private
act happens in the moment, and within a collective setting. The act of singing or
playing together can also be collectively focusing in the moment, which experi-
ence can irresistibly impact on our sense of identity: here and now, in this
moment, together with others. In this sense group musicking provides deeply
personal, private, as well as collective musical and emotional experiences. It is
the depth and power of these personal experiences within the collective act that
can be powerfully bonding socially as well as musically. After all, we know that
folk who undergo a similar experience together whether a social ritual, a
team-building hike up Ben Nevis, or a World Cup football final experience a
powerful sense of being a part of a greater whole. Many of us also know that
this power can be enriching and destructive.
Musicking, with its irresistible personal and social associations, and its direct
capacity to ignite our sensibilities, provides each person in the group with the
opportunity to experience a primitive, tribal and utterly human feeling of
being a group possibly for the first time in their lives.
Here were touching on the notion of groups forming, with the gerund of
the verb to form signifying that this is an ongoing event. The group does not
form and then remain a formed group but, rather, continues forming for as
long as you work together. In addition, the fluctuations of personal experience
continue to impact on the various relationships within the group. The notion of
various relationships is the other significance of the concept of groups forming:
in the sense that it is highly likely that there is more than one group operating at
any moment.
In a moment we will return to the orthopaedic ward, which we entered in
Chapter 6, and see very quickly that during the ward music session, various
sub-groups will form, unform and reform, and that in the overt sense, youll
notice this on the basis of who engages musically and who doesnt, and also on
the quality of their musical (and other) acts. Lets fast forward and peep into the
music session on the ward.
FORMING GROUPS AND GROUPS FORMING: QUICK TIME, MUSIC TIME 105
Vignette 8a: Different games

Anna, Bennie and David are engaged in an instrumental activity with
me were taking turns at beating a hand drum which I hold and move
between the three children, so each has a turn to beat. Cherie and
Karen are giggling and attempting to elbow one another off their
chairs; Ezekiel is day-dreaming and gazing out of the window; and
Francis tugging at my sleeve urgently. I need to monitor all of these, as
well as the fact that Geraldine and Harriet, who are in bed and in
traction, watch closely while Anna, Bennie and David play, and sing
fairly loudly (loud enough for me to hear) during the chorus of the in-
strumental activity.
Cherie and Karen, although not participating musically, are not interfering with
any of the other childrens participation although their behaviour riles me
somewhat. I monitor my own response and do not necessarily act upon it: by
being aware of my annoyance, I become aware that other children may also be
annoyed, although none seems to be showing this overtly. However, I realize
that Ezekiels day-dreaming may be a way of avoiding having to be annoyed
with Cherie and Karen, or an anxiety of the conflict that might emerge between
Cherie and Karen, on one hand, and Anna, Bennie and David on the other. I
need to make quick decisions as to how to address the potential tension if at
all or whether to allow events to unfold for the time being, since three
children are intensely absorbed in playing, and the two bedridden ones in
observing and singing. I do not want to interrupt this by shifting my overt
attention to others who are mentally absent or less engaged.
This tuning in on musical acts, personal thoughts and feelings, and interper-
sonal events needs to go on constantly while you also remain engaged in mu-
sic-making as the group leader. The trick is to manage both since this will
enrich your experience of each of the children and in turn enrich their experi-
ences of the session and of themselves. By responding from a space of reflection
within yourself, you also invite a different emotional and musical resonance
from a child, and this may be a new experience for them, that remains with them
after the session. It is often subtle and shifting details that help to clarify what
underpins the acts and behaviours of various members (e.g. Cherie and Karen
may be making a statement about feeling excluded from the activity whilst
also excluding themselves by their acts).
106 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Lets continue with the session, and pretend that during the same instru-
mental activity, I now want to act on drawing Cherie and Karen into the activity,
since my intuition is that the time for doing this might be approaching.
Vignette 8b: Music play

I begin to move the angle of my body in such a way as to include Cherie
and Karen in my direct (rather than peripheral) line of vision. At this
point, Anna and Bennie very subtly lose energy in their drum beating,
while Cherie and Karen become quieter, and turn their attention
towards David (still intensely focused) and myself.
Since I am using a small hand drum, which Anna, Bennie and David
were taking turns to beat, I now extend my arm towards Cherie and
Karen. Karen giggles, momentarily throwing Cherie off balance: she
was beginning to move her arm in response to the hand drum being in
front of her.Cherie hesitates a fraction,and in that split second,I move
the hand drum back to David, who beats enthusiastically, while I am
aware that Karen has stopped giggling, and Cherie is now highly
focused towards the hand drum.
On the next beat of the song, I move the hand drum further over,
towards Karen, who immediately beats it, and then I move it towards
Cherie, who beats it too. In order not to exclude Anna and Bennie,
whose lower energy I have been monitoring,I move the hand drum to
their side of the circle, and then quickly back to Cherie and Karen
since I do not want to lose their new-found interest. And so on.
We see here split-second decisions, very quick timing and shifting relationships
and changes between the children. We see also how any of these shifts impacts
on the musical activity, and on the group as a whole. At the moment, I do not
want to comment too much on what each or any of these shifts and regroupings
mean; but rather suggest that it is by being constantly and minutely aware of
what is going on within, around and outside the musical acts, that I am in an
informed position to make sound decisions. In this instance, the decision is to
include more children in the simple activity, without interrupting the flow of
the music. This is the result of having an inner track of thinking, that monitors
and constantly questions what is going on as the group continues to play
music.
Were I not listening to this inner track, and not aware that something else
was going on in the childrens minds, I might have stopped the music, turned to
Cherie and Karen, and said something like would the two of you prefer to go
and read on your bed, youre disturbing the other children who want to enjoy
playing music. We all recognize ourselves in a comment such as this. Lets
pause to consider its effects. For a start, it polarizes the group into those who
do and those who dont do. Also, it makes it difficult for Cherie and Karen to
remain part of the group without losing face, or without having to be even
more distracting in order to make their position more solid. This, in turn, might
make Anna, Bennie and David feel like theyre being good, and they may feel
uncomfortable with this: for a start, it might make them feel aligned with me, in
the sense of being teachers pet. (I use this term not because this parallels a
music teaching session, but because this might be the childrens frame of
reference.)
Group shifts are extraordinarily complex, there are at least as many relation-
ships going on as there are persons in the group. You need to develop a sense
that there are other things to be aware of while you are ostensibly just playing
music, to help you decide what to ignore, and what needs to be acted upon
and if so, how and, most critically, when.
I now shift to another scenario, still with children, and this time from a
music therapy setting: the point in this vignette (8c) is that although the music
therapists acts are informed by clinical thinking, their acts are musical. They do
not speak to the children or to one another. Rather, they draw from the potency
of that most social and traditional of musical genres the March to refocus the
group.
8.2 In the mood musical thinking
Vignette 8c
Here is a weekly group session with four young children aged around
five,and two music therapists,J at the piano,and P on the floor with the
children. The children come from a local special school, and Im
watching the session behind the one-way observation mirror.
Ps attempts at getting the children to sit on their small chairs are
chaotic: Karim reaches out for the drum, Leslie runs around to see
whats on top of the shelf, Cheryl throws herself on the floor and
Diana is curled up on the chair sucking her thumb. P grabs hold of
Karim and Leslie, and brings them back to their chairs, at which
moment Diana leaps up and hides behind the piano.
108 GROUPS IN MUSIC
J (who is at the piano) begins an emphatic,clear marching song and

P immediately strides around the room with exaggerated marching
movements. Almost miraculously the four children follow P, more or
less marching (or trotting or leaping) behind her. The song is an 8-bar
phrase: Marching, Marching, Marching Round the Room! Marching
March, let s all SIT DOWN! at which point everyone dives for their
chair and sits. For a few moments there is stillness, which both P and J
hold. As soon as one child begins to twitch, J and P begin the song
again.
Lets look at this in some detail.

The group is fragmented: the children leap around the room, and no amount
of Ps verbal instructions, pleas or requests seems to make the slightest bit of dif-
ference to the turbulence in the room.
Critically, neither J nor P are unnerved by the chaos: J, at the piano, watches,
listens to the quality of chaos its energy, intensity, contours, phrasing,
loudness (in other words, its vitality affects). J is utterly focused.
With perfect timing, J dives into a March at the piano, hardly knowing what
shes doing. However, the Marchs energy fits the level of energy in the group:
the music has the same dynamic level, a slightly sharp, staccato feel, with short
phrases, angular contours and a clear musical direction.
P recognizes the musics vitality affects as fitting the vitality affects in the
room, and at the same time, trusting Js clinical-musical thinking, instantly joins
her. She hears the word March, jumps up and begins to stride purposefully
round the room. Critically, her movements also have the same vitality affects:
they are sharp, angular, loud, intense and energetic.
The children, apparently recognizing their own vitality affects both within
the piano music, and in Ps movements, miraculously join Ps marching, and,
even more miraculously, at the end of the four-bar phrase, when J plays some
splendidly sforzando chords and sings SIT DOWN, everyone does just that.
So what happened here, how did this all magically come together?
(Figure 8.1).
The children Children
Everyone sits on the floor Group Cohesion

recognize begin
Fragmentation something of marching
and Chaos themselves in the with P
music and in Ps
marching
P attempts to P hears the energy

settle the of the March and P and J share a
group acts mental intention
about the March
and continue
J watches and J begins March at playing/marching
listens piano
Silence: All SIT

Simple, clear melodic line 4 x 4 bar phrases
no music DOWN!
Energetic and staccato playing culminates in
Figure 8.1 All SIT DOWN!
J and P dont wait for the children to calm down, sit still, and first listen to the
song and learn the words, lets all sing it together and then well march around
the room. J and P very quickly intuit that verbal instructions will possibly
polarize the group into us (the therapists who need the children to be more or
less still so that they can begin the session) and them (the hyperactive special
needs children who are a handful, and whose pathology explains their
behaviour).
Instead, J plunges in, cutting right across Ps attempts to settle the group.
Her timing and inspiration are superb, with her musical energy fitting that of
the group and also containing the group chaos: in other words, she does not
try and stop the chaos, but goes alongside it, albeit in a structured, interesting,
musical way.
110 GROUPS IN MUSIC
P doesnt think, What on earth is J doing, cant she see I am trying to settle
the children so that we can start?, rather, she trusts Js musical acts, AND jumps
up to march around the room. The rest as they say is history.
What about the music itself ?
It begins as a spontaneous improvisation and, as J adds note after note, she
focuses intently on the melodic, rhythmic, harmonic content, very quickly
building a highly structured piece of music, utterly spontaneously. The March
has 16 four-bar phrases, is melodically and harmonically simple and inter-
esting, and the repetition leads to a climax: the loud SIT DOWN! at the end of
the 16-bar phrase.
This, however, is not enough to get the group going.
The two therapists themselves do the song with total intent and focus.
Nothing else matters in the moment. J plays the March as though her life
depended on it, and P marches around the room purposefully and without in-
viting the children to join her. Rather, she expects the children to join in, and
through her movements and their joint singing, P and J convey their expecta-
tion and enjoyment to the children who jump right into the music. This is
the moment when the fragmented collection of individuals becomes a group.
This is the moment that the group becomes cohesive. There are no sub-groups
in this moment, no divisive alliances, instead the focused group working
together.
Although informed by clinical thinking and these are two very experi-
enced music therapists this group cohesion is achieved directly through the
musical acts. To repeat: the music is simple, repetitive, interesting, and provides
moments of order whilst not ignoring the energy level in the room. This is
because the quality and level of energy in the room belongs to this particular
combination of persons, and to avoid acknowledging it would be artificial
and looking for trouble.
Improvisational music therapists read the groups energy, make sense of it ,
and can reflect or portray it with unerring accuracy in music that is attractive
and compelling. Also, the music has a fluidity and a point of climax and rest
which is fun, and draws the group together. This vignette is an example of what
music therapists call clinical/musical intervention: the musical act has clinical
intent, which in this instance is to bring the group together. The intent is not
simply to have a game of musical chairs or something close to that, nor is it to
teach the children to sit, stand, march, nor is it to recognize musical climaxes
and rests. The intention is for these children, at the very least, to have an experi-
ence of order and creativity as a group within the context of who they are.
Their hyperactivity and its energy is read by the two therapists not as patho-
logical or as needing remediating, but as having enormous creative potential,

and Js split-second clinical / musical inspiration, as well as Ps clinical thinking
and receptiveness to J, shift the children together in the moment.
Here is group work in music. It may be informed by verbally based Group
Theory, but the therapists are not theorizing whilst they are in the room. Rather,
they work directly through music, being highly skilled at using a flexible and
dynamically insistent medium to draw the group together. This experience of
group cohesiveness, even though momentary, will be discussed by the thera-
pists in their clinical reflections after the session. Here they will also discuss how
this experience can be consolidated and extended in future sessions and how,
possibly, the March music can be extended or changed, to give the children an
optimal group experience at next weeks session. J and P may also spend consid-
erable time discussing the interpersonal meaning of what happened, for each of
the children.
8.3 On receiving the persons

What the vignette above shows is two adults not judging the childrens
behaviour, but instead receiving the children as persons with qualities of energy.
What is tricky is the whirl of buzzy hyperactivity. We might posit that although,
as separate persons, some children may be relatively calmer physically than
others in the group, a group situation emerges that results in a chaotic whole.
The therapists watch the childrens movements, listen to the sounds the children
make, and imbibe or absorb the whole of their interwoven qualities of being.
Their acts are informed by what they receive. As musicians, they can
instantly convert this energy information into musical sounds, and enter into
music in a highly specific way: specific to this group at this particular moment.
It is this specificity that is so compelling: especially where children such as these
may be more used to being taken literally. In other words, a disruptive child in
class may be seen to be misbehaving in terms of school norms and rules, and
teachers act accordingly: attempting to get the child to conform. This is highly
necessary in terms of collective social living! After all, most teachers have an
entire class to consider, and have specific tasks to achieve. Their work is to
minimize what might interfere with, or prevent, their carrying out their work
optimally.
As a group facilitator (who is not a music therapist), you may have specific
tasks as well as time constraints in your work, which necessitate you to focus on
your groups acts, and respond accordingly. However, by having a sense of their
possible meanings, your response will be qualitatively richer in texture and
112 GROUPS IN MUSIC
intent. The music group weve just seen is in a much better position to increase
childrens musical and personal (and social and emotional) confidence. Also,
some folk are incapable of using words to express themselves (here I am not
thinking of someone with a disability, but those for whom words are not the
primary medium of self-experience and self-expression). Music offers direct,
intimate experience of oneself as part of a group. But, as group leader, you need
to be awake!
Here is another vignette that shows a direct, musical intervention as a result
of not judging a childs misbehaviour.
Vignette 8d
It is my weekly session in a mainstream school with a group of eight
eight-year-olds. Im recovering from flu, my energy is low and the
children are out of control.I am trying to get them to form a circle,and
each time I say something (Can we form a circle? Stand still please!
Have you tied your shoelace? Whats the matter today?) someone
does a pirouette, someone else does a karate chop, a cartwheel,
others slip and fall, someone runs around the group, all laugh hysteri-
cally.
I am losing patience and vaguely wonder whether to send the lot
back to the classroom: I really havent the energy today, and am aware
of being absent to the children. Suddenly I say quickly and firmly:
Right, I want you to copy me, are you ready, evry body?
Quick as a flash, Zinthle mimics me with Are you ready, evry
body? Her timing, nuance, timbre are totally accurate. While I know
that she is sending me up and being cheeky as does the rest of the
group I do not react to this but rather, respond to her immaculate
accuracy by mimicking her in turn,with Are you ready,are you ready?
More children then mimic me with Are you ready,are you ready? I
respond with Are you ready, yes? Yes? in the same tempo, and with
the same energy as them.
They mimic me again and off we go, together into the session.
Figure 8.2, below, illustrates the stages we move through in this vignette.
Children The children

Chaotic recognize the
Zinthle: qualitative fit Are you
Group (mimics) as reflecting ready? Are
Fragmented Are you something of you Group
ready, evry themselves ready?! cohesion:
body?
all move
and act on
a shared
Listens to experience
Therapist is tired Are you Zinthles of music
and becomes ready, Are you
mimicking and
impatient with evry ready, yes?
accurate
the group body? Yes?
reflecting
Figure 8.2 Are you ready, evry body?
8.4 Split-second Musicking

I am mentally and musically unfocused and the children let me know it. The less
present I am to the children, the more they woo me by behaving atrociously.
This could spiral towards a conflict, until my total loss of patience would result
in their being sent back to the classroom. Then everyone would be absent, and
there would be a serious erosion of trust between us. If I choose to be
judgemental, then I see that Zinthles intentions are not entirely honourable and
I can tell her off, send her to the classroom, stamp my authority on the group or
whatever. However, instead of judging her actions, I do two things: I read her
act as telling me that the group needs me to be present in a different way; and at
the same time I listen to her acute listening to, and rendering of, my statement
Are you ready, evry body? and respond to this directly, in turn acutely
imitating her splendid imitation of me.
At this point, the childrens attention is caught: they recognize the tight
rhythmic and musical potential of this quasi rap antiphonal statement. This
shifts the group. Whereas previously there had been two sub-groups (me versus
the children), two different sub-groups now emerge at the same time: Zinthle and
I in one sub-group (my retort to her retort to me), and the rest of the group in the
114 GROUPS IN MUSIC
other. At the same time, though, I suspect that there is still a split between
myself and the children, even if the alliances are shifting very rapidly. (In other
words, there are parallel sub-groups operating at the same time.)
Also, Zinthles own allegiance shifts towards me (I am, after all, acknowl-
edging her with the full beam of my attention). When all the children respond
to my response of Are you ready, are you ready?, the group instantly becomes
more cohesive, working in alliance as one. We all become present in the
moment. None of these acts are effected through words, but directly through
quick musical listening and thinking. Nor are they discussed afterwards.
Luckily for us all, I was able to hear the vitality affects and had just enough
presence of mind to respond to the music within her mocking verbal retort.
8.5 Wrapping up
In these two examples of working directly within music (Vignettes 8c and 8d),
we see, in each instance, the group workers reading behaviours and acts as
though they are music and going with the flow. In the first vignette, the
energy of Js music matches the quality of the childrens behaviours: their
loudness, quickness, sharp movements and generally fragmented intensity. In
the second vignette, Zinthle hears and matches the music within my verbal
statement with the music in her retort. I hear this matching and know that
beneath her precocious behaviour is an acutely empathic child: she knows how
to tune in to me. Luckily, I hear her tuning in and manage to use this to pull the
group towards a cohesive experience.
The vignettes in this chapter have all been on work with children and young
adolescents. This does not mean that adults do not absent themselves from
groups, nor is work with adults that different. Any of these scenarios happen in
all kinds of groups, even if the overt acts of adults are somewhat filtered through
years of social norms of behaviour.
The main point of this chapter is to be alert to the constant shifts and
sub-groupings, which adults too will effect although less overtly. These shifting
alliances have consequences for the musical acts, which is the focus of your
work as group facilitator. They signal which sub-groups exclude and include
which members, with each positioning themselves in relation to you as group
leader. You need to be alert to who is absent and who is present as well as to
the quality of these presences and absences. (Well reflect more on this in
Chapter 17). This leads directly to the next chapter in this section, which
describes groups flowing and not flowing together in music.
CHAPTER 9
Group Flow, Group Pulse

Finding the Groove
This chapter describes group musicking that goes wrong and groups that dont work. All
groups go wrong at some stage. And we need to manage this.
9.1 Grouping asynchronies or falling apart?

Musical anthropologist Charles Keil speaks of the groove to describe people
getting into music together. I use his notion of the groove to explain that subtle
negotiating of music between folk playing together, which makes them not just
sound as one, but become one. This chapter can to be read in tandem with
Chapter 18 in Part III of this book, since here I begin to use terms such as
inter-actional synchrony and communicative musicality, which I explain in that
chapter. This, incidentally, symbolizes that one cannot really separate thinking,
reflecting and doing group music: they all need to happen at the same time, with
each affecting the other. The last part of this chapter begins to consider how
one person not flowing can impact on the rest of the group and on the group
roles that all members are forced to assume, as a result.
I begin this section by describing musicking with a group whose physical dis-
abilities impact directly on how their music sounds and the consequences of
these multiple arrhythmias on the group whole, and on myself as group leader.
Here, different capacities and incapacities for self and interpersonal
flowing (which we can think of as a synchrony of all the neurological rhythmic
cycles within us) may complement or aggravate one another. There are also
various accompanying layers of disability such as emotional and social as a
result of the root physical or neurological disability. In terms of finding the
groove, in other words, a common groove, group music-making can present as
many kinds of asymmetries as there are people.
115
116 GROUPS IN MUSIC
How do we manage this in groups? And what can we learn from these
falling aparts?
Vignette 9a
A group of middle-aged and elderly men and women suffering from
Parkinsons disease have asked me to do an introductory session, in
order to see whether or not they would like to have music therapy.
The setting is informal, a comfortable living room of a residential
home, but there is an underlying tension in the situation that I cannot
quite get a hold of.I feel that the group is listening to me with close at-
tentiveness too close for comfort perhaps I feel slightly put on the
spot as I talk about music.
I then suggest we do a simple basic beat exercise.Each person has
a percussion instrument in front of them and I very quietly begin a
steady tapping on my Djembe, and invite them, one by one, to join in
until were all playing the same beat.I notice that some have difficulty in
playing on the same beat as me, whilst others manage. We keep going
for a while, and suddenly Mr Fs movements become much larger,
swooping, diving, ricocheting across his drum, his legs begin twitching
and soon, electrifying chaotic movements become larger and larger,
and he looks totally out of control. I then notice that Mr B, on my
right, is also beginning to jerk in larger movements. The group beating
becomes less synchronized: instead of regular beats, we have a mele
of hard,slipping,small,sudden clusters.This feels like musical fragmen-
tation.It cannot be redeemed,as I have no sense of incipient order.The
improvisation heaves to a stop.
It takes a while for Mr Fs movements to subside. There is a feeling
of dismay in the group,and I am shaken,unsure where to go next.Even-
tually both Mr F and Mr B are still again.
The very thing that was supposed to hold us together the beat has let us
down. Mr Fs neurological chaos has impacted on us all. Weve all begun
slipping and slithering in our playing, incapable of keeping a steady beat or of
pulling ourselves, as a group, towards this.
Here are different personal musical and neurological rhythmic and
arrhythmic cycles. While they manage to be sounded concurrently, they do not
manage to become cohesive: there is no common groove within the music.
There is also a sense of the group event becoming increasingly fragmented. The
GROUP FLOW, GROUP PULSE FINDING THE GROOVE 117
only cohesion if we can call it such is that we are united in our fragmenta-
tion: there is an emotional cohesion in the general dismay: we all feel it. There
are various dismays in the moment: dismay on Mr Fs behalf, and also at the rest
of the groups vulnerabilities as a result of their condition. My own dismay is
the result of feeling incompetent and insensitive, as though I should have
known that this might happen. I naively thought that all of us would manage to
find the groove, and that this would bring us together as a group. After all, this
is how improvisational music therapy is supposed to work. Lets continue with
our group.
Vignette 9b
After the music has stopped, we have a discussion: Mr B says that this
always happens to him,even when he begins by tapping very quietly to
a piece of music. As soon as there is even a slight crescendo in the
music, he says, his body slips out of control. Others in the group then
share their own experiences,some similar,some not.The atmosphere
in the room becomes lighter as the discussion flows,and we eventually
move towards talking about how else we can use music in a meaningful
way. As we speak, I begin to realize that since the disabilities in the
room are so overt, perhaps the experience of music needs to be an
internal one. As if on cue, someone mentions a piece of music that
they love, and others join in, talking about the songs they love to hum
or remember. We begin to talk about the contexts in which folk first
heard the songs they love. The session ends with an impromptu
sing-a-long. There is a harmonium in the sitting room, and I find myself
accompanying/improvising along to songs from My Fair Lady, with
everyone humming or singing snatches of words as they remember
them.
In this second part of the session we experienced a repairing of the falling apart.
We fell apart in the act of playing music, and got back together again through
talking and reflecting on the event together. In other words, we managed to find
a mental flow a shared meaning where there was no physical or musical
flowing. The physical act of music-making was catastrophic here,
emphasizing the groups varied disabilities. As group leader, I experienced acute
anxiety, embarrassment and uncertainty.
At the same time, though, it was only after the first attempt at music-making
that something new and meaningful was able to happen for us all: the second
118 GROUPS IN MUSIC
act of music-making where we sang a song together. We could posit, here, that
this first musical act (which was unmusical in the social, conventional sense)
was bonding and necessary, very quickly resulting in a realignment within
myself I no longer felt the expert, or the provider of knowledge, which
social convention dictates that I was. (After all, I had been invited by the group,
as one with specific skills that presumably the group lacked: I had
something that they did not.)
The common groove when we eventually found it by negotiating how we
would use music as a group (rather than me imposing it by providing Djembe
drums) was provided by well-known songs that the group suggested, and that
I managed to improvise at the harmonium. However, during our first attempt at
musicking I had taken note of how the group was not able to play together, so
that I knew that my playing had to be loose enough, in terms of tempo and
phrasing, to accommodate everyone. The harmonies and melodies of My Fair
Lady were familiar, in terms of musical grammar and style, and invited folk into
the social conventions of singing this particular music together, within a loosely
negotiated musical groove.
In contrast to this flowing ending, the initial exercise of only the basic beat,
with no rhythm, phrasing or melodic shape, was damaging and alienating to
the group. It was not a kind of music-making that they were familiar with and, if
we think about it, in a one-off event such as this, my initial contribution was
way off the mark.
But what is the mark and if it isnt there, how do we find it?
Luckily, in my listening to the general fragmentation of the first musical act,
I heard a potential direction towards another kind of music. When Mr B
spoke of playing along to music, I was ready to receive a clue: he was telling me
that at home, he often listens to recordings of pre-composed music. In other
words, he chooses the music that he listens to. He knows what he likes and has
access to it. I bear this in mind while listening to the rest of the discussion. The
rest of the session follows this cue, and the group flows together.
This initially disastrous experience was profoundly humbling, and I learnt
from it! My attempt to impose a structure, by providing a particular musical
exercise that I thought was foolproof , resulted in a falling apart of the group.
At the same time, we were able to reflect together on this falling apart through
talking about it. This talking and my acute listening provided the possibili-
ties for another collective groove: the joint creating of something new in music,
through singing old, well-loved tunes.
Music can do harm! It does not always heal or provide optimal social or col-
lective experience.
The next two vignettes are with a group of (able-bodied) adult students in a
university reading seminar on communicative musicality. The contrast
between the vignettes is obvious and each offers learning for the group.
9.2 Learning from not-flowing
Vignette 9c
There are eight of us seated round the table,two hours into a theoret-
ical session on innate musicality. The energy of the group is slow, it is
Saturday morning and we are looking forward to the weekend. My
intuition is to do some spontaneous improvisation and use this to
focus (and close) the mornings discussion.I hand out hand drums,and
to save time, suggest that we remain seated round the table, put the
hand drums in front of us on the table, close our eyes and see what
happens.
The silence gathers intensity and tension. To my left I hear a tiny
scratching sound which stops. There is a sudden loud cluster of
rhythmic activity from J on the other side of the table and then
silence again.The group silence this time sounds less tense.I then hear
the same small scratching sound from my left,and then a tiny response
of sound from the right. A dialogue between these two different small
sounds develops and,after a while,other taps begin joining in this quiet
dialogue until it sounds as though everyone is playing. Gradually the
playing gathers intensity, slightly quicker and louder, and someone
begins to hum, soon joined by someone else.
This group momentum builds up with all of us tapping and
humming.
Then we begin to slow, with more and more spaces between the
sounds, until once again there is silence.
This silence feels soft and spacious.
We hold it for a long time.
It is difficult to begin speaking which I need to do to end the
mornings class.I speak very quietly and slowly,and gradually everyone
opens their eyes.
120 GROUPS IN MUSIC
The quality of the group flow, Id like to suggest, began in the silence the
pre-musical silence. This had a particular quality of gathering intensity and
1
tension. In our discussion J says, I couldnt stand the silence, it was too tense, I
just had to begin playing. We all nod and someone says that the intensity and
loudness in Js playing was the same as that of the silence. We then discuss that,
in fact, Js playing was a spilling of this tension from silence into sound.
In terms of the group flow, though, we note that nobody responded to her
loud clusters. Instead, the group music returned to silence although this was a
different silence; one that seemed to have expelled some of its tension.
Out of this new and more spacious silence, a much quieter playing
emerged the tiny scratch which had in it enough space to invite someone
else to join in: a second player to begin a dialogue. Their joint playing seemed
to rest within the softer second silence it was congruent with the second
silences qualities again the sounds flowed from the silence.
Gradually the others joined in, and together we negotiated our collective
playing: increasing in dynamic, tempo and intensity, until someone began to
hum, adding melody to our percussive sounds. The hummed response by
another person created a vocal duet over our group percussive sounds, and then,
interestingly, as the music was beginning to move towards increased intensity,
we began to turn towards a silent ending of our piece of music. We commented
on the fact that the long silence afterwards had a totally different feel to the
opening silence.
The students are awed at the uncanny harmony and unity of being in our
moments of playing, as though, by magic, we all knew where the music was
going.
We can explain this by thinking of interactional synchrony group groove,
or group flow. But none of them captures the complexity of attunement by each
of us to one another, and to the group as a whole: we all seemed to know when
to begin as a group and we discussed the fact that Js loud clustered opening
was not taken up by anyone and, with great sensitivity, J did not offer it again, as
though intuitively sensing that the group would not go in this direction. We
could speculate that her personal anxiety forced from her a music that was
authentic to her, as a person, but not to her as a group member: the group music.
Here the group took precedence.
Lets look at another session with the same group, in the following week.
1 You may want to remind yourself of vitality affects in Chapter 6.

Vignette 9d
It is the eight of us again, and this time it is the penultimate day of our
intensive six-day group seminar. This time, each person has an instru-
ment of their choice, and we begin a spontaneous improvisation,
seated on the floor, with our eyes closed.
Very quickly the group finds a group pulse, which is steady and
lacks vitality. Some play rhythmically, others punctuate their playing
with accents, and the improvisation remains flat and lacking in
momentum.
As the group facilitator I sense an underlying quality of different
energy which I cannot quite define,and in my playing I offer something
louder and faster, thinking that this might elicit this underlying energy.
There is no response from anyone in the group, so I offer it again, to
check whether or not my hunch is accurate. Again there is no
response. The improvisation chunters along, and eventually ends.
The feeling in the group is flat, uncomfortable, slightly irritated.
We barely manage to discuss this improvisation. Various group
members volunteer their experience:some called it cosy,gentle,com-
fortable, flowing. Someone volunteers that it was very different to the
last improvisation we did, and then says that it seemed to get stuck. I
then speak of my hunch of another energy, underlying what we did:
something like a hidden flow perhaps?
One person then says that she did hear what I did in my playing,and
decided that she was not going to respond to this. The quality of our
discussion like our playing is going nowhere,and since it is time for
lunch,we end there.I feel tired,heavy and irritated with the students.
It was only the next day that we were able to have a fuller discussion about what
happened in this improvisation. I had been privately wondering whether this
group was in a storming phase (as in Chapters 2 and 18). The student who
spoke of her decision not to take up my musical offering confirmed my hunch.
The flatness and lack of momentum in the group flow felt like a group
depression, and since our six days together were drawing to a close, I also began
to wonder whether this was the beginning of the group closing and saying
goodbye.
In terms of the group flow, what we see here is the group cohesively
entering into a flow that is flat and lacks momentum, and preventing itself from
122 GROUPS IN MUSIC
moving into an underlying flow, which may have had more energy in it. The
point here is that group flow is not necessarily happy and positive there can
be as much flow in a collective fragmentation, unease and even in group
conflict.
But what about when groups do not flow because of a lack of fit amongst
the members themselves? As well see in the last vignette in this chapter, this can
impact on the roles that persons assume either willingly or unknowingly.
9.3 Unflowing roles

Rather than staying with flow and lack of flow in music, the last section of this
chapter considers the impact of one person not flowing and how the facili-
tator addresses this.
Vignette 9e
This is a one-off improvisation group with a group of adults who are
health-care professionals.They have come together as part of a public
presentation on Music-as-Communication, and after the morning of
theory and video presentations,we are doing an after-lunch experien-
tial workshop (a good antidote to the post-prandial somnolence that
usually bedevils this time of the day).
There are six of us: James has two tall congas, Hannah two large
cymbals, Sbongile the bongos, Alfred has the temple blocks, Elena the
chromatic vibraphone and I have the large bass drum. We stand in a
circle, our instruments in the middle, and, at my suggestion, our eyes
are closed. We are waiting for sounds to emerge from us. There is a
strong silence, which increases in intensity and has a slightly hard,
pregnant quality. James bursts into rapid beating on the congas, and
instantly, the rest of the group (bar myself) jump in. James playing has
the same intensity and slight hardness as the silence before the music.
(This silence is what I call the pre-musical silence,which,in my experi-
ence,often signals how the music will sound,eventually.See Pavlicevic
1995.) The group continues playing in rapid, accentuated sforzando
mode, whilst I give the occasional tap on the bass drum.
I begin to feel slightly uncomfortable with the intensity of the
sound texture. I become aware of no space or breathing in the
music. Alfred and Elena stop playing. James continues, while Hannahs
cymbal crashes get louder and faster. Sbongiles bongo playing now
seems to have little connection to James or Hannah. She seems to be
doing her own thing. In fact, all three seem to be in their own musical
world. I become annoyed with James whose loud driven beating is
dominating the group, and realize that I want him to stop. As though
reading my mind, Elena erupts on her vibraphone, with loud, fast and
tight clusters of sounds I have a sense of her challenging James
playing. The others have stopped playing, and there is an air of expec-
tancy in the group as a whole, apart from James who seems oblivious
to the tension surrounding his playing. Suddenly he stops. Elena
continues for a split-second after him and stops. She gives a tight
giggle. Others laugh tensely. James looks calm. I am relieved that the
racket has stopped.
That lasted about four minutes. And a lifetime.
Here is one persons lack of flow that impacts on the groups music, and on the
musical and interpersonal roles that others in the group are forced to assume. In
the group improvisation the pre-musical silence has a hard, expectant quality
about it and from this I already know that the music emerging from this silence
is likely to be tight and to carry the tension of the silence.
James playing is rigid. He continues in the same mode: hard, loud, fast,
which allows nobody else to make inroads, or impressions upon his playing.
Although his playing is organized and predictable, it lacks interpersonal flow:
unable to bend and to negotiate the tempo and intensity with the other
members of the group, he stamps his individual flow on the improvisation. The
rest of the players allow his fast loud beating to dictate and dominate their own
playing, and they follow his lead at first. The group apparently is in the same
groove.
Can we then think of this group as having found the groove? Lets think a
bit more.
What we hear is that the music is insisted upon by James and not co-created
by the entire group. James continues playing, apparently oblivious with little
variation or space for anyone to change what he is doing. His music is impene-
trable, only flowing as a separate entity. The others begin to react, each in his
or her own way. Some stop playing. Some get very loud and fast too. And then
stop. Others do their own thing, as though James or anyone else does not
exist. We see a fracturing of group music, with everyone becoming polarized
apart from one another. There is a distance whose quality is hard and un-
yielding between the players.
In terms of group flow, there isnt any. The players music-making becomes
stuck and rigid. This is unlikely to change. Until in this instance James stops.
124 GROUPS IN MUSIC
In the brief verbal feedback after this improvisation, James had no idea whatso-
ever (surprise surprise) that there was any musical or personal tension in the
group.
(Incidentally, this is from a real life scenario and I only just kept my nerve
during the improvisation. Everything in me wanted to open my eyes and put my
hand on James arm to stop him. Since everyone including the audience had
their eyes closed, nobody would have seen me. However, I desisted and
allowed the group to sort itself out.)
This is a negative scenario of how someone can fix their own perseverative
flow onto the group, and prevent the group from mutually finding their
common groove in music. The group members only experience themselves in a
narrowly defined and imposed music, and eventually lose interest.
9.4 Concluding thoughts

Both this and the previous chapter have described groups in music shifting
rapidly: from chaos to cohesion and, in the last example, shifting towards
becoming constrained by a narrowly imposed flow. The word flow in this
sense is not entirely appropriate, since despite its predictability, the music lacks
flexibility. This disables the rest of the group from realizing themselves through
spontaneous music-making or finding a common groove. Weve also seen that
inherent in any group are sub-groups: their shifts may be very quick, and
position the persons in the group differently in relation to one another and to
you, as group leader.
These examples describe work with ostensibly one group at a time. But
what if there are clearly defined groups at the same time, each with their own
roles and purpose? How do you manage these? Should you even think of
yourself as working with one group or with several? This is the topic of the
next chapter.
CHAPTER 10
Whose Group? Whose Music?

(and Whose Expectations?)
Even though this chapter, once again, describes live-musicking, it is for everyone. I say this
because the very nature of music insists on different roles in groups: in choirs, there are the
different voices in instrumental groups, sub-groups are determined by instruments, and even
the concert performance is made up of different groups: the choir, orchestra, soloists and
audience. This chapter considers the management of various co-existing groups, and also
considers the larger group, outside your own music group work, since this is inevitably
present much of the time, in your mind. Also worth considering is another kind of other
group: that which children, especially, carry in mind: their parents and close family
members. With all of these various groups floating around the room, and in everyones
minds, how cohesive can your group be?
10.1 The cohesive group(s)?
Vignette 10a
It is Saturday morning, which means mothers-and-toddlers music
groups in my attic studio at home. Were well into the session, seated
in a circle. The mums sit on hard floor cushions, and their toddlers
(aged 2024 months) are on the floor, each in front of their mothers.
(There are no dads today!)
This is our fifth session together, and both adults and toddlers are
becoming familiar and comfortable with one another. Weve just
finished a clapping and waving song and I put my bag of bells in front of
me on the floor. There are cries of oooh! and aaaah from the
mothers, as well as Whats that?, What have we got today then?, and
Do we remember? Yes! The bells! Its the bells! and so on. The
mothers convey a sense of interest, excitement and anticipation, and
125
126 GROUPS IN MUSIC
as each child comes towards me, I hand out a bell for mum, and a bell
for you! As the toddlers take the bells, the mums say Thank you Didi
on the toddlers behalf, encouraging the children to thank me as they
receive the bells. Most toddlers return to their mothers with the
bells, but today, Nina toddles across to Jamie and shakes the bells in
his face. He grimaces and turns away. His mum says, Ooo, we dont
feel like a visit today, do we? while smiling at Nina, who continues
shaking the bells in Jamies face. Ninas mum moves towards Nina to
bring her back to her own cushion: Nina, Nina, come on, have you
got my bell? Wheres my bell? Nina ignores her mum and waves the
bells in the air. The entire group watches her.
Gabriel, sitting next to Jamie, begins to look distressed as he sees
Jamie covering his face and turning away from Nina. Gabriels mum
gently takes Ninas arm to turn her away from Jamie towards her own
mum, but Nina shakes her off and moves out of everyones reach. At
this point, I begin to play a rather up-beat version of Shake your bells
to the music, a delightful song by Chris Achenbach. All the mums
shake vigorously and sing. Some toddlers join in, Nina is shaking her
bells while walking around the room, out of my vision but I see
reflected on Ninas mothers face that Nina is all right. Jamies mum is
cajoling Jamie to shake the bells, but he throws them on the floor.
Gabriel stops playing, and is absorbed in Jamies non-playing. His
mother now urges him to shake the bells,taking his arm and shaking it
in tempo to her own shaking. Gabriel starts to moan and wriggle out
of her grasp.
All of this takes place in about 35 seconds of a 30-minute music
session.
There are two distinct groups: mums and toddlers. The mums are invested in
their children participating and enjoying the music. Cries of ooh, and aaah,
greet the packet of bells or whatever other activity is being announced. There
is a collective energy from the mums, on behalf of their toddlers: voicing the
interest and anticipation that they hope their toddlers feel. (I often have a sense
that the mums and I are in cahoots: we, the adults, collude together to entice the
children towards being interested in the instruments, and the activities.) The
toddlers are the focus of our collective interest and attention: we watch them
constantly, ready to encourage them to play, to have fun, to co-operate, and
to perform. This group is harmonious. There is an easy flow between the
adults, as well as fluid shifts from moments when all of us are absorbed in the
WHOSE GROUP? WHOSE MUSIC? (AND WHOSE EXPECTATIONS?) 127
music, to moments when the focus is on the children or a particular child, to

moments when as adults we comment or joke amicably about one of the
childrens actions.
What else goes on in groups such as these? (This next section discusses the
vignette in some detail, so skip it if this has absolutely and emphatically no
relevance at all to your own work.)
10.2 Whose session is this?

The toddlers in the group experience directly their mothers investment in the
music session, and there appears a common focus for the entire group. At the
same time, the mums and their toddlers experience the group differently with
the mothers experiencing a range of group pressures to perform, and anxieties
about the children participating, being disruptive, interfering with another
child, and so on.
Here, in my role as group leader I need to ensure that I allay the mothers
anxieties which are often rather subtle and covert and allow an atmosphere
that is relaxed enough for everyone to feel part of the music, whether or not
they are actually participating.
For example, we see that Gabriels mum takes his arm and shakes the bell on
his behalf, since Gabriel is ambivalent about playing. His mum wants both
herself and Gabriel to be a part of this collective event. She herself does not stop
playing when she shakes his arm: in other words, she too is part of the shaking
bells song, and at the same time, she is not entirely comfortable with him not
playing the bells. As group leader, I am aware of her anxiety especially since
the other children, bar Jamie, are playing, and I need to convey to Gabriels
mum that neither she nor Gabriel needs to play all the time. He can have time
out and she can enjoy herself without him. I can do this by including her bells
in my gaze as I sing the song, and look at each persons instrument as I sing,
conveying that their playing is included in my singing of this song. In other
words, I dont gloss over Gabriel and move on to the next person, just because
he is not playing: I spend the same amount of time watching each child (and
parent), so that they experience my acknowledgement of the importance of
who they are, irrespective of what they are doing or not doing.
Similarly, I need to convey to Jamies mum that it is all right for Jamie to
throw his bells as long as he doesnt hurt anyone in doing so. This can be
tricky to do since Jamies mum might be anxious that her child not be seen to
be uncooperative, especially since everyone else seems absorbed in playing. She
may also be feeling annoyed with Ninas mum for allowing Nina to walk
128 GROUPS IN MUSIC
around after all, it was Nina who set Jamie off in the first place. Again, I need
somehow to include Jamies mum and, critically, not interrupt or stop the song
until everyone plays. This is a common mistake. Rather, by playing and
singing with conviction and commitment, a musical atmosphere is created that
can eventually invite the non-players to play. If this is indeed our aim. In
contrast to the other two mums, Ninas mum is comfortable with Nina walking
around, and appears to play the bells on her own behalf whilst watching Nina
to make sure that she is all right and not annoying or hurting anyone else in the
group.
Nina feels watched and held emotionally and musically by her mums gaze.
By participating on her own behalf, Ninas mum removes any potential pressure
Nina might feel were her mum to wait for Nina to play before she herself shakes
the bells. I keep track of Nina by watching her mothers face since I know that
I will see reflected in her face whether or not Nina is all right. I dont want to
turn around and look at Nina, since by doing so, I shall lose the rest of the group,
held by my gaze and focus.
Id like to suggest that these are the tiny nuances that make or break a
session. If I were to become apprehensive because some children arent playing,
or wait until everyone is ready to play, we would have no session at all! I need to
manage the mothers feelings and anxieties ensuring that they do not feel
personally affronted or like failures because their children do not want to
co-operate or participate. (Here, I am not using these words as part of my
own vocabulary or ethos of group work, but rather as how the mothers might
themselves feel about their childrens participation or lack of it.) At the same
time, I dont focus on a child who is particularly co-operative and delightful,
since another child (or motherchild dyad) will experience this as some kind of
lessening of who they are in the group.
Lastly, it is worth considering that group pressure to participate can be
enormous and unrelenting. Also, in groups such as these there can be an
element of competitiveness (her child is more advanced or better behaved than
mine); or feelings of inadequacy: perhaps someones child is always immacu-
lately turned out another dyad are always late or perhaps two dyads are
friends, and have a special rapport in the sessions, that may feel exclusive. Your
role as group facilitator is to be supportive of all children and mums and
inclusive. If you get the balance right, youll have wonderful sessions! For an
excellent guide to making music with young children, see Julie Wylies book
(Wylie 1996).
Although, as we see, there are several groups at the same time both in the
pre-determined and in the dynamic sense there is a cohesion to this event:
there is a common focus and locus of interest, and a collective effort and mind-
fulness.
Lets take a slightly different scenario.
10.3 The split focus
Vignette 10b The baby centre group

The students on our music therapy programme have a training
placement at the Disabled Babies Centre (DBC).This means that two
students go to the Centre weekly, film their work and then bring their
videos to the weekly supervision sessions where the whole student
group plus two supervisors watch the video together. In this way, the
group of students experience, and learn from, one anothers work.
This week, a student called Jennifer is presenting her group work:
there are four babies all of whom have developmental delay and
each is accompanied by their care-worker. The student group notices
immediately that the care-workers appear unenthusiastic, sullen
almost resentful, and Jennifer says that she finds these sessions very
difficult.She often has no energy in the session,she feels frustrated and
resentful at the carers lack of interest. This makes the physical man-
agement of the babies difficult: the babies aged between six and nine
months do as they please, often crawl around the room, pillage
through the instrument box, roll on the ground, and so on. Jennifers
focus is on the babies, but this is insufficient to hold their attention,
since they need physical support and management, which the carers
are supposed to provide. The carers do provide this but somewhat
perfunctorily. They are distracted, at times chat or signal to one
another all of this cuts across Jennifers attempts at having a group
session.
Jennifer is aware of the carers hostility, their negative attitude, and
in the supervision group, we discuss her plummeting energy. We also
discuss the carers own negativity, possibly their low self-esteem, the
ambiguity of their role in the music therapy session for example,how
much or how little are they supposed to do, and how invisible they
might feel since the emphasis at the Centre is on the babies, and not
on them. Possibly,they feel themselves to be appendages to the babies,
who are their charges. We also discuss the contrast between the
carers and the babies, who are bright-eyed and alert. Jennifer needs
130 GROUPS IN MUSIC
the carers to help at the very least to manage the babies physically.
She would like the carers to be engaged and interested but this
seems a long way off so, at the very least, we talk about addressing
their passive hostility towards her in the session.
Although not the focus of this discussion, by now we know that this scenario
needs to be seen in the context of the institution in which all of this is
happening. As we saw in Chapter 2, institutional dynamics, hierarchies of
power and channels of information are critical to maintaining an open flow and
making your life as uncomplicated as possible. At the end of the day, it is the
clients who suffer if other dynamics interfere with the session itself.
10.4 The hidden group outside

Lets look at the various groups here. There is the group outside this is the in-
stitution, which is present in the session in various ways. In our weekly super-
vision session, what emerges is that Jennifer has never explained to the
care-workers what the session is about, and how she needs their support. Since
she is a student, and dovetailing on someone elses music therapy placement,
she has assumed as have we all that the Centre is well versed with the
goings-on of music therapy sessions, and that the care-workers, therefore, know
their roles.
As in the mothers-and-toddlers session, there are two distinct groups here.
Unlike the mothers-and-toddlers session, however, the two groups do not have
a common focus: in fact, the two groups seem convincingly split, with no in-
vestment from the care-workers in the babies enjoyment or participation in the
music session. In fact, rather the opposite. We could posit that the carers are
themselves in such personal need, that the session presents them with an oppor-
tunity not to be present, mentally or emotionally. The session is possibly a
rest time for them.
How do we address the duality of this event? Incidentally, this
half-fictionalized scenario is one that I have experienced in many different
contexts, with many client groups. The point here is that the two groups seem to
have almost nothing in common apart from being in the same place and time.
Can this, therefore, be thought of as one group? Should Jennifer run a separate
session for the carers, prior to the one of carers-and-babies? Unlikely that the
institution would allow it and, in any case, who would look after the babies
during this time?
In our supervision student group discussion as to how Jennifer might

address this situation, the group agrees that perhaps Jennifer needs to spend the
next session with only the care staff, listening to their experiences and expecta-
tions of the sessions, and also talking about her aims and anxieties. In this way,
we hope, Jennifer and the care-workers might negotiate the roles. But first, we
remembered that Jennifer has to clear this with the rather strict Head of the
DBC.
Vignette 10c
A month later, Jennifers group is in the supervision spotlight once
again, and we begin by asking her how she has been getting on at the
DBC. Jennifer reports on her meeting with the care-workers, which
was somewhat uncomfortable at first.It transpires that on Music Day
the time of the session interferes with the Centres routine, and the
carers lose out on one of their two morning breaks. Also, they then
have to rush through the babies tea-time in order to get them ready
for physiotherapy. The care staff seem unhappy at this state of affairs,
and Jennifer asks for their advice as to what might ease this situation.
At this moment, the atmosphere in the discussion began to lighten,
with the staff suggesting that what would help is if the music session
could be after the babies tea-break.Jennifer agrees to discuss this pos-
sibility with the head of the Centre, who agrees to the change.
As a result of their meeting, Jennifer reports that she now feels
more confident in inviting the carers to contribute songs that they
know from their childhood and from their children.These now form a
slot in the music session. Also, one of the carers has expressed an
interest in playing some of the percussion instruments that Jennifer
brings and although this results in some teasing by the other
care-workers, generally there is more of a sense of their being
included in the session.
At the end of Jennifers report, the student group discusses how
this has become two sessions with two groups, within the format of
one session ostensibly for the babies. What is rather confusing for
the entire group is that they remember attending the DBCs
end-of-year concert as first-year students, and noting how proud the
staff seemed to be of its music input. In fact, the students remember
some of the carers in the video from the end-of-year concert the
previous year.
132 GROUPS IN MUSIC
One of the critical points of this brief vignette is that the institution cannot be
left outside the session: literally, figuratively or emotionally. Its routines, struc-
tures, relationships and power struggles will be present in sessions, in one form
or another. Here, then, is a hidden group, ostensibly outside the session, whose
nuances can impact forcefully on your work. As we saw earlier, organizations
have complex dynamics and unless you are aware of them, and address these
head on, you could be walking into a hornets nest.
10.5 The volunteer group

The vignettes so far present double groups that belong together in the sense
of being a part of a family or of an institution. I now look at another kind of
group whose presence is in some ways more complicated: the volunteer
group.
Vignette 10d
It is time for our weekly Tuesday afternoon outing of profoundly
disabled young adults from a residential home to a Community
Centre in a nearby village.Im responsible for co-ordinating the outing:
negotiating with the care-staff to have the youngsters ready, with the
driver to help load the wheelchairs (rather than reading the local rag
and having a fag); with the Community Centre manager for ensuring
that everything is ready at his end for our music session.
We arrive at the Community Centre,to be met by the enthusiastic
and committed group of volunteers. Each meets their charge, with
whom they have built up enormous rapport and affection over the
year. Soon we are inside the Centre, ready to begin our Music and
Movement session.
The volunteers are enthusiastic, vocal, dedicated and utterly ob-
structive. The session exhausts me, and I find myself becoming
gloomier as the afternoon progresses. This happens each week, and
Im not sure why.
There is no stillness during the session. Theres much laughter,
bouncing the disabled youngsters up and down on the inflatable (in
any case the noise of the inflatable dements me), everyone shrieks
with excitement and a sense of bonhomie. I feel compelled to fit in
with the groups energy; while at other times my sense of loyalty to
music and music-making gets the better of me, and I attempt to
introduce some kind of silence or at least, softer dynamics. This is
usually met with good-natured, affectionate tolerance (shes the

musician now, she knows what shes doing, wed better listen,
sssshhhhhhh) and so on. More loud laughter.
How might we make sense of all of this? The volunteers are enormously good
hearted and supportive, giving of their free time, week after week. Also they
have formed genuinely affectionate bonds with their charges so whats the
problem?
Had I known, then, that the volunteers own needs for recognition, affirma-
tion and support were being voiced rather glaringly, as it happens I might
have been more tolerant, empathic and, critically, I might have made a differ-
ence to this group. Instead, I never resolved the group dynamic; never could
assert myself (in any case I was a lot younger, chronologically and emotionally)
and, to all intents and purposes, it was a successful event, earning us coverage
in the local press and even on regional television.
One way to make sense of tensions in groups is to monitor your own
response and, more than this, to listen to this response. In the two vignettes, the
music-worker has a clear sense of things not working. The student is able to
respond to this feeling by investing time for discussion, reflection and then
putting into action some strategies to clarify and address the problems. The
community musician, above, has no idea that there might be something to be
addressed all she knows is that she dreads the sessions, they seem to undo
her. And she never listens to these feelings.
10.6 Whose music?

In Chapter 5 we thought about the feelings of attachment and of ownership
that many of us have to a particular piece of music or song (well also look at this
in more detail in Chapter 12). In work with double (or multiple) groups,
providing the music for more than one group at a time is complicated, and raises
the question: whose music is this? In the mothers and toddlers group, the mums
are happy to be a part of their childrens music, so that here I can choose
age-specific music and activities. However, the music that I arrange or compose
for these sessions is not just for toddlers: harmonic colour and intensity,
phrasing and rhythmic patterns even in a well-known nursery rhyme can be
harmonically or rhythmically ambiguous enough to be interesting to all in the
group (myself included). For example, a ribbon song which I have composed
involves mums and their toddlers each holding one end of the ribbon, and
during different verses they wriggle the ribbon on the ground, swing it from
134 GROUPS IN MUSIC
side to side, wriggle it like a snake and so on. Critically, the song is upbeat, has
warm harmonies, a lovely melody and is immensely popular. It is one of the
songs that mums always mention if we meet again months or even years after
the sessions. I suspect that its popularity stems from its musical and emotional
capacity to straddle the various groups.
Similarly, with the volunteer group, I adapted well-known songs of the local
genre which everyone knew, to accompany the movements of the volunteers
and disabled young folk. We didnt just blast our way through local folk songs:
these were arranged with great care. From the volunteers comments I knew that
the songs held meaning for them.
In the Disabled Baby Centre, Jennifer invites the care-workers to contribute
songs for the sessions, and this results in a collective pool of music being
generated. By asking them to bring childrens music that they know from their
own lives, she avoids the situation of having to reject some of this music as less
suitable, because it is too explicitly adult, and at the same time creates an oppor-
tunity for all to learn the music of one anothers lives.
In each of these instances, the music chosen or composed managed to
straddle the complexities of having more than one group at a time in a session.
However, at times it is the helpers (whether family, institutional or volunteers)
who need the music to hold meaning for them, because they need to become
more fully engaged in the music, and this may be the way to manage eventually
to knit together the various groups in the session.
I now present a different scenario the concert performance that turned
into an unexpected musical offering.
10.7 The concert performance

Living in South Africa provides an exquisite palette of different musical genres
on a macro-social level, that is both problematic and enriching. Different
social groups are invested in certain genres by collective historical associations
and I have learnt to familiarize myself with the original/traditional/collec-
tively sanctioned contexts before assuming that I can use the music of another
social group. This vignette describes a macro-social convention: the symphony
concert.
Vignette 10e
I have just returned to Johannesburg from a year in Europe, and am
invited to a choral symphony concert as a gesture of re-entry into
Africa. The concert is in the Johannesburg City Hall a splendid
Victorian building with chandeliers and wooden panelling. The
programme includes a work entitled African Symphony by a European
composer who is conducting the performance. On stage is the
symphony orchestra, in traditional concert garb, some African
drummers who (despite the winter chill) are clad in leopard skins,
beads and feathers, and the choir a splendid array of African tradi-
tional colours, with some of the womens head-dresses approaching
the ceiling.
The conductor arrives, and after the rituals of tuning, applauding
and bowing,the work begins.It is a mixture of looped electronic tapes
of bush sounds that include birdsong, animal noises and night sounds
of Africa; the drummers whose magnificent torsos are a visual delight,
plus the orchestra and choirs exemplary Western-African renderings.
The music is unsatisfactory; neither quite African nor interesting
enough as Western art music, and I feel restless, my attention
watching the choir and the drummers, rather than listening to the
music.
At the end of the concert, we applaud, the orchestra and choir
bow, and we begin to rise from our seats, collecting our scarves and
coats.
Suddenly the hall erupts, and we look up, startled, to see that the
choir is in the throes of something like an ecstatic trance, swaying and
clapping, stamping and singing in a deep full-throated sound that is
utterly riveting. The city hall vibrates with the astonishing energy
nothing like the African Symphony and the audience too begins to clap
and (genteelly) sway.
The choir collects us all in thrilling raw energy. While clapping,
stamping, swaying and singing and whistling, with increasing energy, I
notice with some astonishment, that the orchestral musicians
continue wiping their instruments,chatting to one another,folding the
music and walking off. Then three fellows in overalls walk onto the
emptying stage and begin moving the Steinway Grand. I feel hysterical,
as though I am dreaming: the choir, by now, is streaming off the stage
136 GROUPS IN MUSIC
and down the aisles, scooping us all into its magic whilst, apparently,
the musicians do not hear or see or feel this music. We return to
our cars excited and energized, and I finally feel truly back in Africa.
So what was going on? Perhaps the orchestral musicians felt that the
spontaneous African music was not part of the (social convention that is the)
concert, or part of their reality as to what constitutes music. This music
apparently did not belong to them. Their job was done. How depressing.
Perhaps, for the choir, (and certainly for my friends and me) the real music
began after the concert. Here was music that felt authentic and although
unfamiliar to us in sound or words it included us: we were expected, and
invited to be part of it, in that exquisitely generous and irresistible African way.
And yet, my friends and I are not African it was not really our music. So why
did this feel so irresistible and warming on this chilly Joburg night?
Not only were there different groups (and groupings) at the concert:
obvious ones like the orchestra, choir and drummers; the collection of folk on
the stage and the audience in the hall; but the music also created distinctive
social boundaries. During some of the performance, we all became one group:
attentive playing, listening, creating the event as one. During other parts of the
music say when it was the drummers and the choir only the orchestra joined
the audience in listening. At other times, the audience seemed fragmented in its
listening. And so on. After the concert, another grouping emerged: those who
entered into the spontaneous choral ecstasy, and those who ignored it. These
two groups cut across the conventional groupings of whos who in the concert
arena and, critically, this other music managed to turn some of the listeners
(i.e. the audience) into active musicians.
Also, although the music was not mutually negotiated, in the sense that the
music belonged to the choir, rather than to the audience, the harmonic,
rhythmic and melodic groove had enough latitude and flexibility as well as
enormous driving energy to allow us to become part of it. What a privilege!
What splendid (and kind) nose-thumbing at that archaic arrogance that
assumes that one musical genre, with all of its social resonances, can be
imported and plonked directly into another.

This tale carries various messages. We began the chapter by exploring the com-
plexities of the multi-group both external and systemic to the group and
noting that the two are not necessarily identical. We also considered distinct
groups as defined by institutionally defined roles, group roles and by the nature
of the musical activity. We also noted that roles and sub-groups generally ebb
and flow, creating different boundaries within the (whole) group, and that you
need to be alert to some of the roles (and boundaries) being implicit and not
always known to the members themselves. The challenge is for you, as group
leader, to use the fault lines creatively. In other words, dont make these into a
problem but, if you can (and if the group allows you to), into a celebration of
diversity. Finally Ive dipped into a conventional social ritual the symphony
concert that seems to miss a nerve: weve touched on who the music
belongs to, and for whom it feels authentic and false. This as well discuss
again in Part III is not always predictable.
A theme that is emerging throughout this section of the book is that every
group musical event is a microcosm of society: people coming together for a
specific purpose. The regular, ongoing meetings of people generate human rela-
tionships, and also group habits. The next section considers the role and place
of habits that have emerged spontaneously in your work together. I reframe
these as rituals with the emphasis on a small r in order to acknowledge the
social emphasis and undertow of groups in music.
CHAPTER 11
Group Rituals
If we understand music groups as described in this book as micro-societies, each with

their social hierarchies, norms, values and beliefs, then it makes sense that the groups develop
their own social rituals over time that become important to a particular group. These
emerge from that combination of people who meet regularly, and may be a variation of the
wider social context as well as the disciplinary context and, within that, the specific
purpose of the groups coming together.
Here, though, we need to pause a moment to consider that any discipline, whether music
education, special education, community music, church choral conducting, orchestral re-
hearsals or music therapy, is a social convention that reflects the values, norms and beliefs of
its founding members, as well as codes of conduct that are a combustion of society at large
plus the social microcosm that is the specific context. Thus, while it may be usual for a
church choir to begin rehearsals with a prayer, this might be viewed as out of place in a
secular music education context. In fact, if someone assumed that praying opened such a
meeting (because of their own social conventions), they might well be breaking the taboos
that belong to this specific social context. Similarly, music therapists trained in the
Nordoff-Robbins approach who worked in special education in the early days of this
approach, often opened their sessions with a greeting song, which for a time became part of
the collective conventions of the sessions.
Your music appreciation groups are as likely to develop their own rituals (e.g. offering
mints at the beginning of your session), as is your music class. One group of primary school
children with whom I once worked always removed their blazers at the beginning of our
class. This was done ceremoniously, with the blazers neatly piled in a corner (usually by the
bossiest girl in the class). After this, the children assembled near me, which I took as a signal
that the music could begin. This chapter is brief, touching lightly on the profundity and
magic of music in groups.
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GROUP RITUALS 139
11.1 Social rituals and group music

Christopher Small defines rituals as A means by which we experience our
proper relation with the pattern which connects, the great pattern of the mind.
(1998, p.13). While Small is a musicologist rather than a sociologist, his defini-
tion is apt, and sufficiently abstract for us to consider it in a variety of ways.
World religions generally provide socially sanctioned collective rituals that
give us a sense of belonging to an inherited traditional culture. These rituals
help us to experience various aspects of (social) human living: being ill, recov-
ering, being born, married or divorced and dying. There are times when groups
of people need to address and experience some kind of collective ritual in order
to address the very issue that generated them as a group in the first instance. In
other words I am thinking of a collection of people who have, by chance,
undergone a similar experience (e.g. a train crash), who may not have been a
group at all before this incident. I am also thinking of staff groups, for example,
who after a collective traumatic event experience themselves as another kind of
group. Here, some kind of ritual may help to re-image the event, to experience
a recreating of it in order to be able to manage it in the rest of their lives espe-
cially where a religious ritual is inappropriate for all kinds of cultural/
social/ethnic sensibilities.
Incidentally, the notion of ritual is not limited to something religious or
with spiritual overtones; nor is it limited to having a specific task, determined by
the group or the event. Sociologists explain that most social groups generate
group rituals in one or other form: think of the graduation ceremony at insti-
tutes of higher education; the prize-giving ceremony at the end of the school
year; the closing dinner at the end of conferences or as Christopher Small so
brilliantly describes the symphony concert. I also make a distinction here
between those group rituals that are socially prescribed (or socially sanctioned)
and those that emerge spontaneously, and that we might miss if we dont pay
attention.
11.2 Emerging rituals in group music

In the mothers-and-toddlers group described in Chapter 10, one ritual that has
emerged over our weeks together is the time it takes to collect and hand out the
instruments. This began in session two, when one of the toddlers received an in-
strument from me and their mum said Taaa say taa to Didi for the bell. This
has led to other mums saying something similar, the toddlers beginning to
thank me until this has become a regular feature of this group. What has dis-
tinguished this as a ritual rather than just a regular behaviour is that it
140 GROUPS IN MUSIC
seems to carry significant meaning for all in the room. I heard and felt this
meaning from the start, and made space for it accordingly. This then
developed further, with the toddlers collecting two instruments from me and
then handing one to their mums. The toddlers thank me and are, in turn,
thanked by their mothers as they receive their bells. This thanking has now
become part of receiving and returning the instruments instigated by the
mothers. It is one of the recurring moments in all the sessions often a point of
rest in between activities, a point that links different musical activities as well as
drawing a distinction between them.
We see here the toddlers being inducted, so to speak, into one of the
pervasive social rituals: of receiving, thanking, handing out and being thanked.
Another emerging group-specific ritual in the volunteer group vignette
(Vignette 10d) was the removing of shoes, anoraks and scarves at the beginning
of sessions, and their retrieving at the end. The quality of group energy here was
different, and I listened closely, and learned to allow time and space for this
each week. In other words, the social ritual is not formal or stylized. However,
most groups develop their own often in very subtle ways. Your sensitivity to
these moments especially when these recur can make a remarkable differ-
ence to the quality of your sessions. Although folk may not notice these
moments, they will have a sense that something special is happening.
Incidentally, choirs and orchestras have their own rituals (without labouring
the point or psychologizing these). Listen out for them. Orchestral tuning is one
of them: that moment when you and your instrument connect, and you all
gather yourselves for the performance there is a frisson of expectation, a gal-
vanizing of energy both in the orchestra and the audience, a respectful listening
by everyone.
11.3 Developing a ritual

There are times, though, when as musicians we may be pivotal for the collective
social need for a ritual specific to that time, place and those persons. In the
vignette below my role as musician was pivotal, although I had no idea how the
ritual would develop.
GROUP RITUALS 141
Vignette 11a
Living in South Africa during the run-up to the first democratic elec-
tions in 1994 was immensely tense, fraught and frightening. At the
time, I was temping for a youth organization, doing logistical support
for a National Youth Conference. Joe, a young man from Soweto, was
murdered soon after I left in one of those pointless random acts of
violence that plunged most of his colleagues into darkness. I heard,
through friends, that staff were afraid to return to work because Joes
ghost was around: they would not go into his office, people were
depressed, becoming ill, not turning up for work and so on. After a
sleepless night of trying to deal with this dreadful event, I called the
director of the organization and suggested that we do a group ritual,
as a healing, grieving and cleansing experience. I felt rather sensitive
about this, as someone no longer part of the organization. She,
however,encouraged me to pursue this,while promising to check with
her staff as to whether or not they felt this was appropriate.
Meantime, since I felt rather ill-equipped to plan the ritual alone, I
approached Simon, a Methodist minister who lives in Soweto, and
whose intuitions I trust. (Incidentally, I did not approach Simon
because he is a minister but rather because he lives in Soweto and
manages to straddle the cultures of that city as well as that of
Western psychological thinking.)
Together we planned a group event, and I then called the director
to run through what Simon and I had discussed. The staff group was
very keen to do this, especially as they knew me (and they also knew
that I was a music therapist). The appointed day came, and we all
assembled in Joes office, seated in a circle around his desk. Each of us
lit a candle and placed it on Joes desk. The ritual had four sections,
each punctuated by a piece of recorded music that we felt reflected a
quality and texture of feeling to do with each stage.
It didnt quite work this way.
We began with each of us saying what Joe had meant to us as
colleague and friend which for some people became an occasion for
voicing their feelings of guilt about having had feelings of envy, enmity
and aggression towards him.After this the group spontaneously began
to sing a hymn rendering the recorded music unnecessary. The next
two sections allowed each of us to speak of how we would miss him
142 GROUPS IN MUSIC
and here people spoke of missing the sound of his voice, his eccentric
dress, his mannerisms, his wisdom, his love for Shakespeare and
what we needed to do to bid him farewell. Again there was sponta-
neous singing that was profound, grave, sorrowful and imbued with
gravitas, which Simon and I held, by allowing the grief and sorrow to
be expressed. Finally, the ritual shifted to how we would celebrate
him and the groups singing here had a different texture and colour.
Simon and I knew that the energy of the group had shifted.
We closed the prepared part of the ritual with each one of us sym-
bolically extinguishing our candle, as a sign of sending Joes spirit on its
way and,as we sat silently and watched the smoke rise in the room,the
group began to sing a song in the local vernacular with gentle and deep
intensity. Some of us did not know the song, and joined in, humming
and harmonizing. The music continued, over and over again, with the
singing changing as each cycle of the song was revisited.
The singing ended and there was silence.
Someone then said something and everyone burst out laughing.
We opened some bottles of wine and beer,and began the final ritual,of
celebrating ourselves as a group without Joe.
This event provided a focus for the group to share their emotions around their
individual and collective relationships with Joe, as colleague and friend, and to
begin life anew as a group now that he was no longer present. The event was an
emotional catharsis, enabled through careful planning and critically flexible
execution of the plan (we did not use the pre-recorded music that we had
prepared, and the ritual took almost three hours we had anticipated two).
Also in terms of the discussions on aims and briefs in Part I of this book
Simon and I discussed our brief very carefully, checked several times that our
aims were in accordance with the staff groups needs, and ensured that the
director also briefed the staff group clearly about the purpose of this one-off
session.
Our planning and flexibility enabled the group to feel held by myself,
Simon and the music although not in the way that we had anticipated (the
group sang their own songs, rather than us playing musical recordings). Also,
despite the high level of emotional charge in the room, which at times spilled
into tears and sobbing, there was a sense of collective anchoring: Simon and I
were both inside and outside the group, able to be present in a calm and clear
way, and not becoming drawn into the levels of group hysteria which at times
we were well aware of. The latter is critical since the group needed us as
GROUP RITUALS 143
beacons who were both a part of, and also not a part of them: hence the need
for outside facilitators. Had one of the staff group led the ritual, the chances of
this event becoming fragmented would have been higher. Also, Simon and I,
through our respective training and experience, knew that we could, between
us, manage the feelings in the room and had talked this through at length
when planning.
Pivotal to this ritual was the music. Equally pivotal was our flexibility in
ditching what we had prepared! (I cannot stress this enough!) The act of
singing familiar and communal hymns was a chalice for collective feelings of
grief. The melody, words and the colour of each of the songs were profoundly
moving, moving us towards one another, towards the spirit of Joe and towards
our deepest sense of collective presence. Here is a group recreating itself:
creating a sense of new identity and community, after the loss of one of its
members.
Critical, also, is that this ritual was not imposed on the group. It was
suggested, and then left to the group to decide whether or not and how they
wanted a group event to deal with their loss. Obviously, the setting of norms
was a far more implicit affair than that described earlier in the chapter as was
the evaluation. Simon and I got together after this, to de-brief one another,
and also gauge whether we missed anything. We also spoke with the director
a further way of assessing and evaluating, albeit in an informal way.
11.4 Imposing rituals (at your own risk)

The next vignette describes a group ritual that was to some extent imposed,
and highly problematic, although, in the end, our initial hunch for imposing
it proved to be correct.
Vignette 11b
A group of us once worked in the arts in the psycho-geriatric wards of
a local hospital. The staff dynamics were horrendous: the nurses
resented anyone doing therapy stuff and luckily, those of us at the
butt of their aggressive feelings and splendid sabotaging of every single
session, formed a support group. The medical staff was disinterested
in the wards, and the hospital administration, although supportive of
the arts therapies, had little energy to address the complex problems
on the ward.Our support group decided,partly as a result of our own
feelings of bleakness in this arid emotional landscape, to do a
Christmas ritual, knowing full well that we would meet obstacles
144 GROUPS IN MUSIC
along the way. This was negotiated rather carefully and we persuaded
the hospital administration as well as the nursing matron to allow us
to go ahead.
We invited family members, brought our own friends and family
(since we felt the need for some moral and musical support), sheet
music and lots of candles (which needed to be cleared with hospital
administration because of fire regulations).
On the appointed evening, we processed, singing and holding
candles, along the long ward corridor and gradually the nurses em-
barrassment and diffident attitude softened. At the end of the singing
of carols, we all had some sherry and mince pies, and there was some
rather guarded dancing that gradually got livelier on experiencing the
enthusiasm of patients, family and friends.
It was an unexpected transformation and not an easy one. Also,
whilst our ritual was moderately successful, it did not have the
long-lasting effects that we had rather naively hoped for. We were not
invited to repeat it the following year, and neither did we have the
energy to go through all the bureaucracy involved in preparing it.
Events such as these are potentially enriching, on many levels historical,

cultural, social, musical, personal. They can be transformative for a group,
generating feelings of bonding and belonging as well as an experience of
sacredness which does not always have to be religious or especially serious.
Also, in multicultural societies, there are religious sensitivities and levels of
tolerance, and one way to think about this is to negotiate a ritual with the group
(or institution, as in this case) that sidesteps cultural and social prescriptions.
11. 5 Concluding rites

Without wishing to sound precious or sanctimonious, it is my experience that
our work as group musicians often confronts us with a sense of something other,
that we cannot altogether fathom. Working in Africa has taught me that the
sacred does not necessarily belong inside religious institutions (in fact in such
places this is often spectacularly absent). African societys openness to the inex-
plicable and the immaterial has alerted me to the sacred that exists in the
generally secular work that we do.
A very ordinary group session in a secular setting can suddenly change to a
magical moment. Most times we hold this magic in the stillness of our listening,
but there are times when we may have to act, in order to institute it. This is not
GROUP RITUALS 145
always easy to do, nor simple to execute but if you have a strong sense (and
can check this out with colleagues) then do it! You run the risk of being
rejected, and of meeting utterly convincing reasons as to why your idea is non-
sensical why dont you just stick to your brief? Well, as we know, music does
not always obey the laws of reason, and often, reason is infinitely enriched
bywhy, music of course!
CHAPTER 12
Live Meanings Listening to Music
The last chapter touched on the generating of collective and social rituals; and this chapter
begins with a natural follow-on, looking at standard social rituals of modern societies:
these include the concert performance, the church service, social rites that include baptisms,
weddings and funerals. As all musicians, at one or other times, are called to select music for
any one of these social rituals and also, at times, to perform or else lead these, this chapter
concludes with exploring the complexities of selecting music for groups. The emphasis in
this chapter is on how musical experiences become personally meaningful, both individu-
ally and collectively.
12.1 Music and social context
Vignette 12a: Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan from Pakistan at

Barbi-khan in London-stan
The Master glides onto the stage with his followers: the audience
erupts into ecstasy,whistling,shouting,weeping and swaying on its feet.
And subsides instantly. He sits, on the stage floor, this vast garlanded
man, cross-legged, solidly soft the harmonium drones, the tabla
ripples, and the masters singing begins to sway, pull, cajole and tease.
The fire of his music trickles towards us and is emptied into the
audience, which gasps, moans, claps and sways unbearably, until he
retreats the music from us and we become limpid, still, our passions
cool. His hands shape the song, moulding, weaving, receiving it from us
and turning it away the audience moans and raises its hands, stands
begging for the music to return.He tosses it suddenly into the horizon,
we swoon. He retrieves it at the last moment, drawing us all into a
volcanic pulse in which we clap,sway,moan,click our fingers,becoming
this voluptuous mass.
146
LIVE MEANINGS LISTENING TO MUSIC 147
I understand neither the music nor a word of high Urdu, and am

part of the mass ecstasy whilst also being a voyeur. Our charming Sikh
neighbours explain at the interval that the master is singing Ghazzals,
for which he is world renowned. The Barbican has pulled out all the
stops the audience is attired in traditional glistening dress. My
companion and I have come directly from work and feel ashamed of
our everyday London work garb.The smell of samosas is irresistible.
Here is music that means in very different ways for different folk in the
audience. These multiple knowings and meanings seem to conflagrate into a
massively bonding collective human event. Lets try and make sense of this.
First of all, there are highly specific, culturally embedded codes of meaning
to do with the Ghazzals, the high Urdu epic love-poetry that much of the
audience knows. They join in noisily at times, and quietly at others this feels
like a specific regional knowing from which some like ourselves are
excluded. At the same time, we are drawn into the collective social ritual, which
is one where audience participation is expected and anticipated by the
musicians. Here is the direct physical and emotional impact of the music on
everyone present, even if its genre and associations are unfamiliar to some of us.
The music impacts on us directly, together with the audiences moans, swoons,
cheers, howls and hushings the last seem to have to do with the musical
grammar and verbal narrative of the songs. Even though my companions and I
miss the nuances of collective embodied musical meaning, we feel included
indeed how could we not be drawn into the massive musical energy around us!
However, the opposite might have happened: we could have found
ourselves watching, listening, bemused and uncomprehending; we could have
felt excluded from the inner sanctum of the concert. Why did this not happen
instead?
Social music psychologists inform us that the older we get and the more we
accumulate knowledge about our own music, the more we begin to look
around, so to speak, and collect an understanding of musical genres less
similar to those of our own culture. Thus, while I cannot pretend to be knowl-
edgeable about the nuances of the music of the Indian sub-continent, I have
heard some recordings as part of my musical history, and am able to make some
kind of sense of the music itself. It is not totally unfamiliar in sound, although
the entire event from which the music can hardly be separated collects my
friend and me into its voluptuous hysteria.
There is also the exaltation of being part of a huge collection of people that
becomes as one in the moment: this oneness is formed by both the performers
148 GROUPS IN MUSIC
and the audience. All seem to be a part of the music, and we all experience a
profound human experience of collective intimacy of managing to be of one
mind and soul in music even though the music and its narrative content
remain outside our ken.
We also see here that unlike the Western ritual of the classical music
concert, the distinction between performers and audience is spurious. We are in
the midst of the music we are part of its being created, so that we both experi-
ence a musical adventure, a letting go of musical expectations and the social
norms that we usually associate with being at the Barbican. Here is another way
of being and the friendly coercion of the group the audience invites my
companion and me to become part of this. We experience human inclusivity,
generated by the music.
Also, there is the spectacle, the theatre of the occasion: I am riveted by the
Masters arm and hand movements as he sings. He is a large solid man, and his
movements are elegant, graceful through watching them I have a sense of un-
derstanding the music. I thrill with delight at this most sensuous experience
that appeals to all of my senses.
As to the music itself, I can barely remember it. I have difficulty imagining
it in my mind. It probably went on a bit with a liquidity that ebbed and
flowed. I remember the pieces being very long. When I listen to my CD of
Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn, I am not sure that the music itself really engages me,
until I remember the concert. Also, as I write of the concert, now, I recall the
totality of the event: the lighting of the Barbican foyer, the early spring chill
outside, the smell of perfume and food, the frisson of excitement, the children
running around, the delightful young men sitting next to us in the audience,
and their patient explanation of some of the epic poems.
Finally, this event was a social affair. The musicking of everyone within that
concert hall was electrifying and powerfully cohesive, and gave each of us an
other experience of ourselves; one that has become part of our personal and
social identity.
That was an exceptionally powerful and positive cohesive social experience,
generated by music in which, curiously, the distinction between performers and
listeners was physically set. There was a space for musicians (the stage) and
another for the audience. Lets now look at another event which turned out
to be a less happy one, despite its assumptions of unity and human bonds.
Vignette 12b
It is Evensong at Keble College in Oxford,at the end of the second day
of the Music Therapy World Congress. Like many others, I am
assembled with them in a beautiful chapel,and awed by the history and
tradition of the splendid architecture and the ambience. Part of the
service is sung by the choir, and there are three hymns which all of us
are invited to sing. Immediately distinctive sub-groups begin to form:
some people know the hymns very well and sing these loudly. To
others, the hymns are familiar, and they bumble along, following the
words,and managing to keep going,except where,every now and then,
their voices swoop in the wrong direction. Others are not Eng-
lish-speaking, so they hum or sing the hymns wordlessly. Others, again,
are totally silent, and are not even looking at the words in the Order
of Service pamphlets.
In contrast to the previous vignette, here, confusingly, is an event that

apparently emphasized the social and cultural differences between the various
groupings in the congregation. In fact, the music itself generated the
sub-groups, since, up until that time, we had all been music therapists attending
the World Congress. Some folk had a strong sense that the hymns belonged to
them (and to their culture), and made the point emphatically by singing
loudly. At the same time, some felt partly in and partly outside that culture;
whilst others were rendered emphatically outside, through not knowing either
the tune or the words: they were disowned by the music. Others still were not
of the Christian faith, and viewed the event as a theatrical performance.
These two vignettes convey a simple and powerful point: that music can
both make us feel a part of the group, and just as easily, very much outside the
group. Whether we find ourselves inside or outside, there is clearly something
about the act of musicking together that creates a group feeling as anyone who
has ever attended a public pop concert will know. Lets now think about how to
select music for events and how it might hold meaning for different people at
the same time.
12.2 Whose music? (And whose meaning?)

If youre presenting a programme for a musical appreciation group; or having to
select music for a social ritual of whatever kind, it may be helpful to consider
what the music might mean for the listeners and players. We saw in another
150 GROUPS IN MUSIC
part of this book that certain songs or pieces of music have strong associations
with folk who experience a sense of ownership: it is their song or their piece of
music. Lets now think about the different aspects to do with music, dealings
and meanings.
It may be useful to begin by reminding ourselves that most high-
functioning children as well as musically untrained adults can make sense of
music, by being a part of a social culture. Thus, children are able to distinguish
between well-formed and ill-formed musical sequences (Sloboda 1985), while
untrained adults are able to reproduce folk melodies (Sloboda and Parker 1985
in Sloboda 1999). Most of us, it seems, are able to make sense of music for
ourselves, so to speak, without having to study music formally, unless it falls
outside grammar and syntax with which we are familiar. Here, other aspects
emerge that render music meaningful that have more to do with the emotional
associations of the music in terms of the time, place or context in which we ex-
perienced it.
For a start, we cannot assume that the music of our culture (whatever that
means in these unhomogeneous days) will hold similar meanings and
enjoyment for those of different ages, ethnicities, geographical regions or social
class. At the same time, the converse also stands: thus we cannot assume that just
because you and I are of different ages and ethnicities and live in different parts of
the world, we will not have common musical tastes. Here is a paradox of musical
experience: that both universal and culture-specific meanings co-exist (Becker
2001), and that music means in complex, multilayered ways. Thus, the
meanings that we imbue with music are both highly individual, socially con-
structed and culturally nuanced, as well as being live, ongoing and unfolding.
The choice of musical material for group work needs to be considered
carefully: at the very least, music with powerful national or tribal associa-
tions (like anthems, football songs, traditional wedding or funeral or military
music) is difficult for listeners to divorce from those collective and usually
time-specific associations. Personal experiences and associations may, however,
override the traditional, inherited collective meanings.
Here, teaching refugee groups the traditional songs of their host countries
begins to make sense: offering those in exile some insights into the host
cultures, and tiny experiences of being a part of another culture. At the same
time, by singing their own songs from home, refugees and exiles can retain a
sense of their own, familiar culture and tradition, and of belonging to a certain
part of the world. Similarly, in group work in a multicultural nation like South
Africa, there are a few songs that all groups know, which can create a bonding
effect for the group. Conversely, if a group begins a song that is highly cul-
ture-specific like a more obscure Xhosa song in a group made of up four or

five different ethnic groups then the group experiences exclusion rather than
inclusiveness.
So how do we choose music for groups?
First of all, you need to think about whether you, as group leader, can really
think about selecting music for group listening before you have a sense of who
1
group members are. Id like to suggest that especially in early stages of
longer-term group listening work, it may be useful to ask group members to
bring their own music, and to share with the group why they have selected a
particular piece of music. This can be a way of gaining some insight and famil-
iarity with folks musical culture, which can then inform your own choices for
listening for that group.
Below are some examples drawn from a group whose members are taking
turns at presenting their musical biographies: an excellent way of getting a feel
for peoples musical tastes, and of introducing themselves to the rest of the
group. Each vignette signals different kinds of meanings usually generated by
the way the person talks about the piece they have chosen.
12.2a Prescribed meaning
Vignette 12c
Carla2 tells us a fable to do with an old monks unrequited love for a
beautiful woman;a love that he expresses in designing beautiful cathe-
drals throughout Europe. After his death, she finds one of his letters
instructing her to sit in one of his buildings and listen to a specific piece
of music, which will speak to her of his feelings towards her. The
music that Carla plays us is an extract from Mozarts Horn Concerto.
Most of the group know this music, but the content of Carlas story imbues the
groups listening with specific images. The group imagines the beautiful woman
alone in a cathedral, the music echoing through the gallery, and barely hear the
Horn Concerto as that. Or as anything else. The groups listening is tightly
1 Here, obviously I am not thinking of Guided Imagery in Music which, as touched on very
briefly, is a highly specialized field of music therapy and music listening, based on many
years of research and analysis of clients responses. In GIM, generally it is the therapist that
chooses.
2 All names have been altered to protect privacy.
152 GROUPS IN MUSIC
guided and prescribed by Carlas story, and the music becomes almost a
mysterious message, to be decoded.
This is an example of how introducing a piece of music can focus the way
that folk will listen and think about the music, not unlike the practice of visual-
ization, in which listening is guided by words spoken before or during the
listening rather similar to the programme notes of a concert programme, and
to the Western tradition of programmatic music.
Vignette 12d
Sally is in her early twenties, and has selected one song to make a
statement about her life,since she does not feel that her life has been
in sequential stages. The words of the song, she explains, portray
something of her love of animals, her spiritual life, her close and happy
family life and also her life as a student.
We listen to the words of the song, which are indeed about life being a mystery
and a journey. None of the group has listened to the music. The words say it all.
A similar point can be made here, in the sense that lyrics can dominate the
listeners attention, and in selecting songs (rather than instrumental music) for
public occasions, the content of words needs careful thought. In each of these
two instances, the music carries a specific message. Both meanings are literal:
Sallys song presents verbal and referential meaning so that the listeners do
not necessarily need to decode the meaning of the music; and, in fact, they do
not need the music at all. Carlas story carries a message of love which
although not literally spelled out in the music, is created by the preamble to the
music-listening. For the listeners, it is rather difficult to disassociate the music
from the story, although here we need to be careful: this association may be un-
convincing for some listeners, who may lose interest in the music.
12.2b Episodic meaning
Vignette 12e
Heather chooses to present her life in four stages. Childhood is a
happy time with much fun, laughter and playfulness. She plays an
extract from Peter and the Wolf sung in her native tongue. We laugh as
we listen to the musics light humour. She then plays an excerpt from
The Four Seasons to symbolize her last years at school, which were
structured,predictable and socially safe,with her friends and social life.
The next piece of music is heavy rock it has a hard, head-butting

quality. This, she tells us, is about her loneliness during her gap-year in
a small English village, where she knew nobody and felt alienated and
acutely uncomfortable socially. She is now an undergraduate univer-
sity student, which she experienced, at first, as a vast, fluid world,
where shes had to find and create her own social structure. She plays
a soft melodic rock song that, she says, is about her feelings that life as
a student is friendly and flowing.
Here we have episodic associations. The music chosen has meanings for
Heather by having coincided literally with a certain part of her life: the fun,
light childhood years; the safe, predictable school years; the lonely isolation,
and more recently, the fluidity of being a student. Presumably she also heard
and listened to other music at any of these phases of her life, but these others
were not the choices she made to bring to the group.
12.2c Grammatical meaning

Susan, a group member, talks of finding Prokofieff s Peter and the Wolf music de-
lightful: complex, lyrical, unexpected and brilliantly orchestrated. She is a
violonist, and has assimilated skills to do with recognizing grammatical virtu-
osity. At the same time, she says that the Four Seasons is a turn-off . She finds it
simplistic and repetitive, predictable and cannot understand why it is such a
popular piece.
Here we see someone who is skilled at reading and decoding musical
grammar, and whose enjoyment of music is based on the structural content and
relationships within music. Music that has become too familiar as music psy-
chology has shown loses its power to arouse our interest; similarly, music that
is too complicated structurally, or too simple, also fails to sustain our interest. In
the first instance we lose interest because we cannot make sense of it; while in
the latter, we lose interest because we already know how it works.
12.2d Direct meaning

When Heather was presenting her music, she mentioned that she recently
reheard the hard rock music her third musical choice in the vignette above
on the radio while doing something else. She had not been listening attentively
to the radio, but became aware of a hard tight knot in her stomach (and holds
her tummy as she says this to us). This feeling in her tummy shifted her attention
to the radio, and she now found herself listening rather than hearing the
154 GROUPS IN MUSIC
music. The act of listening re-evoked her physical and emotional sensations of
that time.
Here is what musicologists call an indexical experience: where music affects
us immediately and viscerally, apparently bypassing our grammatical under-
standing of it. As well as being the result of direct visceral impact, this kind of
response may be also based on episodic associations: Heather was unhappy
when first she heard that music, and on rehearing it, she re-experiences physical
symptoms to do with that time and place.
12.2e Iconic and symbolic meaning
Vignette 12f
Paula opens with a fast, shifting movement from a Bach Brandenburg
Concerto.This reminds her of her busy frenetic life as a student activist
at university and high school, where she was forever juggling three or
four different lives at the same time. As a social worker, she did an in-
ternship in an isolated rural community, which she found very difficult
as a woman and as an educated person. She lost her voice for some
weeks while she was there (literally could not speak) and felt it to be
symbolic of losing her voice as a woman and as a professional. She
plays us a recording of exquisite improvised organ music to symbolize
her loss of voice, explaining to us that she usually associates organ
music with singing in church.Now as a professional woman engaged in
vibrant, busy and challenging work, she has a sense of various threads
of her life being drawn together. She plays a recording of the Hilliard
Ensemble and Jan Gabarek: the mixture of voices and the saxophone
are an image of the complex drawing together of her lifes threads.
Here is music whose internal qualities reflect the forms and qualities of life
itself, which musicologists call iconic meaning: in other words, we recognize
something in the music as resembling in this case Paulas descriptions,
because of the similarity of form between them. The fast shifting Bach portrays
the fast shifting threads of her life, while the complex musical textures of the
Garbarek recording portray the complicated threads of her life. However, there
is more to the musics meaning than a reflection of her life. Paula also selects
music that has symbolic meaning. Here, the organ music symbolizes a time of
her life when she lost her voice, but had Paula not told the group this, nothing
in the music itself would have conveyed her loss of voice. The form of the
organ music does not resemble someone without a voice, in the way that the
Brandenburg movement resembles the form of the quick shifting busy-ness of
Paulas life.
12.2f Episodic meaning and associations for listeners
Vignette 12g
Finally, Jake plays us the first movement of Dvorjaks New World
Symphony which he heard at the time of his mothers death. It was
playing on the radio, and this piece of music has always reminded him
of that time of her life. More recently, he heard this work at a concert,
performed by the youth orchestra in which his daughter plays the
violin. Jake speaks of having enjoyed the youthfulness of the players,
and of feeling great pride in his daughter. It was only long after the
concert,when he was going to sleep that he remembered that this was
the piece of music that he had always associated with his mothers
death.
This is similar to Heathers reasons for selecting her music: there is a

coincidental and synchronous coming together of that piece of music and the
time of his mothers death, that imbued this piece of music with specific
meaning for him. At the same time, the meaning is shifting for him: another
episodic coincidence, this time of his daughter performing the work, imbues
this piece with a different meaning for him, so that in the future, the New World
will have more than one set of meanings.
Jakes experience as listener at a symphony concert prompts a group discus-
sion about the pieces of music. Someone in the group says that the New World
Symphony was one of his first orchestral experiences as a music student. As he
was listening to it, he recalled that time of his life, and remembered suddenly
that a student friend from that time was gravely ill. He had forgotten to call her
family, and now felt a sense of guilt and urgency to act upon remembering to
call her. Carla concurs with Susans comments about the Four Seasons having
become rather a bore, so that while listening, she found herself not hearing the
music at all, but rather, listening to her own thoughts about family friends
whose youngest is ill with leukaemia. The thought came to her that this young
child was in the fourth season of her life, as her illness turned the child into an
older person.
156 GROUPS IN MUSIC
At this point I want to divert, to think more closely about how we might
prepare a listening exercise for a group. This exercise is not about teaching a
group to listen to musical grammar or musical structure, but rather about
providing an opportunity for the group to play with their imaginations as they
listen to music, and create their personal meaning. Also, this exercise is unusual
in this book, since it describes a step-by-step procedure. See if it is useful for
you.
12.3 Divertimento: A listening exercise

Again I want to stress that this exercise is not to be confused with Guided
Imagery in Music, which is a specific music therapy discipline that needs an
intensive specialized training. Here, rather, I am presenting an exercise that I
have found useful with groups of children, adolescents and adults in getting
them to think about music.
This exercise can be useful for a new group whose members are getting to
know one another. I have also used it with young children although here I
would use only one piece of music, and provide crayons for them to draw
pictures about the music while listening (as could adults). It is also useful with
musicians and music students to get them to listen to music in a personal rather
than musical way. I have also used this exercise as team-building work, with
staff groups.
As group leader, listen to the quality of energy in the room as each piece of
music is played. When I did this exercise recently, with the Gospel music and
Billy Joel, the energy in the room shot up: people wriggled, laughed and
exclaimed. With both the Corsican and the Japanese music, there was an intense
listening and concentration, and with the Mozambican and the Arab-Jewish
music, the listening was quiet and softer.
Again I want to stress the need to adapt the choice of music for each group
with this particular instance, the exercise was under a general heading to do
with The Music of our Culture, hence the culturally diverse music.
Much of this chapter has been about listening to music whether live, at a
concert, or recorded. I now want to consider how, as group musicians, we might
help with choosing music for social events, such as funerals, weddings,
farewells, welcomes and other social rites that might need our input. Because
of the substantial discussions weve had on musical meanings so far, I shall make
this very brief.
1. What you need

A good quality sound system/CD player
A selection of CDs
A watch with a second hand or a stop watch
Each person needs paper and pen (or crayons)
2. Setting the scene

Explain to the group that you are going to play five pieces of music
for 90 seconds. As they listen, you want them to answer the follow-
ing questions:
(best to write these on a board to prevent anyone interrupting
the
exercise)
1. What does the music remind you of ?
2. How does the music make you feel?
They have about a minute in between the bits of music to write
their thoughts.
3. Doing the exercise

You then play each piece of music, keeping time on your second
hand. (I find using a stop watch better, as I often forget where the
second hand of my watch is when the music begins.)
Do keep strict time! This is part of keeping the group focused.
Also, do call out the number of each piece that you are playing
and do NOT tell the group what music you are playing. (Call the
pieces numbers 1, 2, 3, etc.)
4. Sharing in small groups

Now invite folk to get into pairs or groups of three or four (de-
pending on the size of the group), and get folk to share their expe-
riences. Ask that each group (say there are five groups) elects one
person to take notes, and another to report back when we do the
158 GROUPS IN MUSIC
whole group. They have 20 minutes to go through all five pieces of

music.
(You might also suggest that each small group starts with dis-
cussing a different piece to ensure that you get through all the music:
thus group 1 could begin with no.1; group 2 with no. 2, and so on,
and then work their way down the list.)
5. Sharing with the whole group

Each group then speaks about their experience of the music.
Here, best to let each group talk about a different piece (e.g. the
piece that they discussed first), otherwise this can take a long time.
6. Musical examples
It is important that you select music that feels right for each time
you do this exercise.
This is the list of music I played when I did this exercise most re-
cently, some 10 days ago with a group of adult NGO workers who
were culturally very mixed:
Mozambican vocal and instrumental music (very warm and
tender)
Corsican religious music (male voices a cappella, rather
sombre)
Billy Joels My Life (lively, loud, insistent rock)
Arab-Jewish folk music (instrumental, energetic and
tightly woven)
African Gospel (mass choral music, repetitive and in-
creasing in intensity)
Japanese court music (instrumental, suspended sounds,
little rhythmic energy)
12.4 Musical choices for social rites

When helping to plan music for a social ritual, whether alone or with a group of
friends, colleagues or family members, we need to remember that the choice of
music may be informed by a range of meanings at least as many meanings as
there are people involved in the planning. Here is one example, with a very brief
commentary.
Vignette 12h
A dear friend has died, and four of us are planning the funeral service
with the local vicar.After much discussion and remembering,we settle
on what we think was her favourite hymn; a song that best says
something about her sparkling personality (The Carpenters Top of
the World); an instrumental arrangement from her country of origin
(Central European folk music) and a traditional hymn (Psalm 23).
Some of this music needs to be traditional in the wider social sense, and
accessible to the entire group: most of the folk attending the funeral will know
Psalm 23, which means that they can participate in the event by singing the
hymn. However, an event such as this brings together people who may know
each other very slightly, and we want the music to be meaningful to them.
Something about the reasons for choosing the music needs to be printed in the
Order of Service, and the person conducting the service might also say
something about each piece of music before it is played. This can help to focus
the congregation on the music, and on the person whose life is being mourned
and celebrated.
12.5 Closing notes

This chapter began with a live concert performance that was exhilarating.
Despite not necessarily understanding the musical grammar or structure, this
exciting collective event was socially meaningful, both collectively and individ-
ually. It gave those in the audience a sense of belonging to the experience. We
then looked at another social rite that of Evensong, which ought to have
given us a similar (though possibly a little quieter) sense of belonging, and that,
instead, seemed to propel us away from one another, amplifying the differences
between the sub-groups in the congregation. Each of these personal experi-
ences will, inevitably, become associated with the music that was being played
at the time, so that whenever I hear Nusrat Ali Khans music I am delighted with
160 GROUPS IN MUSIC
the memories of that event. For some, the anthems sung at Keble College
Chapel may evoke less happy associations: to do with being outside the group.
We then considered listening to pre-recorded music, and the range of
meanings that various musical pieces held for each person listening. Finally we
considered how to use music to create imaginative and personal meaning, in a
group context. All of this suggests that choosing music for listening is compli-
cated, to say the least. Here I need to declare my suspicion of CD compilations
entitled Soothe your soul or Calm your road rage. Who on earth can say with
such precision, what the effects of particular pieces of music will be? And when?
And why?
Id like to end by suggesting that there is only one rule when choosing music
for listening in group work: listen to the quality of energy in the room when
your group listens to music it will tell you volumes about the groups experi-
ence.
CHAPTER 13
Team Building and

Conflict Resolution
Things can and do go spectacularly wrong within music groups and sometimes even
before you begin. As community musician, music therapist or music facilitator, you need to
be on the ball and alert to what is going on to prevent flops and save you flipping. That is the
good news. The less good news is that at times, the flops have an annoying way of arriving
unsolicited and unnoticed until it is too late.
This chapter provides two aspects of flopping: one to do with what can go wrong
inside and during your music groups; and the other to do with how (as a consultant) you
might use music in order to address problems that a group has already identified and
decided needs fixing.
Since much of these two themes are already addressed in various parts of this book, this
chapter is more of a focusing moment, providing a conceptual frame for thinking about
what kind of things might sabotage or undermine or destroy your work, and how you
begin to reflect on this. In this sense, this last chapter in Part II is a bridge between execut-
ing and reflecting in Part III of this book.
13.1 What kind of flops?

Part I of this book, to do with planning your group work, states explicitly that
you need to have put proper structures in place before beginning your work
with a group. In other words, you need proper briefing by your employers/
funders/managers; you need to inform yourself about the institutional struc-
tures, flows of information and reporting and then, you, as group leader, need to
brief the group members properly about the remit of your work together
through setting up the group contract and group norms.
However, even with all of this in place, things can go wrong. A number of
vignettes throughout this book describe moments that dont work and reflect
161
162 GROUPS IN MUSIC
on what it is that has not worked, whats gone wrong, and how you might
think about addressing this.
In this section, then, I present brief vignettes that illustrate some common
causes for things going wrong. Incidentally these are real life vignettes told
to me by community workers, and used with their permission although names
and identities are disguised.
13.2 In- and out-groups
Vignette 13a
A local church becomes known for its lively musical services. Theyve
recently started a music service on Sunday nights, with a small
committed group of musicians preparing and rehearsing the music for
each Sunday. The increased Sunday evening attendance testifies to the
musics popularity.The music group notices that very few members of
the congregation sing during the services, so they set about making
sure that there is a bit of time for rehearsing the songs before the
service proper begins. After some months, the congregations begins
complaining about the music being too loud, and present a memo to
the parish council. The music group leader conveys this to the music
group members, who begin playing much quieter music. Still nobody
joins in the singing,and more complaints are put forward to the parish
council. Eventually the music group leader resigns his post. The music
group continues leading the services for some weeks,and then one by
one the members leave the parish. A year later, that church is no
longer known for its lively music-making. In fact, the services are
pretty run of the mill.
Here we have a core group of dedicated musicians who put a lot of time and
effort into preparing the music for the Sunday evening service. Neither they nor
the parish council (to whom the music group is accountable), thought to make
clear to the congregation how and why the music group was being set up,
although on the face of it, everyone thought this was a good idea, confirmed by
the increased attendances on Sunday evenings. However, as time goes by,
another core group emerges on Sunday evenings: regular attenders who begin
to feel that their commitment to attending the service is not being
acknowledged. They begin to feel as though the music group is the in-group
TEAM BUILDING AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION 163
and, by default, they are out. The result is a complaint about the music being
too loud, which the parish council takes at face value. And so on.
13.3 Sticking to the plan
Vignette 13b
As a consultant contracted to do stress-management with a group of
medical doctors,I have prepared a session that begins with a warm-up:
tossing a ball of wool between members and unravelling it in order to
eventually create a web of wool between group members. As each
person catches the ball of wool they say their names and how theyre
feeling, before throwing it onto the next person. The atmosphere is
thick with discomfort, and I plod on relentlessly, feeling increasingly
stressed and tense: I have planned this as my ice-breaker before
moving on to a musical activity. When everyone has had a chance to
say their name, I ask that the ball of wool be passed back to me, and
promptly drop it on to the floor. As I pick it up, I make a comment that
dropping the ball of wool seems to be the perfect comment on this
activity that has clearly flopped. There is a burst of laughter in the
group, and immediately I feel a sense of relief. I then say that perhaps
this is a good example of how not to start a group. There is more
laughter, and from then onwards, the session flows more easily.
I was so certain that this plan would work that I didnt bother to revise it. As
consultant, I am used to working with many different groups, and this has
worked in the past. At times you have to ditch your prepared plans no matter
how carefully prepared and be totally present in the moment. Enough said.
13.4 Whos in charge?
Vignette 13c
Martha is facilitating an afternoon in-service training with a group of
fifteen music teachers. Shes been called in to teach them some Zulu
songs and dances, since most of the teachers were trained before the
time when Zulu was recognized as one of the official languages of
South Africa. After her briefing with an official at the Department of
Education,she has prepared five songs that the teachers will find useful
164 GROUPS IN MUSIC
in their work with primary school children. The workshop begins

with introductions, and Martha then uses an overhead projector to
show the teachers what songs theyll be doing in the afternoon. As
they begin working with one of the songs, one of the teachers, Mrs F,
says to the group that she has used this song often in her class, and it
works very well. The way that she uses it is with certain dance steps
(which she then demonstrates to the group). Some of the other
teachers begin imitating her dance steps and Martha feels the session
slipping away from her.
Some of us know this scenario very well indeed. Someone in the group Mrs F
is not happy with the fact that they are not in charge and lets us know it. In
this group, Mrs F is powerful and persuasive enough to pull the group along
with her. Here is an anti-group scenario (see Chapter 18). Mrs F is voicing
what is already present and unstated in the group, which explains why she very
quickly mobilizes enough of the other teachers to sabotage Marthas workshop.
If Martha had negotiated norms with the group at the beginning of her
workshop, this might have been different! Part of the norms could have
included something about the fact that some teachers might know some of the
songs in which case, Martha is happy to have some contributions, after they
have first all done the song together in the way that she has prepared it.
It should be possible for Martha to reflect on this event (and read this book!)
which will prevent this happening again. If not, the risks are that she feels un-
dermined, and goes home very despondent after the session. She will also expe-
rience terrific anxiety and stress before doing her next workshop, which that
group will sense. The result will not be a happy one for anyone in that workshop
or for Marthas future as a consultant.
13.5 Whos running this show?
Vignette 13d
It is the weekly choir practice, and James is stressed. There are only
two rehearsals to go before the year-end concert, and Class 11C is
playing up. They mutter under their breaths instead of getting on with
the instrumental arrangements he has written for the Finale, com-
plaining that this is childish. As a well trained Community Arts
worker, James has been careful to prepare a programme that respects
the childrens ages. Hes at the end of his tether, and goes to see his
manager for some advice. Dr White has been away on sabbatical, and
this is the first time James has had a chance to meet with her in six
months. At the end of the consultation, James realizes that it is not the
music that irks the children, but the instruments he has chosen. Dr
White quickly spotted this in their consultation, and suggests to James
that he asks the children for their opinions.
James asks the class 11C teacher for some time with the class, and
sure enough, the children vociferously let him know that hes messed
up.Luckily for James,Dr White has pre-empted this in their consulta-
tion and he manages not to take offence. Instead, he and the children
have a session with the larger instruments, and together more or less
rearrange the music. The end-of year concert is a success, with Class
11C especially commended by the head of the school.
A happy ending. Find a mentor! You cannot always see what is really going on
in your sessions, whereas someone who is sympathetic and supportive, without
necessarily seeing things only from your point of view, may very quickly spot
the difficulty. You could save yourself an awful lot of stress and sleepless nights.
I dont for a minute pretend that this is all that can go wrong in music
group sessions. However, in each of the examples I offer a clue as to the under-
lying cause of the problem. At times, if you can spot the problem which may
have little to do with what is actually going on youre well on the way to ad-
dressing it.
13.6 Think before the group flops

This section considers what flops do to you as group leader: if you can manage
to be honest and self-critical (without being self-destructive or feeling too sorry
for yourself ), this is a good beginning for taking a detached look at how you
might begin to repair flops without flipping. Once again, I present brief
points.
Feel undermined. Poor Martha, in the vignette above, is left
feeling totally undermined. Her self-esteem and confidence have
plummeted. Critically, though, Martha was not a skilled enough
facilitator to have set in place structures that would prevent this kind
of event from happening in the first place. Dont make the same
mistake. Re-read Chapter 3 to remind yourself of group norms, and
how Martha might go about negotiating these with admittedly a
difficult group.
166 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Become more controlling. If a group feels out of control

(especially children or adolescents, or if you work in a context in
which discipline is emphasized), the temptation is to take control.
The difficulty is this: in the moment of the group flopping you are
likely to feel angry with the group (and with yourself), and also out
of control. The session feels as though it is falling apart. In a class
situation, you may have the opportunity of demanding that the
disruptive child or children leave the classroom. I am not sure that
this is always helpful in the longer term, although in the short term
it will quieten the class and a sense of order is restored. My
experience of doing this in music therapy class sessions is that it
undermines trust between myself and the children but there are
times when you dont have the energy, you may be feeling fragile or
unwell, and this is certainly a short-term solution. Once again,
though, this needs to be part of the norms set up between you and
the group: if anyone is disruptive, then they leave the group.
Feel angry and helpless. Martha can hardly ask Mrs F to leave
the workshop. Her own feelings are very loud at the moment: she
feels angry with Mrs F for showing her up, and also angry with
herself for not being more assertive. She feels helpless and wishes
the end of the session to come as soon as possible.
Be assertive. If youre on your toes, you may have the wherewithal
to assert yourself (rather than take control). Even without setting
norms at the beginning, Martha could have made it clear tactfully
and firmly to Mrs F that actually, she, Martha, had some other
ideas, and perhaps at the end of the workshop there would be time
for others to show their ideas and techniques. This would have
reasserted Marthas role as facilitator, and probably enabled the
session to proceed more smoothly for everyone. Incidentally, some
members of the group will be aware of Marthas feelings of
helplessness, and feel uncomfortable. They may not be assertive
enough to say anything to counteract Mrs Fs sabotage. In other
words, a flop is a flop for everyone not just for Martha.
Become depressed and feel paralysed. With the medical doctors
I felt totally incompetent and began to feel trapped, paralysed and
depressed, with no clue as to how to get out of the situation.
Luckily for me, an inadvertent slip both of the ball of wool and of
the tongue resulted in my making a comment about everything

being a flop. This provoked the group into laughter and the group
energy shifted. I was lucky. And inexperienced.
Feel attacked and want to flee. The leader of the church music
group begins to feel attacked by the parish council and the
congregation. In the end he resigns all of this has eroded his
energy and passion for the music group. This is a shame!
I hope that, as a result of reading this book, you will not find yourself in these
kinds of situations, because youll be able to prevent things from flopping and
read the signs very early on.
Lets now look at a scenario where youre called in, as community musician,
music therapist or group facilitator, by a group that has already identified that it
has a problem, and you are Madam Fix-it. The two vignettes are from real-life
scenarios.
13.7 Whose conflict is this?
Vignette 13e
Ive been asked as a consultant to do a half-day session with a staff
group from a local school. The brief is as follows: it is the end of the
year and the teachers are exhausted. There are a lot of personality
clashes in the group, and the head teacher feels that I might do some
conflict resolution work with them. I suggest rather that we call my
session team building, since I am clear that a half-day one-off session
is certainly not going to solve conflicts or even necessarily unearth
them. The head teacher and I set clear boundaries of time, place and
fee.I explain that I need some art materials,and fax through a list.I also
ask her to make clear to the teachers that they are to be punctual,and
that the session will begin at 09h00 and end at 12h30.I ask everyone to
wear loose comfortable clothing, and to bring floor cushions, as we
will do some work sitting on the floor.
On the appointed day I walk past the staff-room and hear a group
chatting loudly and smoking.I have a feeling of anxiety,especially as it is
pouring with rain, and I had planned to send the group outside at
various points of the morning.
Finally we are seated in a circle at the appointed time. Everyone is
there bar one person, and again I have a feeling of anxiety and am
168 GROUPS IN MUSIC
uncertain as to how long to wait. I voice my uncertainty, asking the

teachers how long we should wait for the missing person. Shes
always late comes the unhelpful reply. We agree to give her five more
minutes, and then begin our session. We go round the group each in-
troducing ourselves and saying something of our expectations about
the morning. There is a feeling of negativity in the group, as well as
rather a lot of anger and frustration which seems to be directed at the
missing member of staff.
Almost at the end of the introductions, the door flies open and a
rather flushed, dishevelled woman pours into the room, apologizing
profusely and explaining that she had to go to the garage because her
car was leaking oil, she was locked out of the house, the cat was ill and
a string of other reasons. Some of the teachers in the group roll their
eyes. I feel tense.
This vignette describes Act I, scene 1. There is lots of trouble ahead and,
critically, I keep tabs on all the signals all the way through the morning. This
group is in no mood for being nice either to one another or to me; and I know
that I need to begin with something very gentle and unthreatening, that avoids
them having to do too much work with one another. I decide, on the spot, to
begin with a relaxation and visualization exercise.
Vignette 13f
Everyone is lying on the floor,and I have my stop watch in my left hand,
my prompt sheet in my right hand. I have three CDs in the shuttle. For
the relaxation part of the exercise I play the slow movement of an
Albinoni oboe concerto. I have timed my text according to the length
of the movement, with time markers in the left column of my text. I
keep track of time with my stop watch as I gently speak through the
physical relaxation. After seven minutes, the CD switches to the
Pachelbel canon, and I continue with the relaxation, still keeping close
track of time, and begin to talk the group towards a visualization
exercise. By the end of the visualization, there is a deep stillness in the
room, and I gently bring the group back into the present, inviting them
to get some paper and crayons,and do an image of their visualization.I
forbid them to speak unless they need help with the art materials. I
give them 20 minutes to do their image,during which time I slowly and
quietly walk around the room. I am fully present to the moment, and
aware of the feeling of peace in the room very different from the
beginning of the morning.
Had I taken this group straight into anything that involved talking or
interacting with one another, I would most likely have been asking for trouble.
The group would have either scapegoated the late-comer (who I gathered was
already the group scapegoat), or else they would have attacked me. Neither
would have been helpful for anyone. Instead, I take control from the start. I am
directive and prescriptive, describe the exercise we are about to do very clearly
and calmly, also state the time frame, and then begin. The group responds, and
off we go.
Whats critical here is that I have the presence of mind to change my plan of
action on the spot. Had I continued with my planned ice-breaker (for instance
the wool ball throwing exercise), the group would probably have very quickly
used this as a platform to ridicule one another and me; and from there it is
difficult to recover some kind of trusting equilibrium. In contrast, with the re-
laxation and the visualization exercise the group feels emotionally held by me,
by the structure I am providing, by the activity and by the music. Also, each is
alone with their thoughts which, at this stage, they are not asked to share with
one another.
Vignette 13g
At the end of the 20 minutes it is time for the 30-minute tea-break
which we negotiated as part of the norm setting. The atmosphere in
the room is relaxed, and there is an air of industry with everyone
absorbed in their imaging task.
I request that they take tea in silence and, since it has stopped
raining, I also ask that they go outside and each bring back an object
from outside after tea.I explain that the object might be a stone,a twig,
flower or leaf anything that catches their eye as they walk outside in
the magnificent grounds.
During the tea-break I sit alone in the room,gathering my thoughts.
I decide to take the group through a second visualization, this time to
include the object that they each bring back after tea-break. Since this
is unplanned,I quickly go through my CDs,make a note of the length of
the two excerpts I have chosen, and make a few points about how the
music-visualization might work.
170 GROUPS IN MUSIC
The group returns, sits in a circle, and I explain that I want them to
put their first image aside, and that we will do a second visualization
that includes their object. Again I ask them to get some paper and
make sure that they have enough art materials. They need not lie
down this time if they dont want to, but need to sit comfortably with
their eyes closed.
I use the tea-break to reflect on how the first half of the morning has gone, and
to plan the second half. I realize that we will not use the musical instruments I
have brought, neither, most likely, will we do any voice work. My intuition is to
continue with the visualization and the personal imaging. During tea-break, I
also make a note of the time frame, since I want to leave 45 minutes for a group
reflection plus 15 minutes to evaluate the morning by 12h30.
Vignette 13h
At the end of the second visualization and image making, the floor is
covered in artwork. I now invite the group to form a pair with the
person next to them, and to spend 15 minutes or so telling one
another about their images.
I listen closely to the feeling of the sounds in the room as folk talk:
there is a quiet relaxed hum, which gives me a clue that the group is
ready for a shared group reflection. While they talk, I clear a space in
the middle of the floor.
At the end of 15 minutes, all are seated on the floor with the art
work in front of us. We begin the last part of the session, in which I
invite folk to share their thoughts about their images with the rest of
the group. Once they have finished their sharing, they are to put their
images in the space that I have made in the centre of the circle. I also
explain that not everyone needs to speak. Some may prefer not
speaking, and only placing their images in the centre. This we will
respect as a group which incidentally we also negotiated at the
beginning of the morning.
Everyone speaks and places their images in the centre. At the end,
we stand in a circle, looking at what has become a shrine. I play some
music while we stand silently and look at our mornings work. I am
aware of one person in tears.
Giving folk an option not to speak, so long as they take part in some way, is
important. This needs to be negotiated as part of the norms right at the
beginning of the session. Also, by now I have a sense that the group is far more
gentle and relaxed, and that folk are more likely to share openly with one
another. This they do, and the session ends with a long and moving silence.
Vignette 13i
We close the morning with a 15-minute evaluation. The group is as-
tonished at what they have produced. They speak of feeling energized
and relaxed, and incredulous that only a few hours ago they felt
exhausted and fractious indeed some had stated at the beginning
that they didnt quite know what they were doing there.Some folk say
that they have learnt things about one another which, in all the years
they have worked together, they have not known.
A week later I receive a warm thank-you card from the head
teacher,asking whether I would be prepared to do a follow-up session,
at the request of the teachers.
This story has a happy ending. But this is no coincidence. I was totally focused
and alert as to what the group was saying and not saying, the general
atmosphere in the room and, critically, I was ready to totally change my plans.
Even though getting all the instruments out of my studio, into the car and then
down the long school corridors had been time consuming, to say the least, this
was no reason to use them. A group improvisation would have been
catastrophic! I was able to read the signs very early on in fact, I listened to my
feeling of anxiety as I walked past the staff-room, before even having met the
staff. That feeling told me something about the staff Id been looking
forward to the session and feeling relaxed and energized on my way to the
school. I listened to my feelings, and remained extremely alert.
As a result, the group had an experience that enabled them to reconnect
with one another in another way. You might say that I ignored the conflict and
possibly avoided it. I am not so sure that confronting it would have been that
helpful: it sounded as though the group had, in any case, become stuck in a
loop of interacting, confirmed by the groups reaction when the latecomer
arrived. I saw their reactions and sensed the feelings of hostility in the room.
This told me plenty. I knew that I had to assert myself as leader, and provide a
structured mornings activities that would enable each person to spend some
time with themselves. At the same time as acting in a prescriptive and directive
manner, I was focused on the undercurrents and, as a consequence, changed my
plan. The group, however, knew nothing of my change of plans. However, they
172 GROUPS IN MUSIC
possibly sensed my responsiveness to their need, their exhaustion and their

dynamic and certainly the warm thank-you card suggests that they experi-
enced group musicking as bonding and holding.
13.8 Building bridges

Groups are enormously complex, to put it mildly, and I could fill this chapter
with dozens more stories, some less happy than this one. The main thing is to be
on your toes! Trust your intuitions, and have Plans A, B, C and if possible D
up your sleeve. Also, remember that generally, one-off group sessions can be
hellishly difficult, and you, as the outsider, are likely to get the full vent of the
groups hidden feelings.
I did not address or resolve the conflict in this staff group, and I am not sure
that it would have been responsible of me to say that this is what I would do, in
my initial briefing with the head of the school. Instead, I decided to focus on
growing the group: it was end of term, folk were tired, this was a one-off
session, and I needed to be realistic.
These strategies worked.

PART III
Reflecting: Thinking Back

and Forth
Part III of this book is hardly last in terms of sequence. I remind you that, in
one sense, this entire text is about Reflecting, whether we reflect during our
planning, while were executing, or after were done. What is distinctive about
this section, though, is that a lot of this section has to do with what we need to
hold in mind during our planning and executing. In other words, not all of
these reflections impact directly on how you do, but rather, may impact on
how you think about what you do.
Chapter 14 How Formed is Your Listening?, uses aspects of music psy-
chology to think about the form and structure of the groups musicking, while
Persons as Music (Chapter 15) draws from the psychology of non-verbal com-
munication to reflect on communicative and innate musicality which impacts
on how we play, listen to and experience music. In Chapter 16, I revisit Group
Music, Identity and Society, which is in one sense the theme of this book; while
Chapter 17 thinks about the kinds of absence and presence you might experi-
ence, during your sessions, from and between different members. Chapter 18
presents aspects of group process, drawing from group theory and psycho-
dynamic thinking. Finally, I set rather a bad example in leaving Evaluating and
Ending to be the last chapter of this book, since evaluating and monitoring
your work needs to happen all the time.
Some of these chapters have direct links with chapters in Part I and II of this
book, so that you might want to move and think back and forth between
each section.
CHAPTER 14
How Formed is Your Listening?

(and How Informed is Your
Speaking?)
This brief chapter the first of Part III draws from the huge field of psychology of per-
ception and cognition to consider how we might talk about the musical information in
group music, leaving aside, for the moment, the personal and interpersonal nuances of
group work. Also, this discussion applies equally to all kinds of music-making and
music-listening. Whereas Chapter 5 considered musical form and musical structure in
terms of planning a group musical activity, and its impact on musical and group roles, this
chapter reflects on and talks about more fundamental mental processes, using an explic-
itly musical discourse. This is to help you consider how you might talk about the music in
your groups. This is no simple matter, when we consider that were using language-based
concepts to explain music-making, which is after all not a language-based medium.
14.1 Making sense of music: Listening to Greensleeves

Multiple mental mechanisms are engaged in listening, absorbing and making
sense of music when we play and when we listen to it. The field of perceptual
psychology clarifies that we generally distinguish between foreground and
background in our sensory environment (whether visual or auditory). This dis-
tinction enables us to perceive perspective in terms of distance and nearness, in
space and time, and also helps our senses to make sense of the world around
us.
When listening to a piece of music lets say a (fairly un-complex) orches-
tral arrangement of Greensleeves we hear the melody in the foreground per-
ceptually, while we hear the harmonies, instrumental textures and rhythmic
patterns as being in the background. At the same time as our attention monitors
the foreground, background and the shifting relationship between the two,
175
176 GROUPS IN MUSIC
were constantly making sense of the music through cognitive processes.

These cognitive processes enable us to track the various melodies, harmonic
progressions and nuances, instrumental textures, and compare these with our
existing information store of musical styles, rhythmic or harmonic progres-
sions, orchestral textures, and so on. This store of information is not a static
volume or container of knowledge, but is itself revised as we receive and
process new musical information with our existing store of knowledge.
This brief description of listening to Greensleeves suggests that listening is
a highly participative act. Even though this is a gross simplification of how we
begin to make sense of music, you have some idea of the complexity of juggling
with various sensory, mental and emotional competencies, apparently effort-
lessly, as we listen to music.
Lets now look very briefly at the basis of perceptual mechanisms: i.e. how
we make sense of the stimuli in the world around us.
14.2 Grouping principles: Basic percepts

Gestalt psychology has clarified that the fundamental mechanism of perception
is that of perceptual grouping. We have innate mental mechanisms that enable us
to perceive a collection of events (whether visual or aural) as grouped, rather
than remaining a collection of events: this means that we are able to see a visual
pattern say a line rather than a collection of dots. Grouping happens on the
basis of similarity (we group together what we perceive as similar), proximity (we
group together what is clustered together), good continuity (we tend towards
creating a unified whole), and closure (we complete an incomplete or partially
complete shape or form).
Figure 14.1 Grouping: Similarity and difference

HOW FORMED IS YOUR LISTENING? 177
While looking at Figure 14.1, do you see a random collection of symbols?

Unlikely. Most of us tend to immediately place these symbols into some kind of
pattern, and are likely to see five vertical lines. Our brains instantly group
together what belongs together, on the basis of similarity. At the same time, the
principle of good continuity ensures that we see lines or columns, and that, if we
take a more global look, we see a rectangle: here is the principle of closing.
As you look, youre also grouping together the symbols using the similarity
of space as well as the similarity of the symbols themselves, to make sense of this
collection of visual events. What emerges are patterns of four lines, of a
rectangle, of columns which you immediately create as you look, using a com-
bination of these perceptual mechanisms.
If we think of patterns (in general) as abstract mental concepts, then by rec-
ognizing these and transferring them across contexts and senses, we exercise
cognitive economy, and are able to process information in our environment that
much more accurately and quickly. Most of us recognize a circle, whether it is
drawn on a piece of paper, the shape of the peppermint were being offered, the
shape of a sleeper earring, the traffic roundabout and when we see children
playing ring-a-ring-a-rosie.
These principles and mechanisms of patterning apply to music: in playing
and listening to music, whether pre-composed or improvised, we constantly
group, regroup and create and extend, develop and adapt multiple patterns of
melody, rhythm, harmony, phrasing in our minds. This mental processing of
musical information enables us to hear the foreground and background of the
music, and impacts on how we listen to the next bit of music, in relation to what
weve just made sense of .
Lets now return to thinking about foreground and background in more
general terms. Look at Figure 14.2 and your eye is likely to be drawn to the fore-
ground: one symbol stands out from the rest here because it is a different
shape. I could also have printed the same shape in bold, or the same shape
slightly larger than the others. At the same time, you see the formation of all the
symbols as one group, and because of the way I have typed these in, youll see
the lines as well as the columns.
178 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Figure 14.2 Foreground and background
Lets return to thinking about music.
14.3 Musical grammar (or, can you hum What shall we do

with the drunken sailor?)
Musical grammar is generally understood as the musical rules or conventions of
a particular musical culture. As Western persons, we are familiar with the
musical systems of tonal diatonic or chromatic harmony. As young children, we
do not know that this is a diatonic or chromatic system, but know how (our
cultures) music sounds and how it works. So, while Western musical training
teaches us the vocabulary to make sense of these conventions through a
specific coded system, we grow up with a social knowing of what music sounds
right and what does not.
Lets now think about what happens when you hum a tune. Lets say that
youre driving on the motorway, youre in a good mood and humming What
shall we do with the drunken sailor? (perhaps you were at a party last night).
Even if youre not a trained musician, while humming the tune you generate,
and listen to, musical grammar. You might also hear the tunes harmonic colour
in your mind; and remember and imagine a choral arrangement that you once
heard, and also know its musical style or genre it is a folk tune, modal, and
upbeat. All of this is implicit knowledge you may not know how to describe
any of these bits of musical grammar, since you havent been trained in music
theory. Nevertheless, a lot of mental activity goes on as you hum!
As well as hearing the tune in your mind, you reproduce rhythmic and
melodic patternings, sequencing, variations, developments of the tune. While
humming (and driving!) you monitor the stability, variations and adaptation of
the tune. You sing the first phrase, then the second, which is a sequential repeti-
tion of the first, beginning one tone lower; then the third phrase that begins on
the original tone, but changes directions halfway through, and so on. You are
constantly comparing and contrasting all of these ingredients of music
melody, rhythm, phrasing, harmonic colour with your stored memory of
musical style and idioms, absorbed and revised as you listen to different kinds of
music (usually while driving your car).
Lets now return to an earlier music group scenario and apply some of what
youve just read. Here Ive adapted the scenario we looked at in Chapter 9.
14.4 Perceptual prominence
Vignette 14a (adapted from Vignette 9e)

This is a one-off improvisation group with a group of adults who are
health-care professionals.They have come together as part of a public
presentation on Music-as-Communication, and after the morning of
theory and video presentations,we are doing an after-lunch experien-
tial workshop (a good antidote to the post-prandial somnolence that
usually bedevils this time of the day).
There are six of us: James has two tall congas, Hannah two large
cymbals, Sbongile the bongos, Alfred has the temple blocks, Elena the
chromatic vibraphone and I have the large bass drum. We stand in a
circle, our instruments in the middle, and, at my suggestion, our eyes
are closed. There is a long silence until James bursts into rapid beating
on the congas,and instantly,the rest of the group (bar myself) jump in.
The whole group continues playing in rapid, accentuated sforzando
mode, whilst I give the occasional tap on the bass drum.
Alfred and Elena stop playing. James continues, while Hannahs
cymbal crashes get louder and faster. Sbongiles bongo playing now
seems to have little connection to James or Hannah. Each of them
seems to be doing their own thing. James loud beating continues to
dominate the improvisation. Elena erupts on her vibraphone, with
loud, fast and tight clusters of sounds. Suddenly James stops. Elena
continues for a split-second after him and stops.
180 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Have you noticed the change in emphasis resulting in the way that I adapted the
vignette? (You might want to re-read the original to refresh your memory.) Both
vignettes describe the same event, but here Ive excluded comments to do with
personal nuances, because of the emphasis on the music being improvised.
Perceptually, James playing is clearly differentiated from that of the group.
First of all, he begins in the silence, and even when the rest join in, his playing
is the loudest and clearest acoustically. The rest of the players are rather more
difficult to hear, remaining in the background.
Our perceptual grouping mechanisms enable us to hear James music as one
continuous event rather than as a collection of beats. We generate the grammat-
ical structure of his playing the pulse, pitch, rhythm, tempo as we listen, and
fit together the layers of musical information: metre, rhythmic patterns,
phrasing, dynamic level. We also make use of cognitive (and musical) mecha-
nisms of sequence, variation, adaptation, extensions, and so on. At the same
time, each of the players fits one anothers music together, using principles of
similarity, continuity, proximity and closing.
Also, the more different James playing is from the rest of the group, the
greater the perceptual distance between him and the groups playing. There is
a moment in the vignette when everyone plays together. Perceptually we can
describe this as a moment when all the players have entrained: in other words,
their mental and neurological processes have adapted to one another or rather,
to James playing. However, we see that things begin to fall apart: soon, each of
the three players seem to be doing their own thing. What we hear is something
like chaos: the music (as a whole) does not quite fit together, so we hear bits
of foreground, background rapidly shifting and interrupting one another.
Even here, though, our musical training enables us to compare these frag-
mented bits of sounds with lets say music of contemporary composers. In
fact, the improvisation reminds us of bits of George Crumb and Peter
Maxwell-Davis and we are able to make sense of it, in a global grammatical
sense.
And so on
Lets now imagine that this group eventually begins to flow together
musically. There are distinctive musical cues offered and taken up by others in
the group, who reproduce and adapt and extend these musical offerings. Here
we can imagine the players not just entraining to one dominant pattern, or
withdrawing from the music altogether, but rather, we imagine them taking
turns at being in the foreground of the group musical texture, and returning to
the background.
Here, we can imagine some grammatical flexibility and the fluid movement
from one musical style to another. Sbongile might take a cue from Elenas
playing and make sense of it for herself as reminding her of a jig. Shed
reproduce this, it would be heard and processed by others in the group, and all
players might click into a common musical style together.
None of this happens, however. If we return to the group in this vignette and
take a transverse view of the group event, we see that the perceptual gap
between James and the group is substantial and remains so. Nobody else seems
to emerge into the foreground. However, if we imagine a more fluid give and
take between players, the distance between foreground and background might
be much more flexible and shifting. Implied in all of this is that it is not neces-
sarily the person in the foreground that makes a move to shift the distance
between themselves and the group, but that others in the group might shift
towards the foreground. In an optimal musically flowing group, all members
move fluidly in and out of the foreground and nobody hogs it, and neither do
the rest remain hidden in the background, indistinguishable and out of focus, so
to speak.
14.5 How are we talking? (And what are we talking about?)

While not pretending to present more than a very brief introduction of percep-
tual psychology and music cognition, this chapter has discussed one group im-
provisation using a distinctive, music-based discourse. There are two important
points here: one is that by taking on only one discourse (as I have done here), we
risk limiting our reflections and our thinking about the group event. And in any
case, bodies of knowledge date as the prevailing philosophical currents and dis-
courses shift (which they inevitably do). The other point is that by shifting
between discourses in an unconsidered manner, your thinking, reflecting and
talking about risks being careless. Neither is very helpful in terms of ex-
plaining what you do to others.
By familiarizing yourself with various discourses (of which this book is a
tiny tip of the proverbial iceberg), and by drawing from them in an informed
way, you will be in a fluid, flexible position of deciding for yourself how best
you want to reflect, and talk, about your work.
Is this a lot of hot air? As musicians it is easy to think that since we work
through music, we dont need to bother too much about how we think about
what we do. In my experience, we do need to think rather a lot about what we
do, if our work is to be optimally satisfying, challenging and richly textured!
And if were thinking in words, then we need to be clear about how best to find
182 GROUPS IN MUSIC
the words to fit what were doing. This is not a haphazard occupation of
doodling with concepts and ideas. Rather, by thinking carefully (and, I hope,
adventurously), youll find that your reflections are much more nuanced. This
will impact on the quality of what you do in your group music sessions.
CHAPTER 15
Persons as Music
(and Finding the Groove)
There are various vignettes throughout the book, where group musicking does not flow. In
some vignettes, this non-flowing is overt, in the sense that you can hear it in the group im-
provisation, whilst in other vignettes, you dont hear anything in the music, but there is a
feeling inside of you that tells you that things are not quite right. Your orchestra rehearsal is
not going too well, and you cannot figure out whats going on, since everyones playing the
right notes. In your music appreciation group there is a lot of eye contact going on, and
other signals that confirm your hunch that the groups not quite present. This chapter helps
you to find the groove by drawing from psychological literature in communicative musi-
cality and from music therapy literature to help you to make sense of flowing and not
flowing.
15.1 Negotiating the flow: Communicative musicality

Consider the act of conversation between two six-year-olds.
Vignette 15a
Anna and Rosie sit on the pavement, chatting.
My mums got me a new puppy, says Anna.
Whats his name? asks Rosie.
Not he, silly, her names Nikita
Thats a funny name! My dogs called Sally
Sally! Thats a girls name!
My dogs a girl! My dad says we can let her have puppies!
And so on.
We can imagine Anna and Rosie organizing their sounds and silences in
response to one another. They take turns to speak, which means that Anna will
183
184 GROUPS IN MUSIC
be silent while Rosie speaks (and vice versa). The switch-overs of speaking flow
smoothly, with very subtle signals that include change in eye-gaze, head
movements and facial expression, and shifts in posture. Anna and Rosie
apparently possess an acute awareness of the timing and duration of their
spoken utterances, and the timing of the switch-over when the other person
begins to speak. At times they interrupt one another other, and there may also
be moments of speaking simultaneously, of speaking out of turn, of pauses in
between turns, of longer mutual silences and so on.
What we see here is a huge and subtle variety of acts: a combination of
verbal, physical, gestural acts, continuously being organized by the two friends.
While remaining two separate persons, Anna and Rosies co-ordination both
within themselves and towards one another creates a communicating dyad
showing infinite flexibility of negotiated timing, intensity, duration and
contour in relation one with the other.
However, there is much more than just conversational turn-taking
happening here: these two children together create an intimate knowing of one
another and, critically, of themselves, in this inter-flow of being something
that most of us take for granted in everyday living.
Those of us not neurologically or physically or mentally impaired are able to
constantly adapt the intensity, contours, duration, of our verbal and non-verbal
acts, and to receive micro-cues from our communicating partners as to when to
begin and stop speaking. All of these adaptations and variations take place
along a continuum of mutually negotiated pulse: in other words, Anna and
Rosie together set the tempo of their conversation. For example, most of us have
had the experience of meeting someone who talks extremely slowly. Were we to
continue with our usual up-beat speaking tempo we would both become un-
comfortable. There would be an absence of symmetry between us, with one
remaining fast and the other slow. Generally, here, our own speaking and
gestures slow down and at the same time, theirs might speed up, until we find
a happy medium that suits us both. This happy medium is the mutual negotia-
tion of tempo: the pulse of the conversation as well as its dynamic level,
phrasing, timbre, etc is mutually created by us both.
Psychologist Colwyn Trevarthen talks of intrinsic musicality that is present
from birth, that provides communicative and expressive power to our communi-
cative acts. The Papouseks work on motherese shows that, from birth, babies
(and, one hopes, their mothers too) adjust the micro-timing of their being, i.e.
their eye-gaze, vocal sounds, body movements, smile, facial expressions, in
response to those of their mothers. These micro-adjustments are embedded in
innate neurological mechanisms of non-verbal communication. Thus, babies
PERSONS AS MUSIC (AND FINDING THE GROOVE) 185
are highly receptive and sensitive to any shift in their mothers moods and
feelings, and are themselves able to initiate shifts in expressions and communi-
cation. They are able to tune in to their mother (or primary carer), and together
with her create, and enter a flow of relating with one another. The basis of this
flow is neurological, displayed through mental, physical and emotional being
with an other. Here is innate musicality: i.e. the capacity to be fluid, flexible in
volume, tempo, rhythm, timbre, contour and intensity of facial expression,
vocal sounds, acts and gestures, in order to reach optimal attunement between
mother and baby.
This intrinsic musicality underpins our acquired musical skills, which we
develop from the social and musical culture in which we grow. Here, we need to
rethink music (in the formal, cultural sense) not as something separate from our
selves, or as artform that we aspire to by practising until we become skilled
musicians. Rather, this music may be reframed as a formalized, possibly stereo-
typed external sign of human communication. In our everyday communicating
acts, we exercise and refine our communicative musicality. In making music, we
use these mechanisms of human communication in order to lend creative and
individual power to that other music that we decide to play, with its particular
grammar, idioms and styles.
The term interactional synchrony describes our astonishing capacities for
micro-adjustments of gestures and acts (in all senses of the word) in order to
engage with other human beings. This capacity for harmonious and congruent
responsiveness, which is at the heart of human communication, makes us fluid
and responsive human beings, able to know and to empathize with one another.
Conversely, the absence, or incapacity for synchronous relating which is often
a feature of mental illness, of severe emotional trauma, severe depression or the
result of neurological impairment or physical disability interferes with our
capacity to be in fluid, mutual communication with one another, resulting in
stilted and limited communication. Unless, that is, the other person is able to
adapt to our collapsed or limited capacity! In group music, some of the vignettes
we have described reveal interactional synchrony through music-making,
which we might call inter-musical synchrony. Here we see players adapting
their own way of playing in order to fit with one another in the music. In other
vignettes, we see asynchronous group experiences (or musical asynchrony):
musical experiences in which the pulse cannot be negotiated between the
players, and the music cannot flow.
186 GROUPS IN MUSIC
At the heart of this chapter, then, is the understanding that we can listen to
1
music not just as art-form, but also as human expression and communication.
Community musicians, ensemble leaders and music teachers (who may or may
not be working with disabled populations) do not necessarily possess the
training or the skills to repair the groups communicative and expressive limi-
tation which is more the remit of music therapists but this is no reason not to
work in contexts where groups do not flow. (Just as, conversely, music therapists
work with those who are high functioning and successful and who may be
seeking to explore and develop their creativity both in the personal and in the
artistic sense.) In any case, not flowing happens in every group, no matter how
neurologically intact, musically skilled, or well-intentioned!
The point in this discussion is to clarify that any sensitive and reflective
musician intuitively experiences music as having to do with being human, just
as being human is about music-being. It is this personal-musical sensitivity and
receptiveness that is clarified by this literature hence the space accorded it
here. Also, this understanding clarifies why and how music-making in groups
elicits human and social sensitivity and bonding. When musicking with groups
of people whether high functioning or not understanding the fundamental
concept that music-making can be about innate communicative musicality will
add richness and complexity to your act of making music, enabling the group to
experience themselves as part of the human community.
Lets now look at group flow.
15.2 Spotting the flow, creating the groove

Weve seen that interactional synchrony or the jointly created flow of communi-
cation is a subtle event signalled through nuances of posture, verbal inflection,
eye gaze, vocal intonation and facial expressions.
Music therapists who practise improvisational music therapy are trained to
read and recognize these mechanisms for interactional synchrony to do
with timing, intensity, contour, phrasing, duration in spontaneous co-created
clinical improvisation. In other words, the improvisation itself reveals the
persons capacity for relationship, which can be worked with and grown in a
joint musical journey that is profoundly intimate, and can invite the client
towards previously uncharted personal experiences. Indeed, for some clients,
1 These ideas have been developed extensively in literature listed in the Recommended
Reading section.
music therapy improvisation may be their first explicit experience of their own
innate and communicative musicality through music.
Even though group music may not have clinical improvisation as its basis,
the players personal and interactive capacities can, at the very least, be invited
by the group musician, through acute listening for, and eliciting, of the group
groove.
Anthropologists Charles Keil and Steven Feld speak of the groove as a mu-
sical-social space which has enough temporal slack to accommodate the
personal temporal discrepancies. The temporal groove invites participation
from all, rather than being exclusive to only those players who fit in a tightly
defined beat.
This notion of a group groove is a way of thinking about a groups
common musical momentum and concurrence, which is flexible enough to ac-
commodate all the players. Here, in a group improvisation, the flexibility and
latitude of the groove invites participation from everyone even those who may
not have a very steady way of playing (for whatever reasons). As the group facil-
itator, you need to be certain that the groove remains inclusive: a tight neat
groove (which is, in fact, not a groove at all) may alienate those whose innate
musicality is collapsed or severely limited. James playing, in Vignette 9e, effec-
tively excluded the rest of the group: they found themselves either doing their
own thing, i.e. setting up their own groove possibly in the hope of including
others and creating a sub-groove, or else withdrawing from the music alto-
gether.
Lets think now about folk who have a physical/neurological disability.
15.3 Physical disability: Is grooving possible?

In contrast to mental or emotional disabilities or disorders that may be invisible,
2
physical disability is overt. It presents the injury, disability and the incapacity to
flow in the world explicitly. We see the intra-personal asynchrony, the inter-
ruptions of flow in movements and utterances, the disruptions of gestures, the
arrhythmic speech. When such a person makes music, we hear the asynchrony,
or disrupted movements and gestures are reflected in their music. In other
words, there is a congruence between what we, as group facilitators, see and
what we hear in the persons music.
2 Some of the ideas for this section came from discussions with Matthew Dixon, music
therapist at Northwick Park, London.
188 GROUPS IN MUSIC
What do we do about this; how can music accommodate asynchrony and

un-flowing-ness? Before reflecting on this, lets look at another non-musical
vignette. This time I draw from Christopher Nolans book, Under the Eye of the
Clock. It is Josephs first day at Mount Temple school, and his friends, Eddie and
Peter, wheel him into his first class music lesson.
Vignette 15b
Joseph was schooling his body to stay calm,whilst the boys were nego-
tiating how theyd manage to curtail his arms. We are bringing you to
the music room for singing, confided Peter and there at the end of a
green corridor they came upon a group of pupils standing waiting for
the teacher to unlock the door. He let the boys and girls pass inside
and then, conscious of his new pupil, he came towards him and taking
his hand he shook it warmly saying as he did so, Youre very welcome
to Mount Temple. I hope, Joseph, that youll be very happy here with
us. Eddie then eased the wheelchair into the room and class began.
Seeming curious, cheeky-faced Joseph moved his gaze from one
student to the next whilst they, anxious not to seem afraid, quickly
swerved away when his eye fell upon them.He smelt their utter fear of
him but was anxious too not to add to their worry by getting tense
and grimacing wildly as facial muscles twisted askew in spasm. (p.39)
The passage opens with two negotiations going on: Joseph negotiating with
himself, schooling his body to remain calm, while Eddie negotiates how to
manage Josephs flailing arms we see here a meeting of minds, with Eddie,
Peter and Joseph thinking about the same thing at the same time, although we
do not see how this meeting of minds happens.
We read that when Peter speaks to Joseph, the tone is confidential in other
words, it is unlikely to be loud or forceful, and we imagine his speaking to be
quiet and sotto voce something private that is for Joseph only. Apart from the
social conventions of saying something privately within a group context, we
can imagine that Peter tunes in to the quality of Josephs curiosity, anxiety
which, after all, most of us might feel when confronted with a new situation.
The teacher is conscious of his new pupil who happens to be in a
wheelchair and not altogether a pretty sight. We imagine that he too feels
somewhat anxious and uncertain (after all, Joseph is somewhat different to the
children he usually teaches). His warm shaking of hands conveys a whole lot of
messages. We can imagine this to convey something like, I am not quite sure
about you and your condition, and dont quite know how I should deal with it,
but I should like to let you know that I am unsure, and that perhaps we can
together learn how to know one another.
(How on earth do I think that this might be what the handshake conveys? And why
should you, the reader, believe me? In writing this, I assume that we you and I are more
or less adept at reading social conventions of signalling within this specific social culture
i.e. that we share an understanding of certain relational signals. Thus, in reflecting on this
text I draw from a collective emotional and relational vocabulary, hoping that together we
make sense of this situation. I cannot see your response to this as you read so I have to
rely on my imagined seeing of your reading of this text. Also, of course, as readers, we all
read into the descriptions in the text, drawing from our own experiences of reading
non-verbal signals.)
Then there is the fascinating second half of the text, which we might name
the eye dance: there are various quick movements of eye-gaze, hither and
thither between Joseph and the other children. He smells their fear. How does
he smell it? How does he know that they are fearful? Why is the gaze dance
not one of complicity and mischief, with the teacher being at the butt of some
(as yet undecided) school childrens prank? Joseph identifies something about
fear, and knows that this has something to do with his body not quite por-
traying a flow, or expressing itself in a way that might put them at ease. He
therefore has to make a decision he cannot afford to get anxious because he
knows that when he feels anxious, his body will go into spasms. You and I can be
anxious and are (more or less) able not to portray this in our acts and gestures, if
we do not want the other to read our anxiety. Joseph has no such control his
body will give his anxiety away.
Critically for Joseph, he is able to know how the children feel about him.
He has an acute capacity to smell their fear. This is interesting: he uses another
sense one that is unerringly accurate to describe what he knows. But at the
same time he sees, he hears and he reads the signals of the other children. We
might say that until the children get to learn how to decode his confusing and
uncontrolled body signals, they will remain confused and afraid of him.
We know that physical disability such as Josephs usually results in an in-
accuracy of conveying oneself (in the conventional sense) whether through
speech, facial expressions, gestures or music and in being received by the com-
municating partner in an uncertain manner. In terms of interactional synchrony,
there is a lack of symmetry between Joseph and the class, although his friends
Eddie and Peter constantly attempt to adjust themselves to him Peter speaks to
him confidentially, possibly quite slowly as well as softly, because at this early
stage Peter still needs to get to know Joseph how to read what Joseph thinks
190 GROUPS IN MUSIC
and feels through his body. We see also a mis-fit in the flow between Joseph
and the class, and the potential for distress for both. In the childrens minds,
Joseph is inaccurate in signalling what he means in the social conventions of
signalling in that particular school. The childrens inaccuracy in reading him
impacts their relationship at this early stage, and, undoubtedly, on Josephs
sense of self, on his self-confidence, self-esteem and his sense of agency. There
is something poignant in his having to assume responsibility for not making his
classmates even more afraid of him: part of his social identity, we can imagine, is
being the one who causes fear and embarrassment to others, and of having to
do something about it. And this is just what Joseph is so unsuccessful at in the
collective social sense. Gradually, Joseph, Peter, Eddie and the other children
will negotiate a way of getting to know one another, by learning to read one
anothers non-verbal signals. Joseph, of course, does this already but he
cannot let others know that he knows. His body does not flow in a way that
enables others to flow with him and create a shared meaning, in these early
group moments.
The point about this vignette, as well as that showing Anna and Rosie
chatting on the pavement, is that grooving is about being synchronized with
one another. Grooving doesnt only happen in music. When your rehearsals or
listening groups or music-making groups dont flow, you need to think about
interactional synchrony, and think about the group groove. Whos setting the
tone for the group? Whos hogging the groove (a contradiction in terms)? In
the group improvisation scenario in Vignette 9e, it is easy to hear James
dominance. But long before your group starts musicking, you need to transfer
this listening acuity in music to the non-verbal signals in the group. After all,
music is about non-verbal communication, and non-verbal communication is
about music!
Lets move to music and see what a group improvisation sounds like.
15.4 Persons as music: Flowing and grooving

If we accept the premise that in making music we present ourselves and our
capacity for human relationships (rather than only our musical skills), then
group music-making in whatever setting can be informed by the under-
standing that making music together is about much more than making music.
Group musicking can be seen and experienced as being about creating and sus-
taining human relationships, with all their complications and potentials and
frustrations through the musical event. In group musicking of whatever kind
whether in music education, choral training, orchestral rehearsals or community
productions this fundamental principle gives emotional, relational social

meaning to the immensely powerful act of being in music together.
At the same time, though, understanding alone does not give the non-music
therapist group musician the skill to hear, address or repair lack of cohesion,
rigidity or fragmentation that may be the result of neurological, psychological,
emotional or social dysfunction, disability or disorder. It may, however, offer
non-music therapists clarity as to the distinctions between making music in
order to make good music, to create community and enhance social experience
on one hand, and making music as an act of psychological and emotional
growth (or as an act of repairing dysfunction/disability or disorder). Inci-
dentally, I do not see the two as mutually exclusive, but rather as overlapping.
Having absorbed aspects of communicative musicality, lets look at the
group improvisation scenario below.
Vignette 15c
Were back in our one-off improvisation group with a different group
of adults who have come together as part of a public presentation on
Music-as-Communication.Jeremy has two tall congas,Helen two large
cymbals, Suzie the bongos, Adam has the temple blocks, Ella the
chromatic vibraphone and I have the large bass drum.We are standing
in a circle, our instruments in the middle, and, at my instructions, our
eyes are closed.We are waiting for sounds to emerge from us.There
is a strong silence, which increases in intensity and has a slightly hard,
pregnant quality. Jeremy bursts into rapid beating on the congas, and
instantly, the rest of the group (bar myself) jump in. Jeremys playing
has the same intensity and slight hardness as the silence before the
music. The group continues playing in rapid, accentuated sforzando
mode, whilst I give the occasional tap on the bass drum. I begin to feel
slightly uncomfortable with the intensity of the sound texture. I
become aware of no space or breathing in the music. Adam and Ella
stop playing. Jeremy continues, while Helens cymbal crashes get
louder and faster. Jeremy falters and begins to play more slowly, less
tightly. Ella then plays a simple melodic rhythm which Jeremy imitates
on the congas. She repeats her melodic rhythm while Jeremy begins
playing regular, quiet taps on the conga, which support her playing.
Adam then plays a rhythmic pattern on the temple blocks,which relate
to Ellas melody. Jeremy stops playing. Ellas melody trails off into
silence, while Adams rhythmic pattern is taken up by Helen on the
192 GROUPS IN MUSIC
cymbals, soon joined by Suzie on the bongos. The three of them

develop bouncy, jig-like music that seems to draw the rest of us. We
all join in, accenting the second beat of their playing rather like a
reggae beat and, as if by magic, we all end at the same instant and
burst into excited laughter.
Here, there is musicalpersonal flexibility and reciprocity between the players,

and a jointly negotiated group groove. When Helen begins to play loud and fast
on the cymbals, Jeremy does not shut her out: he hears her playing emerging
into the musical foreground, and his response it to falter and play more slowly
and quietly. He responds to her in a way that acknowledges what she plays,
adapting his playing to what she does, which ensures a jointly negotiated shift
in musical relationships and roles.
We see these jointly negotiated grooves throughout the excerpt: Adam in-
troduces a rhythmic pattern on the temple blocks, which relate to Ellas
melody. In other words, Adam enters into the common flow and by doing so,
also contributes to it. He doesnt just entrain in the sense of adapting himself
to Ellas melody but also offers something of his own tempo and rhythm, con-
tributing to the group music as a whole. Critically, though, the group music is
negotiated by all. Jeremy possibly recognizes that his playing does not quite fit.
He stops playing (rather than insisting on his version of the group music). His
stopping, incidentally, is also a contribution to the groove: by continuing, he
might prevent it from happening.

This chapter has used two vignettes that are non-musical to make a funda-
mental point: that as human beings, our acts are musical in character. How we
are in our daily life includes flowing, grooving assuming we have the neuro-
logical flexibility to flow with others, and assuming that others have the neu-
rological flexibility to flow with us.
As musicians involved in group work, you need to spot the flow long
before you begin making music with the group: listen to the quality of buzzing
or of quietness in the room: it speaks volumes, and you need to know how to
listen and make sense of it.
The next chapter takes a broader look at persons and music from the per-
spective of our personal and social identity.
CHAPTER 16
Group Music, Identity and Society
This chapter reflects on a self-evident issue: that any group is made up of individual persons
each with a unique experience of themselves that combines their individual and social iden-
tities. These layers of identity are created by our socio-economic, regional and cultural life
contexts, as well as our uniqueness as persons. As individual persons, our socially deter-
mined roles combust on one another in sessions and, just to complicate matters, there is also
the group context that generates particular roles, and creates a group identity for each of us
as group members including you as group leader. The issue of identity is complex and has
a vast literature in the fields of sociology and social psychology. I do not pretend to cover all
aspects of identity here, but present various aspects in order to alert you to issues to do with
identity in music groups.
Once again, this chapter is for everyone; providing concepts that underpin both your
thinking and your actions, whatever your working context. Lets have a look.
16.1 Identities and roles: Shifts and stabilities

Identity is a complicated notion. It has to do with our sense of belonging to
various groups ranging from family, friends, regions, professions to broader
groups such as gender or race. Identity also has to do with how we see ourselves
within our various social groups, how we are seen by them, and what groups we
are identified with in the public mind. The term identity means different
things in different places and at different times and, moreover, means more than
one thing at a time: for instance, we think of our private and public identity and
of our personal and collective identity.
Most of us belong to groups that have to do with fixed, inherited identities
(such as ethnicity, ancestry, gender, race and in some cases our geographical,
historical and social milieu). These can be seen as underpinning our belief
systems, language, and our culture (whatever that means). Combinations of
these collective, inherited (and usually stable) aspects give us a sense of who we
are, and how we are experienced by our various social groups.
193
194 GROUPS IN MUSIC
What we have so far is layers of collective identity, with different aspects of

ourselves more or less prominent at any given time, place or social context.
At the same time as having multi-collective identities, we have our individu-
ality and uniqueness: that je ne sais quoi that makes me who I am, which is different
from you; and that makes each one of us unique in our daily engagements with
life.
Closely aligned with our various identities are the roles we play as members
of social groups. Most of us have distinctive and multiple social roles: in my
family life alone I am an aunt, confidante, daughter, sister, partner, parental
figure, sister-in-law, niece and friend, and apparently able to move with ease
from one role to another. Each of these roles, however, is adjacent to one
another, and they have in common something essential about me. My personal
and highly idiosyncratic colours and textures have to do with the conver-
gence of my various roles and identities.
As well as all of this, there is for each of us our individual and collective con-
tinuity of ourselves in the past, present and future. Here, our memory colours
our personal history, and our awareness of continuity as we continue to live in
our social and geographical milieu continuously shapes our sense of the
essential I. Thus, identity resonates with, and is shaped by, our sense of being a
part of (or apart from) the milieu in which we are born, raised, taught, play, pray,
work and eventually die; as well as our collective and individual past and
present.
Another complexity is that some aspects of our individual identity are more
shifting than others. For example, my gender identity, as well as my ethnicity
and religious culture, are constants in my life. My physical identity remains the
same, whilst also changing as I age and change body shape, hair colour, etc.
However, even with these apparently stable identities, my different ethnic and
gender nuances emerge depending on where I am in the world, with which part
of my family I engage, and what language I speak. Similarly, my professional
identity shifts, depending on whether I am in my academic environment, giving
a talk to the Parkinsons Association, delivering a keynote address at an interna-
tional conference or running an experiential workshop as a community
musician. Here were approaching the notion that identity is also a public phe-
nomenon: to do with our role in different contexts, and how we are seen. Thus,
by the university I am seen as an academic, by the conference as a writer, by the
Parkinsons Association as a music therapist and by the workshop participants
as a community musician and these roles are different parts of only my profes-
sional identity!
GROUP MUSIC, IDENTITY AND SOCIETY 195
Personal identity can also be seen as a process, constructed through our rela-
tionships with one another, rather than only being something fixed, or
something that is given to us by our environment (in a rather stereotypical
way). Here, identity has to do with our sense of agency in other words, how
1
we impact on the world, how we receive the world and make sense of it, and
how the world makes sense of us.
16.2 Public and collective stereotypes

The public aspect of identity leads us to think of stereotypes. Here are collec-
tively assigned labels that have fixed characteristics that can apparently be easily
transplanted, across vastly different contexts, from one person or group to
another. Thus, for example, Zulu children are noisy in class, and old people are
selfish. Even where the Zulu children are being raised in Finland, or the old
person is part of a religious order that believes in a life of charity.
Stereotyping, such as in these two examples, is a whisker away from
personal and collective prejudice and the marginalization of groups (such as
Romanies, AIDS sufferers or murderers). Any of these social exclusions from
so-called mainstream life is based on fixed, largely unexplored, publicly
assigned labels and caricatures that are apparently acceptable to society at large.
Also, with the stereotyping of social groups, individuals cannot be distin-
guished from the supposed collective characteristics of their group: thus, all
Zulu children are noisy no matter where or how they are being raised, and old
people everywhere and always are selfish.
These socially sanctioned stereotyped views can result in our assigning or
anticipating personal characteristics or musical/group roles to folk in our
groups, as a consequence of how we stereotype them. The resulting role pre-
scriptions can hinder the possibilities for a person experiencing themselves
and being experienced by the group in another way, which might be critical in
terms of growing a different identity. As group workers we need to remain
receptive to the personal, dynamic and mutual creating of one anothers identi-
ties as we engage with one another.
1 By the world I dont mean the planet earth or political globe, but rather, the reality of daily
life. This is the world in which each of us lives, and which is distinct for each one of us.
196 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Vignette 16a
A young offender is referred to your music group at the local
community centre.In fact,this is how hes referred,and it takes a while
to find out his name. You know that, being a young offender, with a
criminal record, Ben is possibly dishonest and anti-social. In spite of
your training (and yourself!),you find yourself watching Ben out of the
corner of your eye during the first few sessions. Embarrassingly, he
sees you watching him.
If youre able to relax about what Ben might have done, and engage with him
in a way that is uncluttered by the stereotypes accompanying the label of young
offender, there is a chance that your attitude towards him in the music group
will enable Ben to grow another identity. He might experience himself as a
musician, as the one whos quite good on the drums, who likes Eminem, and
whos always on time for the sessions. If, on the other hand, you cannot get
away from stereotyping him, you risk confining your attitude and thoughts
about him. Youll see him as someone who likes the drums and youd better keep an
eye on them because he might go off with them; and he likes this pop stuff that has rather
bad swearwords; and hes always slightly early, and is he having a good look around at
what else might be of interest in the room.
These distinctive attitudes towards Ben, as a young person and as a young
offender, will elicit rather different relationships between the two of you, and
between Ben and the rest of the group. Also, each of these will generate a rather
different sense of self for Ben.
At the same time, though, you know that he is a young offender with all
that this implies. Youre not pretending that those aspects of him do not exist,
but perhaps youre willing to put these at the back of your mind (although
perhaps not totally out of your mind), and meet him in a fresh way as a human
being. You might manage to be receptive to Ben without acting towards him as
though you expect him to treat you as a disciplinarian person-in-charge. The
implications, here, are that each of you risks becoming entrenched in stereo-
typing the other, rather than relating to one another as two persons with
multiple identities, some more socially desirable than others, perhaps, but each
with an equal chance to grow.
Before thinking about identity and music, I want to dip into the context of
working in health-related fields, and the impact of these contexts on our
identity.
16.3 Identity and health

Health is everywhere. There is emphasis on healthy eating, exercising, healthy
living and a not-so-hidden message that if you are not health conscious, then
youre not pulling your weight as a member of society. In modern urban
2
cultures, there is social pressure to sustain a healthy lifestyle, that includes gym,
vitamins and other social responsibilities to do with leisure and playing ones
part in contributing towards a health-conscious society.
The culture that grows us generally defines health and illness on our behalf,
and what is considered ill in one culture, may be perfectly healthy in another.
Like other societies, Western societies shape illness, disability, disorder and
health in a particular way, and expect ill people to fulfil socially sanctioned tasks
that include seeking treatment, preferably from a registered practitioner. West-
ern-trained medical doctors also have their roles clearly defined, and are
expected by society to alleviate symptoms, even if they cannot cure the illness.
Similarly, social belief systems shape our understandings and engagements
with education, music, religion or therapy. Western psychology and psycho-
analysis inform us that health in the mental sphere has to do with creativity,
self-expression and self-development, and education certainly has to do with
extending oneself, developing skills and knowledge in order to become a
useful and responsible member of society. Thus, folk might decide to join a
choir in order to de-stress (and stress is not a healthy thing); and joining your
improvisation workshop might be part of someone s journey of
self-development. Special education or remedial teaching are more explicitly
health related, and generally have to do with addressing needs or remedying
problems. However, the sub-text of activities that have to do with personal
growth might be that if we are not committed to our personal growth, were not
serious about our lives, nor are we serious about being part of a society with a
healthy collective identity. All of this, of course, is a stereotyping of a certain
lifestyle, but serves to make a point about identity and health.
Thus, health, illness or disability (and I use these terms broadly) are not just
to do with our individual state, but are part of our collective and public health
identity. (Music therapist Wendy Magee has written about the disabled or
spoiled identity in papers on her work with persons who suffer from neurolog-
ical injuries (Magee and Davidson 2000).) A severe injury or illness (e.g. a
stroke, terminal illness or brain injury) results in changed social roles, and our
2 I use the term modern here, with a resonance from anthropology and sociology, to
contrast with traditional societies.
198 GROUPS IN MUSIC
changed social and personal identity. Thus, folk staring at our facial disfigure-
ment after severe burns, make us feel a certain way which impacts on how we
experience ourselves as a member of society. After an accident that confines us
to a wheelchair, we are seen as slower, less able and rather slow in terms of lo-
comotion. After a stroke our speech is laboured and we experience other people
being too fast, we see them trying to slow down (and possibly not succeeding),
or generally being uncomfortable in our presence.
Any of these experiences impacts on how we experience ourselves, and on
how we think about ourselves. And these shifting roles and social identity will
impact on group musicking.
As we can see from this brief discussion, many of us community musicians,
music therapists, special education teachers, music teachers, and even church
musicians and ensemble leaders work in contexts closely associated with
health in this broadest sense.
Lets now consider identity and music.
16.4 Identity and music

In Chapter 5 we touched on music as intimately connected with our sense of
social self, while Chapter 12 explored how pieces of music become deeply sig-
nificant in contributing to meaning in our lives. What we see in each of these
chapters and in much of this book is that music is pivotal in generating our
social identity, and in creating a sense of belonging to a social group. Even
Ruud (1998) reminds us of the various musics at different times of our life.
There are the songs sung to us as very young children, possibly by parents or
grandparents, and the songs we learnt at nursery school, possibly our first wider
experience of our social culture. As adolescents, many of us experienced a sense
of being a part of a peer group defined by music, and that defined our dress,
manners of speaking, behaving and socializing. Social psychologists inform us
that music contributes to our sense of being a part of a social group, as
witnessed not only by the music, but also the dress code and behaviours not
only for adolescents, but also for specific regional groups and sub-groups (such
as, for example, the Sunday morning congregation at St Patricks Cathedral in
Manhattan).
Also, we know that music is pivotal to public events such as weddings, May
Day parades or the inauguration of a new head of state. The music becomes as-
sociated with such events, creating powerful collective associations and
memories, which contribute to our sense of belonging to a certain place and
time and to a certain music.
The rest of this chapter is based on a vignette used to focus on this business
of roles and identities in music group work.
16.5 Whos who
Vignette 16b
Youre with a group of old folk in a residential nursing home. Your
group is of recently arrived residents who are relatively high func-
tioning: able to care for themselves and engage socially. You suspect
that some are rather distressed at being in a home,and faced with the
longer-term residents, some of whom are in various stages of senile
dementia. Although the latter live in Frail Care, which is a separate
part of the home,there is mingling between various parts of the home.
This is part of the holistic and integrated ethos of the nursing home.
You work here one afternoon a week, throughout the year, and
most group members are regular. Part of your brief is to run
semi-closed groups, to plan and organize various concerts during the
year, run the choir (for staff and residents), and have weekly small
closed music group sessions. Group members are recommended by
the highly sympatique staff and, in keeping with the homes ethos of
inclusivity and holistic care, everyone is invited to take part. You love
working here and have a sense of being acknowledged and appreci-
ated by staff and residents alike.
It is your weekly session with five elderly folk: Helen (who is in a
wheelchair due to her diabetes and leg-amputation); Iris (who origi-
nates from the Caribbean); John (who is rather boisterous and can
annoy the other group members);Leslie (an ex-pastor,tends to pontif-
icate and annoy the women especially); and Mary (your favourite
member an ex-school music mistress, prim and proper with a
wicked twinkle).
This group keeps you on your toes.
Youre doing Kumbayah Ma Lord and each person has an instru-
ment. Your guitar playing and singing is upbeat, youre all engaged and
enjoying yourselves.During the chorus of the song,everyone plays and
sings with gusto.Youve changed the wording of each refrain to Iris (or
John, Leslie, etc)s playing, Lord, Kumbayah. During the verses, all stop
playing apart from the person whose name is being sung.Here it gets a
little chaotic, since Leslie constantly encourages and praises the
200 GROUPS IN MUSIC
soloist; John exclaims loudly at the end of each verse, and then
conducts everyone ostentatiously for the chorus; Mary giggles, and at
times thanks the gentlemen in a teasing or deprecating manner,
winking at you as though she knows that you and she think the men
are a nuisance (shed never say a pain in the butt or show-offs,
which is your generations expression); Helen half-dozes when shes
not playing and is generally nudged awake by an attentive neighbour;
and Iris flirts with the men, and is maternal and matronizing towards
you.
During some of the verses you do a bit of spontaneous vocal ex-
temporizing, depending on how the soloist plays. This inevitably raises
Marys eyebrows even higher, spurs John to greater praises with the
occasional Amen,and provokes Iris to some loud spontaneous vocal-
izing of her own not always quite harmonious with yours.
The session is in the dining room and since this has no door,some
of the other residents wander in at times, often drawing voluble
greetings from the gentlemen and Iris.
Lets unpack this a bit.
16.6 Sounding ourselves (i)

As the group leader you are assigned a leadership role that you need to own.
You are also probably identified as young, musical, as a professional,
possibly as a do-gooder community worker. While this may not be how you
experience yourself in your everyday life, you may need to wear this prescribed
identity with its accompanying roles (and possible stereotyping). As well soon
see, the group consists of individuals whose various identities past and present
emerge in this brief peep into the weekly session. Part of your role as leader is
to facilitate the emergence of fluid roles for each person in your group in
sessions. Without your vigilance, John and Leslie might well dominate the
event, stamping their (professional/past) identities firmly on the group, pre-
venting more fluid roles for themselves or for others.
How, then, to balance individuals and the group? How do we co-create a
group identity in music, that also means something to each individual in the
moment? Lets begin by looking at each person.
John shows off: he loves the spotlight, tends to sing loudly when it is his
solo bit and constantly chivvies the group to sing louder and a bit faster. His acts
have a hint of his social identity being strongly embedded in being a ladies
man, with all the accompanying roles and expectations that belong to his
gender, social background, age, professional and cultural norms (and here, of
course, I am aware that I risk stereotyping him). In terms of co-creating the
group identity by all the members, his lively energy could get out of hand in the
sense that he might end up in the role of insisting on (prescribing, in a sense) the
groups identity. Your role is to acknowledge his energy, possibly rein in his
boisterousness, reassure and acknowledge him, invite him to channel his
energy into the music, and ensure that there is enough musical space to allow
for other identities to be sounded.
Marys winking and slight impatience are probably a combination of her
past professional life, her social standing and also, possibly, to do with her
family culture. She has a way of being conspiratorial, humorous, and slightly
wicked. You can imagine her in her role as a teacher, probably frightening and
severe to most of her school charges except those who had the imagination
and intelligence to sense, and respond to, the twinkle in her eye. Here, part of
your own social identity, as an ex-boarding school pupil, engages with Mary, so
that in your imagination you speculate that she probably enjoyed her prim and
proper exterior.
16.7 A little divertimento

I want to divert from talking about identity for a moment, to reflect a little about
your own enjoyment of Mary. Although, privately, she is your favourite group
member, in your role as group leader you need to be careful: professionally your
role is to engage with all group members. At the same time, though, Mary makes
the session more colourful, and there is an emotional acuity about her timing
and subterfuge that helps you(!) by confirming your own hunches about what
goes on between group members at any moment.
Lets reflect further: what do you make of Marys conspiratorial winks? Is
this her attempt at creating a sub-group or to curry favour with you? Mary
reads very well whats going on the nuances underneath the acts and this is
helpful in confirming your own hunches at times. Her need, possibly, is to create
an exclusive alliance with you. After all, winking implies that there is a con-
spiratorial, exclusive contact between the two of you (whether or not others in
the group notice this). Could it be that she needs your acknowledgement of her
winks (even by your seeing them) that confirms what she sees? Or by acknowl-
edging her winks, are you entering into exclusive engagement with one
member of the group at the expense of others? If you decide to ignore her
winks, what might this convey to her and to the rest of the group?
202 GROUPS IN MUSIC
I am not answering these questions but present them here as part of the
process of reflecting on what happens during sessions! There is no single
answer, but its more likely that by thinking about various possibilities, youll be
alert to other interpersonal nuances in your sessions. In other words, the point
here is to be reflecting in an inquiring and uncertain way, leaving open various
possibilities of meaning at once.
Lets return to our group.
16.8 Sounding ourselves (ii)

Leslie is vociferous in his support even if this support feels rather stuck and re-
petitive (i.e. always praising and supporting what others do). It seems that his
professional identity predominates: with associated pastoral roles of being sup-
portive, leading the congregational hymns, encouraging and generous with
praise. His past identity as well as his slightly inappropriate current role in the
group need to be acknowledged and managed, since there is in this an under-
current of his challenging your role as leader, by co-directing the group. He may
be giving you a message that in your role as group leader (as seen through his
lens of what your role ought to be) you are not doing enough leading, so
that he needs to compensate by doing it on your behalf .
Helens nodding off is interesting. She possibly sleeps poorly at night, and
perhaps part of her identity is invested in disability, or possibly her family was
historically invested in keeping her in the role of invalid, which has become
entrenched in her sense of self. She contributes a calming and stabilizing
presence in the sessions. Her dozing off suggests something about finding the
group comfortable (after all we do not doze off when things feel alarming);
while her needs are possibly to not be noticed, and to be left in peace. This
is an interesting one: is thinking about her in this way a cop out? Think about
it: youre hardly going to change her lifelong habits (and why should you?). She
keeps on coming to the sessions (remember that folk come by invitation each
week), and if she were not interested in the group, she would remain in her
wheelchair, in her corner of the communal living room. Clearly music gives
her something although youre unsure as to what this is. We might speculate
that the group gives her a sense of belonging and it may be part of her social
identity in the nursing home. Also, the group without her would be different in
texture and quality of energy. We know little about her past, and her extreme
passivity and lack of energy makes it difficult to read her socially, culturally,
professionally we can situate her historically, ethnically and more or less geo-
graphically. That is about all.
Iris is playful, youthful and socially elegant. Her flirting is not embarrassing
or jarring with who she is or the fact that she is elderly. Like John, her gender
identity (being a woman and an attractive one at that), as well as possibly her
socio-cultural and regional origins, result in her enjoying music in a playful,
flirtatious, overt way: you imagine her (out of your own social identity) as the
life and soul of a party. She brings dynamism to the group. One of her social
roles might have been to be seen, to be fun and lively and to be admired. And
why not acknowledge and affirm this? Even if your (retro-feminist) principles
mean that you disapprove of women enjoying their attractiveness to the
opposite sex, this is not the place to foist your ideologies onto others. Your role
as group leader is to enable each group member to have a meaningful experi-
ence of themselves and of one another in your weekly sessions.
Somehow, this collection of highly individualistic people manage to
present their individual identities of age, gender, personal history, professional
background and personal past, and be a group at the same time.
The inner track

Whats been tricky in writing the above commentary is the risk of ste-
reotyping each of the group members. Inevitably, each group mem-
bers past histories and present circumstances, their memories and
musical tastes impact on one another and with you as group leader.
Here, your own life experience and social identity nuances how you
see and experience each group member! You can, I hope, manage to set
aside your own social biases and preferences and receive each person
as they are right here, right now, in the moment. At the same time,
there is something about social stereotyping that is useful: something
about Miss Jean Brodie can be a point of reference in relation to Mary
so long as it is not the only point of reference you have.
It seems that even in thinking about this brief extract, we see the ongoing
co-creating of individual and group identities. There are constant revisitings of
past identities whether gender, ethnic, geographical, religious or linguistic
through musical material, roles in group sessions, and through the coincidence
of each persons past on the present, and of each person on one another. Each of
these contribute to the group identity which is, itself, transient.
204 GROUPS IN MUSIC
16.9 What shall we sing-a-long?

Im aware of not having discussed the use of pre-composed songs in this
chapter. This might seem remiss especially in a session such as this one in the
nursing home. However, we saw in Chapter 12 that songs have powerful associ-
ations with various aspects of our lives, and are part of our collective sense of
belonging to a culture and social group. In a group such as the one weve peeped
into, there is a historical overlap (lets say that the group age range is between 65
and 80), which might give you ideas about musical material from various
periods, which might have historical associations with past events. Be careful!
Dont assume that all know the same songs! For a start, Iris comes from another
country, and her lack of familiarity with well-known tunes might make her feel
excluded from the rest of the group. Leslie is ultra-religious and might find some
songs offensive, and it turns out that Helen spent most of her life in India. It may
be more useful to ask each person to offer a song that is meaningful to them
and draw them out about why it is meaningful, so that each person can learn
about one another through the music/songs that individuals choose.
16.10 In conclusion
This brief excursion into thinking about identity as personal, collective, private
and public, and as both stable and shifting, has, I hope, alerted you to the com-
plexities of group roles, attitudes and expectations.
By being members of any social group, we are ourselves changed and take
different roles, experiencing ourselves in other ways. Music groups are social
groups: whether an orchestra, choir, class-music or improvisation group;
whether a one-off group, a short-term or a long-term group; whether made up
of strangers or of folk who live together, each of your music groups will develop
a distinctive musical as well as social identity! Each of these enables all the
persons in the group and that includes you to experience themselves in a
way that is distinctive to that group. Your joint musicking contributes to this sense
of group identity, and is at the same time shaped by it. Here is a marvellous pos-
sibility for music and the group to be created, improvised and composed by one
another.
CHAPTER 17
Absence, Presence and

Climate Control
In Chapters 6 and 8 we saw a group on a paediatric ward coming together albeit in a

rather haphazard way: some were a part of the group by being physically in the group
circle, others remained in bed but were mentally engaged in the music, whilst others still
remained outside the group event, apparently outside the social presence of others. That
session was a permeable, public event and the children could come and go (physically or
mentally) as they wished. We also spoke about creating a physical, musical and a temporal
space for the session. Here I consider the nature of absence and presence in group music:
how each is valuable in signalling the climate of commitment, capacity for engagement,
appropriateness of and responsiveness to your group leadership or facilitation skills, and so
on. In other words, absence by any group member or sub-group, may mean that you are not
in tune. I also insist that neither absence nor presence is better or worse than the other,
but rather that each of these acts (or non-acts) has value, and needs to be decoded by you.
This chapter is useful for anyone and everyone who does any kind of group music
work: whether highly structured or not, and whatever your work context. All of you will
recognize the kinds of events described in the vignettes, as well as the reflections and discus-
sions.
17.1 Absence and presence

Presence and absence have rather nuanced meanings in this ongoing and
dynamic group context, not quite as simple as being physically in or out of the
music space, or absent from rehearsals or sessions. First, there are various ways
of being absent and present: physically, mentally, emotionally in various com-
binations. By mental I mean the perceptual, cognitive and other processes that
enable us to be alert to, make sense of and process our environment. By emotional
I mean the affective quality (both internal and overt) of our presence which
does not always coincide with our mental state, and which is not always
205
206 GROUPS IN MUSIC
apparent. By physical I mean our postures, gestures, acts visible to others and
received by them as signalling something about the whole of us, and the
quality of our presence or absence in the group. There is also our social
presence: an awareness of belonging to the group as a social entity, and
awareness of others as social beings, and with distinctive as well as collective
social identities. Finally, Id like to think of presence of soul akin to what the
Buddhists call mindfulness which I understand as a qualitative presence,
denoting our whole being involved in group music-making.
Presence, then, implies awareness of the group environment and being re-
sponsive and engaged in the moment, while absence implies a removal of
oneself from the group event, unwillingness or incapacity, a resistance to being
part of the group.
At the same time, we need to be careful not to polarize the two: one can be
absent from the group and be present internally to oneself. Also, ones absence
can be a powerful signal to the group and to you that something is not quite
as it should be. In other words, be careful not to value presence more than
absence, but rather think of each as being valuable and meaningful.
Although it is rather artificial to separate physical, mental and emotional
modalities from one another, I do this to help us consider the finer nuances of
group engagements. Table 17.1 presents a few combinations of absence and
presence.
Table 17.1 How present is your absence?
Physically Mentally Emotionally

Person 1 Present Present Present
Person 2 Present Absent Present
Person 3 Present Present Absent
Person 4 Present Absent Absent
Also, anyone in the group (including you) can shift between presence and
absence (in any modality ) very swiftly so dont think that you can fix the
group with one formula for the entire session. More complex still, each
member in the group may be in a different mode at any given time. You need
your wits about you to read, acknowledge and respond to the quality of each
persons absence and presence. This will give group members a sense of being
ABSENCE, PRESENCE AND CLIMATE CONTROL 207
known by you and accepted, rather than judged for being in or out of the
group work at that moment. This experience of being known is enormously
valuable for most folk of all ages in daily life, but more so for those who are
marginalized by society because of disabilities, illness, difficult behaviour,
immigrant/refugee status or whatever. After all, were hoping that the music
group leaves everyone feeling enriched by the experience of group intimacy.
The point of reflecting on any of the possible combinations is to inform your
responses rather than have you reacting to situations and to the various
alliances, and potentially escalating the climate of tension in the group.
The vignette below illustrates some fleeting shifts of presence and absence,
as set out in Table 17.1.
Vignette 17a: Four teenagers: Andrew, Benet, Chris and David.

Youve been working with four teenage boys in a residential home for
young offenders for the past three months. Your brief is that this is a
weekly space for the young lads to express themselves through
musical activities. This is your tenth weekly session, and youre strug-
gling to engage them musically. Youre in a circle, and each of you has a
Djembe drum. Youve begun a semi-structured improvisation, with
Benet providing a simple, repeated rhythmic pattern over which the
rest of you layer your own rhythmic phrasings in an improvised way.
Andrew and Chris have been staring out of the window, apparently
oblivious to the fact that theyre playing their Djembes.
The group energy is flat,and this flatness is portrayed in the collec-
tive drumming. Youre feeling irritated with Andrew and Chris, but
refrain from saying something, because every now and then the flat
drumming almost ignites. Youre willing to let the music carry the
group energy for the moment,while monitoring its development.Like
you and Benet, David is engrossed in the activity.
You notice that Andrew is drifting off into his own world: hes still
playing but there is a numbed, glazed quality about his presence a
subtle shift from earlier. Your level of alarm rises a bit, but again you
refrain from saying anything. Instead, in your drumming you slightly
tighten the rhythmic pattern and Benet immediately picks up the shift
in musical gear.The drumming (you,Benet and David) begins to gather
energy,and you see that Chris,who together with Andrew was playing
in a semi vacant way, has now stopped playing but seems alert to the
change in the quality of the drumming. He shifts in his chair, looks
208 GROUPS IN MUSIC
towards the group (he was previously staring out of the window) but
youre not yet sure whether he is mentally with it or not.
Meantime, Andrews drumming unexpectedly becomes more
urgent, although he appears unaware of what he is doing. Within a
split-second Chris starts to play again in a more focused and attentive
way. Both Chris and Andrew become flushed, their posture is more
intent and they slightly lean forward in their chairs. For some
moments the five of you are drumming intently together. Soon after
this, Benet (who was the musical leader) stops playing and says that
he doesnt feel very well. Everyone stops playing.
Some of you may resonate instantly with this kind of scenario, which is
common across ages, work contexts and clinical conditions! I could have
substituted old people, toddlers, autistic youngsters or a group of
business-women who have come together to play. The dynamic would be
similar. (If you re-read the orthopaedic ward group work in Chapters 6 and 8,
youll spot similarities.)
17.2 Shifting alliances: Musical and mental

The absence and presence of each person shifts rapidly and defines the alliances
during the music-making. One alliance is between you, Benet and David: the
three of you are mentally, physically and emotionally engaged. Your drumming
is not just a physical motor exercise, or a musical one in the cognitive, mental
sense. There is a personal investment in what each of you does. At the same time,
though, as the group facilitator, you are distinct from Benet and David. You
have another kind of engagement in, and attention to, what goes on at each
moment of the session, something that Benet and David are unlikely to have,
although they are probably peripherally aware of Andrew and Chris
semi-engagement. Thus, as well as the three of you (Benet, David and you)
being one alliance, Chris and Andrew form another. At first glance, Andrew and
Chris are semi-absent and semi-present, and their playing is apparently
automatic. However, Andrew begins to disappear almost totally: he is physi-
cally present but clearly absent in other ways. He and Chris become two
separate entities. Your alertness and monitoring of them, possibly more than the
others in the group at this moment, creates another alliance, and you momen-
tarily shift your focus to them. And so on. We see here various alliances going on
at the same time, some overlapping, some distinct from one another, some
polarized. At the same time there is the larger group: despite these subtle shifts
of alliances between the five of you, what binds you together at the same time is
a combination of your collective presence in the room at this time, and the
music that is created by the group.
17.3 Being present to absence

It is critical not to judge or value presence more than absence. Each may signal
that it is you (dear reader) that needs a wake-up call. You may be missing
something thats going on in the group and someones behaviour carries a
message. Also be careful of fragmenting the group in your mind as being on
various sides. Thus, Benets presence (in providing the rhythmic ground) is not
more important or better than Andrew and Chris, who are less present. Also,
Andrew and Chris, by being less engaged than the rest, are not bad, insolent
or uncooperative this is far too simplistic, as is to think of Benet as
cooperating (because he is doing what you want him to do). You need to
decode what the acts are telling you. For example, if someones not listening,
they may be bored if so, why are they bored? Are you going on a bit? Is it the
moment to shift the pace, change the activity? Better still, why not ask them
what they think needs changing? If someone is playing, they are apparently
being cooperative. Is there another message here? Are they currying favour
with you; wanting to be seen in alliance with you? I am not saying that you need
to become an expert analyst of group behaviour rather, that you keep an open
mind as to what might be going on in your groups.
At the same time, though, a part of you is relieved that Benet keeps going
and is musically engaged, and you feel impatient with Andrew and Chris who
are mentally absent. Lets reframe the brief of this vignette for a moment, and
see what happens to our thinking.
Lets pretend that rather than being a group for self-expression, your brief is,
instead, tasked: you have a performance coming up and need these boys to
work. You need to reflect carefully on Andrew and Chris behaviours within
this revised brief. If the group norms, set up at the beginning of your work
together, are now something like: we come to sessions in order to prepare for
the performance, then Andrew and Chris are not fulfilling their part of the
group contract.
However, long before things come to this sorry state where you might
have to ask them to leave the group, since they are sabotaging the groups task
you need to be aware of your personal reactions and feelings, and make sense of
the group climate, so that you can address issues at a much earlier stage of your
work together.
210 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Your addressing group niggles from the start, rather than letting the
climate become increasingly uncomfortable for everyone in the group, will
generate in the group a feeling of trust in you: a feeling that you are in tune with
them even if, overtly, they do not approve of your reprimands. Remember that
most acts (and non-acts) have hidden meanings, and that these speak volumes!
(You need to hear them, though.)
If we think of a different group context a classroom situation: you walk
past a classroom and hear the teacher saying in a rather exasperated voice, I
dont know what the matter with these children is today. Is it just the children,
or is there, possibly, something the matter with the teacher too? If as class
teacher (or choir leader or music tutor) youre aware of feeling grumpy and
impatient before your session starts, then you need to leave those parts of you at
the door, so to speak, and focus, as best you can, on the moment in hand. This is
not always easy, and after all, we are all human. If youre lucky, your group will
give you a chance to focus on them like the schoolchildren in Chapter 8 who
let me know (clearly and firmly) that I was not with it. Luckily for us all, I heard
them.
17.4 Thinking through

The way we think about any of the vignettes in this book is determined by our
theoretical approach, the tasks of the group and our professional culture. The
chances are that music therapists, ensemble conductors, community musicians
and music teachers each differ in their thinking about the vignettes. Also, within
each of these professional groups, different folk might read these differently
this is what keeps our work alive and uncertain!
Similarly, notions of absence and presence in group work can be thought of
in a multitude of ways: musically, we might focus on what is sounded and what
is not; in personal terms, we might think of absence and presence as having to
do with the persons mood, the quality of their engagement and lack of it; and
how they are experiencing the group. If we think interpersonally, then there are
implications of absence and presence for the entire group not just for the
person who is not engaging.
I want to revisit some of the vignettes to conclude:
Vignette 8a shows Cherie and Karen giggling and attempting to
push each other off their chairs, in your session. Are they absent?
Musically speaking, yes, since they are not playing, and neither are
they paying attention so we might think of them as being
mentally absent too. Are they only absent? Lets think of them as
being present: their acts are happening within the group (since this
is an open session, they might have gone and played outside your
group space). Perhaps they are present after all and their acts tell
you something.
Vignette 8d shows me up as absent, mentally, even though
physically present. The group lets me know this by behaving
atrociously. Luckily, I get the message, and refocus myself to
become totally present. The session shifts into focus for the whole
group.
Vignette 9a describes the group of Parkinsons patients mentally
and physically present in the moment, and the music does not work.
I am present emotionally to myself and to the group, and listen to
my own mounting discomfort and anxiety. This enables me to hear
Mr Bs comment about playing along with his favourite music as a
cue, which sets the scene for the next part of the session.
Vignette 9e shows a group improvisation in which James musical
presence masks an interpersonal absence. His music prevents the
group from grooving, and as a result, the rest of the group
gradually absent themselves musically.
Vignette 10b shows care workers being absent musically and
mentally, although physically present. They communicate their lack
of enthusiasm, and their mental absence very clearly. This, Jennifer
does not quite read, being a music therapy student, but she knows
something needs fixing and brings the session to our weekly
supervision group.
Vignette 11a describes Simon and myself totally present to the
group in the ritual for Joes death. As a result, were able to switch
plans without needing to signal to one another during the ritual, and
instead, witness the group singing their own songs.
Vignette 12c describes Carla absenting herself emotionally in the
way that she presents her autobiographical choice of the Mozart
Horn Concerto. She tells us a tale of a monks unrequited love as
programme notes for our listening to the music. Although as group
facilitator, I am aware of her absence, it is not part of my brief, here,
to comment on it.
212 GROUPS IN MUSIC
17.5 Present conclusions and absent certainties

Throughout this book weve been thinking about how the act of thinking itself
influences how we plan our work; how we do it and how we think about it and
describe it. In considering absence and presence in this chapter, I am offering
tools for thinking about, and describing what might and might not have
happened in your session.
There is nothing too certain or formulaic about these concepts: as I hope
youve gathered, just because James does one thing, and Andrew (in a different
group) does exactly the same thing, this does not mean that both are absent
and anti-group. Far from it! You need to read the group constantly, and
yourself as part of it. You also, of course, need to remember your task, your aims,
your roles and know your limits.
CHAPTER 18
Group Process and the Inner Track
You might be wondering why this chapter on group process is brief, and why it is at the end
of the book. This is because most of this book is about group process in the sense of
tuning-in to what goes on in your planning, your doing the group and now in reflecting
about it. Music groups of whatever kind provide opportunities for various relation-
ships to emerge over a period of time. Sub-groups form and fall apart, alliances shift, the
group challenges your role as group leader or coheres unexpectedly and so on. Any of
these events can be seen as having to do with interpersonal relationships in groups, which
can be cosy, conflicting, erotic, exciting, destructive and immensely challenging.
Alertness to the inner track is essential, no matter what your brief, your task and how
your role is defined. By definition, the groups inner track needs ongoing reflection, which
is more than writing up after sessions. Group processes are complex, and need your
curiosity, exploring, musings. Even if you are not trained in working psychologically, some
of the discussions here will, I hope, be helpful in wondering about your sessions.
Finally Id like to suggest that the more you manage to reflect and process your own
work, the less exhausting and the more enriched you will find your work even the most
difficult and awkward groups will keep you interested, while the groups that flow more
easily will make you think twice about whats going on.
18.1 Structure and directive work

Generally speaking, the more structured your sessions, the more task-
orientated, the safer your group members will feel (and that includes you as
leader). Here, everyone knows whats what: why theyre here, whos in what
role, what the task is. Your brief may be something like preparing a musical per-
formance for an event, completing the music curriculum syllabus, developing
social skills, or whatever. In each of these, the task can be thought of as having
an external focus, in the sense that the members themselves are not necessarily
the main focus of your activities, but rather what they do. Thus, your focus may
be on how the musicians play or sing (rather than how they feel) in a rehearsal;
213
214 GROUPS IN MUSIC
or how the class is progressing in terms of learning music. Even the social
skills group might have to do with role playing various parts that can be seen
as being outside group members, and that they are trying on for the moment
using role playing as a (drama-therapy) mechanism of distancing, which
certain groups may need.
Even in task-oriented group work, you need to set norms! At the very least
the norms have to do with time and place of session, frequency of sessions (e.g.
once a week or fortnight or month), length of session, punctuality, help with
tidying up, contributing to the tea fund and so on. You also need to make clear
to the group what you are providing and possibly more important what you
are not providing for the group as group leader. In other words, you may be
running a choir in a mental health setting, but you may need to make clear that
your brief is musical. Here, if choir members have personal difficulties and need
support, then you need to refer them to a counsellor or resident music therapist.
Your role needs to be clear, as are the limits of your role: you run the session
from beginning to end, you are overtly in charge, and can insist on the tasks
you work in a directive way, and, one hopes, folk feel safe in the sense that they
feel comfortable with you, with the task and with one another.
Even in overtly structured and directive group work, people are people with
feelings, attitudes, sensitivities that constantly ebb and flow within each person,
and also between them. At the risk of sounding repetitive: remember that one
kind of attitude or behaviour is not necessarily good or the other bad! Each
tells you something valuable, and is to do with group life. Even the most tightly
structured, autocratic and hierarchical group has undercurrents and overtones.
Depending on the group norms, and your brief and role as leader, what you
do about the undercurrents and overtones differs. Thus, where the brief is
clearly set, and your norms are something like shape up or ship out, then it is
legitimate to ask members who are obstructing your task to leave the group. In
Vignette 17a, for example, playing music was not part of the brief so it is inap-
propriate here for the group leader to ask those who are not playing to leave
the group. The group brief was to do with the session as providing a weekly
space for the lads to express themselves. This, as you can see, can be inter-
preted in a number of ways and as group leader, youd do well to spend con-
siderable time negotiating with the four lads as to what your expectations might
be, and how you might fulfil these.
This section suggests that structured group work may be necessary for a
number of reasons at the very least, to do with your brief, and the tasks of the
group. (You may want to refresh your memory by rereading Chapters 2 and 7.)
GROUP PROCESS AND THE INNER TRACK 215
At times though, the structure is challenged and your role severely under-
mined.
18.2 Group phases and points of view

If were thinking about undercurrents in group work, then it is useful to inform
ourselves of the work of psychologists and group analysts who have identified
group processes and phases that groups generally experience. Foulkes, Bion,
Nitsun and Tuckman have written extensively about groups from psychoana-
lytic perspectives. Here I focus on Tuckmans model of Group Phases as one
way of thinking about undercurrents.
First, a note of caution. Nothing in (any aspect of ) group work (or life, for
that matter) is as organized and predictable as a linear sequence of phases or
processes. In other words, Phase One is not necessarily followed by Phases Two
and Three; neither does process a mean such and such. In some ways, it may
be more useful to think of phases and processes as representing various aspects
of group events, using various kinds of meaning drawn from differing points of
view. Some of these points of view overlap at times and contradict one
another at other times. Similarly, groups can seem to be moving towards and
away from any one phase at the same time. Finally, to add to confusion, Phase
Two is not necessarily more developed or better than Phase One!
What is more useful, perhaps, is to think of Tuckmans Group Phases as a
model to help you to reflect on your work, rather than using it as a model on
which to plan or execute your work. He identified four phases: norming the
initial phase of a group, when folk are invested in gauging what they have in
common, how similar they are to one another, and how well they might get on;
storming which may be thought of as the swing of the pendulum in the other
direction, where folk are invested in finding how different they are from one
another, and there is a striving away from one another and from the group
with some conflict, no matter how subtle; forming a more realistic coming
together, where similarities and differences are a little more realistic, and the
group more able to tolerate and manage discord and difference (as well as simi-
larity); and finally performing. Here the group is ready to get on with the job,
functioning as a group.
This model is convenient in helping you, possibly, to identify and under-
stand your work. At the same time, though, it may be restricting. As with every-
thing in this chapter and in Part III of this book these discussions are for you
to hold in mind when youre reflecting on your work.
216 GROUPS IN MUSIC
However, Tuckmans notions of forming and storming give us a clue that,

even in groups that seem to go according to plan, there may be forces at work
that are subtle and very powerful, effectively sabotaging the group.
18.3 Cohesive and disruptive forces

Forces are not magical or esoteric visitations that descend on your group each
time you meet! More useful is to think of these as aspects of each one of us that
may be unconscious (in other words, that we are not aware of ), that seem to
manifest themselves in group work, interfering or greatly enhancing your work
together. You need to keep track.
Lets think again about the teacher in your conflict resolution work with a
staff group (Vignette 13e). Shes always late (the teachers tell you), and her
excuses are plausible and reasonable. Are they? Id like to suggest that the
nuances to do with being late are rather complicated, already hinted at
throughout this book, when punctuality is stated over and again as part of
group norms. Lateness implies that the group norms are being challenged that
is, if youve set them! If you havent, then youve little say in anything to do with
anyone being late. We all know that lateness is disruptive: the session cannot
begin, and the late person comes to exercise rather a lot of control over your
work. In fact, they seem to be more powerful than anyone else in the group!
(As an aside, think of how you feel when you sit for ages in a crowded airplane,
and are told that you are all waiting for one missing passenger.)
Being late is one example of what we might think of as an anti-group
1
behaviour. You need to be mindful of this as a possibility although, once
again, this doesnt mean that you need to do something. Think about it: this
teacher is always late but, at the same time, she does come and engages with
the group. So is her lateness only an anti-group behaviour? Is it only she who
is the anti-group force? Think carefully we hinted at the group possibly
making her the group scapegoat. Is her engagement with the group not at the
same time contributing to group cohesion?
These are the kind of complexities that make group work so uncertain, ener-
vating, energizing and rewarding! Coherent and disruptive forces may well
operate at the same time, and within the same person giving rise to feelings of
1 I am aware of oversimplifying pro- and anti-group forces, and of using them

interchangeably (and simplistically) with cohesive and disruptive forces in groups. This
is to give you a starting point and, obviously, is not the whole story which is way
beyond the scope of this book!
ambivalence within each person as well as in the group (and sub-groups) as a

whole. There may be both a wish to be a part of the group (after all, we saw in
Chapter 16 that belonging to groups is essential to our sense of identity), and at
the same time, a wish to be independent from it.
Lets revisit Chris and Andrew, in Vignette 17a. Is their absence necessarily
a disruptive group force? And, by default, are David and Benets musical en-
gagements pro-group behaviours? (And are you sure of your answer?) What
might be useful in your reflections, is to consider each of the four lads as having
cohesive and disruptive sentiments, and as being both pro- and anti-group in
their behaviours.
Having thought about Chris and Andrew in this scenario, and got to a point
of reflection that feels more or less appropriate, you now need to consider what
you do with your reflections. Do you need to share your insights with the
young lads? Is it part of your brief ? Is it part of your professional skills? Id like
to propose that having insights does not mean that you have to embark on a
psychological dialogue with the lads, if this is not your brief. The point about
any of this is that these kinds of understandings inform your music-making. In
that vignette, the group leader tightens his drumming which draws all the lads
into musical engagement, resulting in momentary group cohesion. Perhaps the
only moment of intimacy in the session. His musical act may be informed by
these kinds of reflections, which he holds in mind. As a result, he does not stop
to reprimand the boys, even if he does feel somewhat irritated with them. Re-
flecting about the session, and on the norms that the group have negotiated, this
is what is appropriate at this moment.
Now I want to divert briefly, and consider that group cohesion may be arti-
ficial. Just because everyone is musically active may not mean that the group is
musically or personally cohesive. Lets remain with Andrew, Benet, Chris and
David for a moment, and consider that the pro- and anti-group forces exist
within each member of the group (including you, by the way). Then it is not
only Chris whose acts are disruptive. In fact, if we assign all the anti-group
forces within Chris, then we risk polarizing and scapegoating him as being the
one who is uncooperative, disruptive, and the one wholl ruin the music for
everyone. If, instead, we think of his behaviour as portraying something that
exists, in this moment, inside each member of the group, we might begin to
reflect that his behaviour is a beacon, alerting you to how the whole group is
experiencing the session. You might need to rethink! And thank Chris for sig-
nalling this to you.
218 GROUPS IN MUSIC
18.4 Whos the leader? (And whos following?)

Your role as group leader is partly assigned by your employers/funders, and is
generally clear to everyone. How clear is your role to you? Here I am thinking
about a certain quality in how you execute your role, that the group assigns you.
In fact, in this sense, you may be doing the following.
Part of this personal quality has to do with your social identity. Remember
that in your work at the nursing home (Vignette 16b) you as group leader reso-
nate with Mary possibly because your personal and social identities have
something in common. This resonance which is not only personal and
social, but also emotional and relational affects your role as group leader. In
other words, the nuances to do with your role as group leader (and with each
members role as member of the group) are to do with a whole lot of compli-
cated factors not the least being that this quality is highly context specific. In
other words, in the very same work context, with the same brief and with
another group, you might experience your role differently. It is this particular
combination of people in the group, right here, right now, that engages each of
you in a way that is distinctive to that group.
Here I want us to think about the role conflict that group members may ex-
perience. For example, in your nursing home group, Mary is assertive, charming
and fully engaged. You bump into her in the corridor one day, and are surprised
to see her shuffling, looking confused, less assertive and less sure of herself than
in your sessions. The staff also tell you that as a great-aunt, she is totally at the
mercy of her imperious nieces, aged three and five, who run rings around her.
I am slightly exaggerating these three situations to remind you of the com-
plexity of our social roles and identities, and how closely context bound these
are. Mary may experience these three roles as consonant with one another, in
terms of her identity. Lets say that you, as leader, experience role dissonance. In
other words, you find it difficult to be your usual assertive, directive self with
Mary. She reminds you of your role as a shy withdrawn child at boarding
school. Your role as leader is suddenly not quite so certain or clear.
Lets also remind ourselves of Vignettes 13ad. In each of these, the group
leaders roles are undermined for different reasons and in different ways. Any
of these kinds of situations will make you rethink. But all of this alerts you to the
fact that your role as group leader is not a given and neither are the roles of the
group members as being followers! Even where the hierarchies and structures of
your group work are clearly set, keep listening and reflecting youll save
yourself an awful lot of headaches (at the very least).
18.5 Keep listening!

The golden rule is simple: listen! Listen carefully. Dont judge too quickly what
you hear or jump to hasty conclusions. Also, dont instantly try to fix discom-
fort whether musical or personal. It usually tells you something enormously
valuable. At the same time, dont become obsessed with things going wrong!
Just keep listening!
18.6 Inconclusive thoughts

The brevity of this chapter might feel somewhat frustrating. This makes a point:
that nothing is as sacred, set in stone, or as literal as it seems. The more you
reflect, the more youll begin to feel that you know less and less: chaos may be
the real authenticity in this moment of your session, while the group playing
together comfortably may mask something slightly less comfortable.
This chapter has stressed, over and again, your need to think about your
brief, the aims of your work, the task of the group and the limits to your skills.
Throughout this book, weve spoken of setting norms: of being clear with the
group as to what you do and do not do; and how what you have to offer can
meet their expectations and demands. Here, where you are appointed to
conduct the resident choir, some of this thinking needs to happen with your
employers before you accept to do the work!
Finally, group work is energizing and stressful. The two go together. Rather
like most professionals being expected to keep up with learning whether
through continuing professional development programmes, further formal
study or in-service training. As stated earlier, music therapists are expected to
have ongoing supervision, usually with a therapist/social worker/psychologist
who has a similar frame of theoretical reference as their own. (In other words,
the frame of reference does not need to be identical but there do need to be
overlaps, otherwise you could spend a long time checking out assumptions of
theory and discourse, rather than honing in on the work itself and your experi-
ences in sessions.)
Similarly, you as community musician, teacher, ensemble leader or choir
director might consider finding a mentor. Someone to accompany you on
these fascinating group journeys: someone with superb listening skills, who is
not judgemental, who can help you to tease out your thinking and clarify your
group strategies. Someone well versed in music matters would certainly be ad-
vantageous but it is better to find someone who feels right for you, personally,
than the one with the best credentials.
Good Luck!
CHAPTER 19
Evaluating and Ending
Unlike this book, which sets a poor example by talking about evaluation at the very end,
evaluation is, ideally, an ongoing process, providing punctuation marks and opportunities
for (all of ) you to review your work together, to keep track, and also to think about what
needs to be developed, sustained and changed. Although there is no standard way of eval-
uating group musicking, this chapter introduces some ideas about why evaluate, what to
evaluate and how and how to think about the evaluation afterwards. The chapter
concludes with a brief commentary about coming to the end of working together as a group.
19.1 Evaluate what? (And whats evaluating)?

Anything, everything (and most of the time) is the short answer. Evaluating can
be thought of as keeping track of your work on an ongoing basis, or as a more
formal procedure at certain intervals, or at the end of your work with a group.
Here, evaluating enables you, the group, your funders, line manager or
employers to take stock. In other words, it is a moment of synthesis, where you
draw together various aspects of your group work, and then look at your work
through a different lens.
Also, evaluation does not necessarily mean deciding that the work is good,
bad or indifferent but, rather, offers a way of thinking about how the work is
developing, what might need to change and why.
If we first consider evaluation as an ongoing event, lets remember keeping
track, discussed in Chapter 7. This is a core music therapy strategy: music thera-
pists keep track constantly, before, during and after sessions. During sessions we
keep track of whats going on, right here, right now, and manage to be both
within the session, fully engaged with the client, the music, ourselves, whilst at
the same time we monitor, sift and reflect on what is happening from a slightly
different position both in and outside the event. Much of this goes into
writing up after sessions, and these notes may form the basis for writing up case
220
EVALUATING AND ENDING 221
studies on individual clients, for presenting work at a case conference and for
research purposes.
Were seeing that evaluating can be thought of as a regular and systematic
writing up of your work, at the end of every group musicking session. Here, you
are writing after the session, from another position to that of being in the group
during the session. This seems an obvious statement, but think about it. The
tricky thing is that in group musicking, youre a part of what goes on so that you
are both the participant, like your group members, and the observer. Your
writing up needs to reflect both stances.
The way that you keep track of your work is up to you. I would recommend
that you develop a structured way of clustering your notes, with headings such
as Structure of session, Music (prepared), Music (new), Notes on whole
group, Notes on individual members (for smaller groups), Anything unusual,
Other comments and Personal reflections. This helps you to make sense of
the session in a specific way although it can also limit the way that you think
about your work.
However, the process of keeping track and writing up needs you to
remember what happened, and reorganize this information in a systematic way.
This needs your descriptive rigour, and the end-product can be thought of as a
combination of observation notes as well as personal interpretations and reflec-
tions. Incidentally, this kind of reporting forms the basis for ethnographic
research developed by anthropologists for recording their observations in the
field in other words, recording whats out there in the field (or, in this
instance, in the group musicking).
Lets now think of evaluation as something that happens as a specific
moment: either at the end of your work with a group, or as a moment of
synthesis, punctuating and reviewing the work so far. Here, we can think of
evaluation as a formal procedure, and as a given that we may not even have to
think about. For example, if your group musicking culminates in a performance,
then that is, in one sense, an evaluation of sorts: the audiences and the musi-
cians responses will signal how they have found the performance. But as well
as this, you may also need to have a get-together in order to close your work
together. This has a slightly different nuance to that of evaluation but is not as
separate as might appear. By closing or de-briefing, the group has an opportu-
nity to reflect on, and talk about, what the group has meant to them, what they
have learnt, what they found difficult (and what they can learn from this) and so
on. Here, it is useful to revisit the norms/aims that you negotiated together at
the beginning of your work, and possibly talk them through one by one.
222 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Finally, evaluating can be thought of as an attitude or stance towards your

work, as well as an event or procedure. I hope youre evaluating this text as you
read it: think about what is useful for you and why. Think about how you
would write a report on this book: how you would organize your thoughts;
what you would give prominence to; what you would consider irrelevant. Now
think about why you think any of these thoughts. Also, Id suggest, you need to
be courageous enough to evaluate yourself, as reader, as part of the group, and as
its leader.
Incidentally, formal evaluations are not better than ongoing informal ones.
The latter may be far more useful in your work, in the immediate moment, while
writing reports is more of a long-term process of collecting and sifting through
information.
19.2 Why evaluate?

Already were seeing that evaluations can have different foci: you may be evalu-
ating for yourself and the group which Id call an internal evaluation; or the
focus may be external: line managers, employers, funders and so on. Ideally, you
need to keep both the internal and external focus in mind when evaluating.
External reasons to evaluate include your employers, line managers or
funders needing a report of your work so far. You may be applying for an
extension of funding, and need to show donors that your work has made a dif-
ference to the folk in the group (and that you havent wasted their funds). You
may be planning next years programme, and want a rsum of how this year
has gone, and so on.
An internal reason may be that you want to crystallize what you have been
doing so far, by drawing a line and looking back on the development of the
work. This is similar to thinking of your work as a longitudinal study. You may
be wanting to write up your work for a project, and want to draw together
threads and patterns that are specific to this group and that have emerged over a
period of time. You may be wanting to see whether and how your work has
been beneficial to the members, and may decide to do a formal assessment at the
end of every semester. And so on.
Any of these are reasons for evaluating: to review the past, monitor the
present, plan for the future; to check, monitor, keep track in a more formal way;
to compile reports, plan for the future, to review the past; to write up your work
for a paper, a report, a research project (and to publish a book!). What were
seeing is that formal assessment procedures are not only for external reasons:
like music therapists, you may decide to use a formal rating instrument in order
to assign some kind of value to your work for your own internal purposes.
19.3 How do we evaluate?

If you pause to think about what youve read so far in this chapter, youll see a
pattern emerging: Ive addressed three aspects to do with evaluating: what to
evaluate, why, when and now come to how. This is not a bad structure for
thinking about, and planning, your evaluation itself. In other words, if youre
going to do a formal procedure, then think about what youre wanting to
evaluate (and what information youre needing to do this); why youre wanting
to evaluate; for whom, when youll do it, and how. Also I strongly recommend
that you get some help.
Before thinking about more formal evaluations, however, Id like to propose
that you probably already evaluate constantly, without thinking about it. In
long-term group musicking, especially, you probably regularly check with
members how they are finding the session; whether there are other musical ac-
tivities they can suggest; whether there is anything else that they would like to
sing, play, or do in the sessions. As a conductor, you invariably check whether
your cues are appropriate and clear enough; while, as a music appreciation
group leader, you check whether the volume of recordings needs adjusting, and
whether there is other music or kinds of musical genres that your group would
like to listen to. In teaching work, you check with students whether the pace is
too fast or slow, whether they need a quick break between lectures and so on.
Any of these are simple, informal ways of checking the group and evaluating as
you go along. Also, this signals to the group that you trust and value their
comments and judgement, and that youre inviting them to be a part of how
your time together happens.
In terms of a more formal evaluation that has an external focus, we need to
consider your multiple roles: as group leader, employee and evaluator. A more
formal evaluation inevitably involves stepping back and taking a look at your
work. Youre more used to doing the work, but suddenly youre needing to
justify your salary, renew your contract, show that your work has value or
whatever. Any of these reasons can make you feel uncomfortable as the group
leader: after all, you are accountable both to the group and to your line
managers/employers/audience; and you are also responsible for the actual
session running as smoothly as possible. In other words, you carry a lot of re-
sponsibility: to be also carrying out an evaluation is adding rather a lot to your
workload.
224 GROUPS IN MUSIC
One very good reason to seek help from someone outside your work is
because you, as group leader, have a vested interest in your own work, so that in
your concurrent role as evaluator you may be biased. It may be difficult for you
to be a slightly more removed observer at the same time as being the group
leader. Also, if part of the evaluation involves group members, then they might
find it easier (or more difficult!) to work with someone else, in a formal evalua-
tion. The group may be biased towards you: they may want to please you, to
annoy you; they might resist answering questions as fully as possible because of
anxieties that their answers have repercussions and so on. Im not suggesting
that bias means that you (or the group members) are dishonest and will
purposely elicit only positive or negative information in your evaluation! Not at
all! Rather, I am suggesting that it may be more useful for everyone involved in
the evaluation to feel able to be critical, in the fullest sense of the word, and to
have permission from you to give all-round comments and suggestions.
Here were touching on critical issues to do with gathering information:
how formal and objective the method of collecting information; how personal,
and how representative the information will be. Already were well into
thinking about more formal evaluations.
19.4 What do you want to know?

Weve already been thinking about gathering information in a rigorous and sys-
tematic way, and we need to think about how best to do it.
Before gathering information, we need to begin at the end of your formal
evaluation, i.e. what is the product to be: what is its purpose, how is it to be
structured, with what content, and how long? Any one of these influences what
information you need to collect, and how you will put it all together at the end
of your evaluation. Evaluating your work is beginning to sound more and more
like group musicking: it happens within structural contexts that are external to
the process itself (Figure 19.1).
Also, were seeing that information may need to come from various sources.
Some of it comes from our writing up at the end of each session; some from staff
members and colleagues; some directly from the group members themselves
(Figure 19.2). Generally, in any kind of evaluation, you need to consider how
best to collect information that is as representative as possible of everything
youve been doing in your sessions, and that does not compromise your
integrity or that of your members.
Group
members
Colleagues
Field notes
Evaluation
Institutional
brief
Past
evaluations Other
evaluation
instruments
Figure 19.1 Evaluation in context
What is becoming clear is that if you are going to the trouble of doing a formal
evaluation procedure, then this needs to be context specific, rather than a
general, haphazard and probably rather vague collecting of information that
you might or might not use as research data one of these days. Before thinking
about the procedure, remember to begin at the end: what is it that you are being
asked to do, by whom and in what format?
This book has spent considerable time talking about the choice of dis-
courses for planning, executing and reflecting on your work. Evaluating it is no
different! It is no use doing an evaluation that focuses on the psychological
aspects of your work, when the report is for a pop musicians charity which is in-
terested in funding your work and in group members performing at the annual
local pop festival!
In other words, the end product determines what information you collect;
from whom you collect it; how you put it together and what discourse you
choose.
226 GROUPS IN MUSIC
For what? For whom?

External/internal focus; What do they want to know;
assessing past, present; why do they need to know it?
planning for the future
Collecting Information
How? (The product)

Content; length; format;
Discourse; presentation
Figure 19.2 Collecting information
However, there is a bottom line which is also in keeping with one of the
themes of this book (Figure 19.3). You need to evaluate whether and how the
norms of your work are congruent with the brief of your work; whether the ex-
pectations of your members are congruent with your brief; and whether your
work as a group has fulfilled the groups expectations as well as your brief. In
other words, your evaluation is specific to this institution, this group and this
period of time. You are not needing to prove to the world that your work is
amazing, unique and everyone better get to do the same as you or else they are
mediocre. Youre wanting to be systematic, rigorous, show your work in the best
possible light, and that includes being up-front about what has not worked,
what needs to change and possibly what needs major restructuring.
Negotiated norms
Groups Aims
Your brief
expectations Tasks
Musicking
Figure 19.3 The bottom line
19.5 The focus group evaluation

Rather than go through all the possibilities of how to evaluate, Im going to use
the vignettes below as one possibility of evaluating group work: here the
scenario is a short-term closed group with a specific brief.
Vignette 19a
It is the end of a week-long intensive seminar on group improvisation
techniques. There are eleven participants to the seminar, many of
whom have invested considerable finances, time and energy in
attending the seminar. The cost of the course is substantial, some folk
have travelled over 1,000 km to attend, and the days have been long. It
is time for James to invite the group to evaluate the course together,
especially as this is the first such course that James has offered. He
needs to justify to the university that its support is justified;the partici-
pants found the course useful, and that there is a demand for this kind
of short intensive course.
One of the other course tutors has been tasked with designing a
questionnaire, already handed out to the participants on the penulti-
228 GROUPS IN MUSIC
mate day. They are due to return the questionnaires to James at the
end of this evaluation session.
Here we see a dual evaluation happening. The questionnaire is anonymous and

private, and allows for members to comment in a way different than the more
public group evaluation. Also, parts of the questionnaire will have numerical
ratings, in which the members are asked to circle numbers ranking from 1 to 5,
where 1 is poor, 3 is adequate and 5 is very good. Other parts will leave space
for respondents to comment freely, under various headings. This focus group
evaluation is a complement to the questionnaire.
Vignette 19b
James invites everyone to stand in a large circle, and puts several large
blank sheets of flip-chart paper and marker pens on the floor.He gives
the group fifteen minutes to think about what aspects of the week
need evaluating, and asks that they discuss this amongst themselves,
and write different headings on each sheet. Hes going to return a
phonecall in his office while they do this, he tells them, and he also
reminds the group that he needs them to make sure they cover all
aspects that they can think of.
James leaving the room is a tactful way of giving the group time and
permission to decide on the topics. They may feel awkward with him in the
room. On the other hand, if the group has negative headings, he is going to
have to face the music when he returns. His leaving the room may not be such a
great idea.
Vignette 19c
When he returns to the room, he finds that five sheets have headings:
Administration, Facilities, Course content, Course tutors and Social-
izing.
James suggests that they now sit in a circle, and that someone be
the scribe for each sheet of paper. As a group, they need to brain-
storm their comments about each of these headings,which the scribe
will write. James reminds the group of their earlier discussion about
brainstorming, in which they agreed to comment freely, to hear
comments without criticism, and also to give both positive and
negative comments since James needs to file a report to his Head of

Department.
Wilma then suggests that it might be easier if each of them writes
their own comments, rather than the scribe, who will then not feel a
part of the evaluation. Caroline says that this will be convoluted with
different people bumping into one another as they find their paper.
Anthony then suggests that they try the scribe idea first, and if this
doesnt work or if people feel inhibited from saying something and
would rather write it, that there is a time for individual written
comments at the end.
Everyone agrees.
Here we see the group negotiating how the evaluation happens, with everyone
having a say in the actual procedure. James listens and allows the discussion to
continue until the group reaches an agreement as to the best way. He does not
dictate or get impatient, although he realizes that the group might agree on a
scribing way that is not ideal for him in terms of then having to write up all the
notes from the various sheets. On the other hand, he realizes that the group
needs to feel comfortable with this procedure in order to elicit as much
information as possible.
Vignette 19d
Under Administration, comments include, from the Music Depart-
ment: good course communication, friendly emails, personal and
prompt attention to requests; and from the Faculty Office: poor in-
formation, convoluted registration procedure, confusing use of terms,
and too many people to deal with.
Under Facilities, folk agree that the Library staff and facilities get
top marks,the room in which theyve worked is pleasant,the cafeteria
is strategically positioned and the musical instruments very good. The
toilets are not always clean and theres often not enough loo paper.
The group is able to give positive as well as negative comments, and James is
comfortable with the process so far. He senses that the group is also
comfortable.
230 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Vignette 19e
The heading Course content takes the group longer to think through,
and James wonders whether the members feel uncomfortable.After a
longish silence, he reminds them that the course tutors need con-
structive criticism he needs to know what did not work and, also,
what suggestions the group might make. Immediately there is a flood
of comments, including the need for more pre-composed music, for
suggestions as to what might work with their own music groups;
advice as to what instruments to buy and where,and that more time is
needed in future to review the group improvisations,and then draw up
some kind of summary of each improvisation.
There is again an awkward silence around Course tutors, and
James suggests that perhaps the group would like him to leave the
room? There is laughter at this and the group asks for clarity as to
what they can and cannot say.A discussion ensues,in which it emerges
that two of the five tutors are clearly the less experienced of the
teaching team, and that this showed in those sessions that those
tutors facilitated alone. James then asks whether the group feels that,
in future, only the more experienced tutors should do the sessions.
The group suggests, rather, that it might be better to revise the
tutoring schedule so as always to have a more and a less experi-
enced tutor working together. After this discussion, the group then
negotiates what to write on the sheet and agrees on revise teaching
schedule, and revise pairing of more + less experienced tutors.
With great sensitivity, James has heard the quality of the silence, and this
prompts him to remind the group that everyone has permission to be critical in
the fullest sense of the word. Also, he facilitates a group discussion, so that the
group does not feel that what they say is being recorded onto paper. He also
suggests that the group negotiates how they want to record their comments.
Vignette 19f
Finally, under the heading Socializing, the group say that theyve appre-
ciated the fact that they have felt looked after by the teaching staff,
and that their social evening last night was a wonderful way of meeting
one another outside the seminars. The comments include that the
seminar has been about much more than learning to improvise, and
that they have learnt as much from one another, usually during the
social time.They ask whether a list with everyones contact details can
be circulated, so that they can keep in touch.
James feels especially pleased with this comment since he has put a lot of effort
into making sure that folk feel at home and are comfortable, given the costs of
the course in terms of time, energy and finances, and given that this is the first
time this course has been offered.
Vignette 19g
James then asks whether,before they conclude the evaluation session,
there is anything that the group needs to add perhaps other topics
not covered? The group is silent for a while, and James listens to the
silence: it is relaxed and light. Ann then asks why it is that there is only
one male student on the course. There is a burst of laughter, and
animated discussion as to why this might be so.Anthony,the only male
participant, insists that this hasnt been a problem for him.
There is more silence, and James again asks whether there is
anything else. There is some quiet giggling, and Sharon then says that
yes,she has a suggestion,which is that they finish the session by singing
a song together. There is enthusiastic approval, and James finds his
thoughts going in various directions: this is as far as the evaluation will
go for the moment, and the group may well have said everything they
want to say. Possibly, also, whatever else might need to be said is not
comfortable for the group at the moment. He then agrees to the
group singing a song together, but there is one condition and as he
says this,the group teases him for being in charge.He laughs,and says
that hell be in charge, with their permission, for another 20 seconds:
he wants to remind them that they still have their questionnaires, and
that if they remember anything else they want to add,to write it at the
232 GROUPS IN MUSIC
end of the questionnaire, in the section entitled Other general

comments.
The group agrees,and everyone gets up, puts the evaluation sheets
aside and begins to sing.
James is alert and gentle. He does not probe individual members, nor does he
insist on everyone speaking. He listens closely to what is said, what is not said,
and also to the quality of silences between the speaking. When the group
suggests a song, he realizes that this procedure has come to an end although,
once again, he checks whether there might be something not yet raised. He does
not insist on this, nor does he break the mood and flow of the ending. Rather,
he reminds them of the other option available, which is to write anything else
on the questionnaires.
We see here that two kinds of evaluations have happened concurrently. One
is an anonymous, individual procedure, where members fill out a specially
designed questionnaire, and the other is a focus-group evaluation, where
everyone has a say in what areas need to be evaluated, and to voice their
opinions. This is a public and transparent procedure that allows the group to
interact, exchange views and offer a range of comments. While the question-
naire offers possibilities for quantitative summaries of information (Figure
19.4), the focus-group discussions offer rich information that needs to be
written up as a part of a report.
Music Improvisation Seminar

Participant Evaluation
Since this is a pilot project, we would appreciate as full an evaluation as possible.
Name: ____________________________________________________
How did you hear about this seminar?
__________________________________________________________
Please fill in the brackets provided with assessments 15 and fill in written
comments. 1= excellent/2= very good/3= good/4= fair/5= poor
1. Course communication:
(a) How did you find the communication and information sent before the
training?
(b) During the course how well did we meet your communication needs?
(c) Please comment on the organization of the course
_____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________
2. Usefulness for development:
(a) How useful was this course for your musical development?
_____________________________________________________
(b) How useful for your professional development?
_____________________________________________________
3. Role of facilitators. Please evaluate each facilitator in terms of what you found
helpful/problematic.
(a) Monday morning session (AF + MP) (theory and intro)
_____________________________________________________
(b) Monday afternoon session (DH) (percussion session)
_____________________________________________________
(c) Tuesday morning session (LL) (gamelan)
_____________________________________________________
(d) Tuesday afternoon (AF + MP) (application and closing)
_____________________________________________________
Figure 19.4 The questionnaire

234 GROUPS IN MUSIC
19.6 What do we do with all this information?

Once youve gathered the information you need for your report (or whatever
kind of evaluation you need to do), then the less fun part of evaluating begins.
However, remember that long before you get to having to organize the informa-
tion, you need to be clear as to why youre evaluating, what youre evaluating
and for whom. All of this will influence what information you collect and how
you then put it together.
In terms of James focus-group evaluation, hes writing a report for his Head
of Department, to call for the course to continue. Hes left the group to select
the topics of the evaluation but, at the same time, hes also designed a question-
naire that is highly structured: this focus-group evaluation is a complement to a
more formal and structured evaluation.
19.7 What to leave out?

In the context of more formal evaluations, Ive not said too much about using
your own notes in the above vignettes. In fact, as we draw to the end of this
book, you might notice that rather a lot has been left out. As reader, this is unsat-
isfactory, and you find that this book raises more questions in your mind than
you had when you began reading it.
This is inevitable. As you evaluate your work, you need to make decisions as
to what you will not include and justify these decisions, again, on the basis of
the brief, the purpose and the recipients of your evaluation.
19.8 End notes: How to end

Were drawing to the end of this book, and Ive not said much about the end of
working together as a group. Already, as youve read the chapter, youll have
picked up allusions to the work coming to an end. As youve read more and
more of the book, youll also have noted that there are not many pages left to
read. The end of the book will be on your mind quite a bit before the end of the
book actually materializes: you might begin noticing that things have been left
out, there hasnt been enough of this, and am I going to mention closing at all?
Group musicking is no different. According to your brief and your contract,
you and your members will have negotiated the aims of your work together,
youll know how frequently you meet for group musicking, and also know the
duration of this group. Whether your work together culminates in a perfor-
mance, in end-of-year exams, or whether there is no event to mark the culmina-
tion, group members including yourself will have feelings about the end ap-
proaching. The feelings may be a mixture of relief, sadness, excitement,

annoyance. You may have done particularly good work with a group, and feel a
sense of loss that this kind of work may never be repeated again, and you have
learnt an enormous amount. Other groups you cant wait to be rid of, and you
find yourself thinking that life will be quite a lot easier without them.
All of these are part of group musicking. And, as youll know by now, these
overtones and undercurrents need to be monitored, reflected upon and held in
mind during the closing stages of your work together.
With ongoing, open-ended group work, although there is no ending in the
formal sense, there are punctuations and interruptions as a result of holidays or
your annual leave. You need to be clear with the group regarding when there
will be no sessions, and then remind the group, every week, that after x number
of sessions there will be a break of x number of weeks. This is part of re-
specting the group members feelings (whether you think that these might be
positive or negative is beside the point), and also of preparing them, in the
emotional and relational sense, for the absence of the regular session.
You may also want to consider an ending ritual and this can be discussed
and planned together with your group, as part of group musicking! This might be
as uncomplicated as everyone bringing a plate of eats and something to drink,
for a closing party; each person bringing their favourite piece of music to share
with the group; or going out together as a group for a meal. Obviously, this
depends on the context in which you work the latter may not be possible if
you work in a prison or with young children, but the principle is the same. In
other words, ending needs preparation and needs to be acknowledged. After all,
you would not feel very satisfied, as reader, if I ended the book right here, now,
in this manner.
In Conclusion
This book opened with a vignette describing music that alienated a group, and
instantly created fault lines according to culture, ethnicity, region and
socio-economic status. This was not the intention of the young men who
proudly set their ghetto blaster in our midst, in the middle of the African night.
Their music might, instead, have been a bonding experience culminating in
our purchasing the recording as soon as we reached home, so as to remember
this night in the wilderness.
This was not so and the reasons are complex. We cannot say that the music
itself was unfamiliar, in fact, rather the opposite! Its musical grammar, syntax,
and associations were each perfectly familiar. Possibly too familiar? It reminded
us of social spaces that my companion and I wished to forget, after our holiday
in the African bush. If we reframe this event within a social context, we see a
grand collision of cultural perceptions and social norms. The young fellows
wanted to welcome us into their fold, and music was a way of conveying their
familiarity with our social norms. To them we were from the city, complete
with Raybans, credit cards and Land Rover even if we were fairly bedraggled
after three weeks of roughing it in the African bush (I suspect our
bedragglement reeked of city comforts in any case). The ghetto blaster and the
disco music symbolized their familiarity with our culture, with associations of
hard cash needed to purchase these symbols; and the urban-ness of the musical
genre. After all discos generally happen in urban spaces.
It was a splendid difference of minds! Nothing felt less appropriate, seated
around a grass mat on the ground, managing to commune with one another,
albeit haltingly. The music felt wrong, out of place and inappropriate it
almost felt insulting. And splendidly exposed the social fragility of our meeting.
From our city slickness, sitting in quiet, dark Africa was bliss. To them it was
everyday mundane living. We, the urban exotics, needed to be shown that they
too had access to our city culture.
236
IN CONCLUSION 237
Here is a complex musical and social situation, which is inevitably an in-

furiating legacy of hundreds of years of colonial social divisions and unfamil-
iarity, based on labels of inferiority and superiority.
However, there is a sub-text to all this in terms of this book. Group musicking
is about much more than having music in common and in any case, living in
Africa renders this statement rather too bland. Flowing together as persons is
about musicking in the sense that our acts of being and engaging with one
another musick us towards one another. The shift from being together to
listening, singing, dancing and making music together is negligible. Possibly,
the disco music in the bush did not work because we had not been engaging
with the young men before the musicking happened. They arrived and imposed
the music intrusively on a group engaged in another kind of communing alto-
gether.
This book has been about musicking in groups, in a way that receives the
other person, learns from them and offers something of ourselves. It has
assumed that you have a passion for music of all kinds, in all kinds of contexts
and with all kinds of people.
This book has also spoken to your imagination, with an invitation to enliven
your capacity for the inner tracking of your work: that curious ongoing narrative
and imaging that speaks to us if and when we are able to listen a kind of
listening that is, I believe, basic to all creative work and play.
The second vignette in this book describes Zandile and me attempting to
liven up a deadly dull conference dinner. There was a distinct whiff of disap-
proval at our performance. I found out afterwards that we contravened some
regional taboo (we were in a fairly rural area of the country): for me to be
standing on stage with a young man singing the song that we sang was not on. I
am still not sure why. In contrast, when the nurses and I got going, this was fine
we were all women. Curiously, when the whole group got going, men joined
us too. I still do not understand these social complications in the same way
that the young men in Malawi surely did not understand our request for
listening to the bush sounds and the brilliant African sky.
The social context for each musicking was inappropriate although at the
conference dinner, the nurses created a socially appropriate context for all of us
to participate in musicking. Thus, it was not just the music (as object) that
mattered, but rather, who, how and what we musicked, and this was specific to
that moment, and to that context. Many of the stories in this book may have
been in contexts that are unfamiliar to you, and I hope that this has not discour-
aged you, or dissuaded you from reading further. You may also feel annoyed at
238 GROUPS IN MUSIC
the lack of examples, the lack of formulae, the absence of concrete suggestions
and guidelines about how to do it, and when to do this and not that.
Musicking doesnt quite work that way. The title of this book is explicit:
Groups in Music tells us that it is in the act of musicking that groups become
themselves, engaging us with one another and with ourselves. This becoming is
an ongoing, unfolding event and, like music, is not transferable from one
context to another. My act of becoming with one group is very different to that
with another. For me to have offered you formulae would have been irrespon-
sible.
Rather, I have offered, I hope, another voice: one that encourages you to
play, to play with ideas, to play with thoughts and images and to take these
seriously. These are the voices of our muses and possibly, also, the muses of the
group, exhorting us, as group facilitators, to dare, to try, to risk something other.
Something we hadnt thought of doing until this moment.
Finally, this book has been an inner tracking. It has presented various strate-
gies from music therapy, and ongoing commentaries on a range of group
musickings while hiding in the wings, behind the door, under the piano, in your
pocket and it has held all of this in mind, and, I hope, put it in yours, or at the
very least, next to your mind. All that remains is for you to listen.
Recommended Reading
Introduction: Music, Society and Shifting Music Therapy

Ansdell, G. (2002) Community music therapy and the winds of change. [online] Voices: A
World Forum for Music Therapy 2, 2.
www.voices.no/mainissues/Voices2(2)ansdell.html.
Aigen, K. (1999) The true nature of music-centered music therapy theory. British
Journal of Music Therapy 13, 2, 7782.
Aigen, K. (1998) Paths of Development in Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy. Gilsum, NH:
Barcelona.
DeNora, T. (2000) Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gouk, P. (ed.) (2000) Musical Healing in Cultural Contexts. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Ruud, E. (1998) Music Therapy: Improvisation, Communication and Culture. Gilsum, NH:
Barcelona.
Small, C. (1998) Musicking: the Meanings of Performing and Listening. Hanover and
London: Wesleyan University Press.
Stige, B. (2002) Culture-Centered Music Therapy. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona.
PART I PLANNING
1. Planning Our Discourses
Ansdell, G. (1997) Musical elaborations: What has the new musicology to say to
music therapy? British Journal of Music Therapy 11, 2, 3644.
Billington, R., Hockey, J. and Strawbridge, S. (1998) Exploring Self and Society.
Houndmills: Palgrave.
Bunt, L. And Hoskyns, S. (eds) (2002) The Handbook of Music Therapy. Hove:
Brunner-Routledge.
Cook, N. (1990) Music, Imagination and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Martin, P. J. (1995) Sounds and Society. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Pavlicevic, M. (1999) With listeners in mind: Creating meaning in music therapy
dialogues. The Arts in Psychotherapy 26, 2, 8594.
Russell, B. (1961 (1946)) History of Western Philosophy. London: Routledge.
Ruud, E. (1988) Music therapy: Health profession or cultural movement? Journal of
the American Association of Music Therapy 7, 1, 347.
239
240 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Scruton, R. (1981) A Short History of Modern Philosophy. London and New York:
Routledge.
Stige, B. (1998) Perspectives on meaning in music therapy. British Journal of Music
Therapy 12, 1, 2027.
2. Institutions, Idiosyncrasies and the Larger Picture

Daft, R. L. (1992) Organization Theory and Design. Saint Paul, MN: West Publishing
Company.
De Board, R. (1978) The Psychoanalysis of Organizations. London: Routledge.
Gibson, J., Ivancevich, I. and Donnelly, J. (eds) (2000) Organizations: Behavioral
Structures and Processes. Boston: McGraw Hill.
Gabriel, Y. (1999) Organizations in Depth. London: Sage.
Kets de Vries, M. (ed.) (1991) Organizations on the Couch. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Lewin, K. (1951) Field Theory in Social Science. New York: Harper & Row.
Obholzer, A. and Roberts, V. Z. E. (1994) The Unconscious at Work: Individual and
Organisational Stress in the Human Services. London: Routledge.
Roberts, J. and Pines, M. (eds) (1991) The Practice of Group Analysis. London and New
York: Tavistock/Routledge.
3. In-groups, Out-groups, Norms and Membership

Barnes, B., Ernst, S. and Hyse, K. (eds) (1999) An Introduction to Groupwork.
Basingstoke and London: Macmillan.
Benson, J. F. (1987) Working More Creatively with Groups. London: Routledge.
Forinash, M. (ed.) (2001) Music Therapy Supervision. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona.
Thompson, S. (1998) The Group Context. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley
Publishers.
Tuckman, B. (1965) Developmental sequences in small groups. Psychological Bulletin
63, 6, 38499.
Yalom, I. D. (1983) Inpatient Group Psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books.
Yalom, I. D. (1995) The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy. 4th edition. New
York: Basic Books.
4. Instrumental Thinking and Sound Thoughts

Bunt, L. and Hoskyns, S. (eds) (2002) The Handbook of Music Therapy. Hove: Brunner-
Routledge.
Hargreaves, D. J. and North, A. C. (eds) (1997) The Social Psychology of Music. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
ONeill, S. A. (1997) Gender and music. Hargreaves and North, 4663.
RECOMMENDED READING 241
ONeill, S. A. and Boulton, M. J. (1995) Is there a gender bias towards musical

instruments? Music Journal 60, 3589.
Wylie, J. (1996) Music, Learning and Your Child. Christchurch: Canterbury University
Press.
5. On Being Formed by Music

Cook, N. (1998) Music: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
DeNora, T. (2000) Music in Everyday life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Frith, S. (1996) Performing Rites: Evaluating Popular Music. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Juslin, P. and Sloboda, J. (eds) (2001) Music and Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Martin, P. J. (1995) Sounds and Society. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Sloboda, J. (1985) The Musical Mind: The Cognitive Psychology of Music. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
6. Considering the Music Space

Bunt, L. and Hoskyns, S. (eds) (2002) The Handbook of Music Therapy. Hove:
Brunner-Routledge.
Pavlicevic, M. (1987) Reflections on the pre-musical moment. British Journal of Music
Therapy 1, 1, 224.
Stern, D. (1985) The Interpersonal World of the Infant. New York: Basic Books.
7. Aims, Tasks, Roles and the Outer Track

Benson, J. F. (1987) Working More Creatively with Groups. London: Routledge.
Blacking, J. (1976) How Musical is Man? London: Faber & Faber.
Company.
PART II EXECUTING
8. Forming Groups and Groups Forming
Ansdell, G. (1995) Music for Life: Aspects of Creative Music Therapy with Adult Clients.
London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Bunt, L. (1994) Music Therapy: An Art Beyond Words. London: Routledge.
Nordoff, P. and Robbins, C. (1977) Creative Music Therapy. New York: John Day.
Pavlicevic, M. (1994) Between chaos and creativity: music therapy with traumatised
children in South Africa. Journal of British Music Therapy 4, 2, 59.
242 GROUPS IN MUSIC
Pavlicevic, M. (1997) Music Therapy in Context. London and Philadelphia: Jessica

Kingsley Publishers.
9. Group Flow, Group Pulse Finding the Groove

Czicksenmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York:
Harper & Row.
Davis, G. and Magee, W. (2001) Clinical improvisation within neurological disease.
British Journal of Music Therapy 15, 2, 5160.
Keil, C. and Feld, S. (eds) (1994) Music Grooves. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Magee, W. (1999) Singing my life, playing my self: Music therapy in the treatment
of chronic neurological illness. In T. Wigram and J. De Backer (eds) Clinical
Applications of Music Therapy in Developmental Disability, Paediatrics and Neurology.
London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 20123.
Pavlicevic, M. (1995) Sounding into growth and growing into sound: improvisation
groups with adults. The Arts in Psychotherapy 22, 4, 35967.
10. Whose Group? Whose Music? (and Whose Expectations?)

Achenbach, C. (1997) Creative Music in Groupwork. Bicester: Winslow Press Ltd.
Oldfield, A. and Bunce, L. (2001) Mummy can play too Short-term music therapy
with mothers and young children. British Journal of Music Therapy 15, 1, 2736.
Wylie, J. (1996) Music, Learning and Your Child. Christchurch: Canterbury University
Press.
11. Group Rituals

Pavlicevic, M. (1995) Transforming a violent society. Human Development 16, 2,
3942.
Roose-Evans, J. (1994) Passages of the Soul: Rediscovering the Importance of Rituals in
Everyday Life. Shaftesbury: Element.
Small, C. (1998) Musicking: the Meanings of Performing and Listening. Hanover and
London: Wesleyan University Press.
Mitchell, S. (1999) Reflections on dramatherapy as initiation through ritual theatre.
In A. Cattanach (ed.) Process in the Arts Therapies. London and Philadelphia: Jessica
Kingsley Publishers, 1035.
12. Live Meanings Listening to Music

Aiello, R. and Sloboda, J. (eds) (1994) Musical Perceptions. New York and Oxford:
Becker, J. (2001) Anthropological perspectives on music and emotion. In P. N. Juslin
and J. A. Sloboda (eds) Music and Emotion: Theory and Research. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 13560.
Bunt, L. and Pavlicevic, M. (2001) Music and emotion: Perspectives from music
therapy. Juslin and Sloboda, 161201.
Bruscia, K. (1995) Modes of consciousness in Guided Imagery in Music (GIM): a
therapists experience of the guiding process. In C. Kenny (ed) Listening, Playing,
Creating: Essays on the Power of Sound. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Cook, N. (1990) Music, Imagination and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cook, N. (1998) Music: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Erdomnez Grocke, D. (1999) The music which underpins pivotal moments in Guided
Imagery in Music. In T. Wigram and J. De Backer (eds) Clinical Applications of
Music Therapy in Psychiatry. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 197210.
Press.
Lowis, M. J. and Touchin, C. (2002) An investigation into music found to trigger peak
emotional experiences during controlled listening experiments. British Journal of
Music Therapy 16, 1, 3545.
Roose-Evans, J. (1994) Passages of the Soul: Rediscovering the Importance of Rituals in
Everyday Life. Shaftesbury: Element.
Sloboda, J. (1985) The Musical Mind: The Cognitive Psychology of Music. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.
Sloboda, J. (1999) Music where cognition and emotion meet. The Psychologist 12, 9,
4505.
13. Team Building and Conflict Resolution

Campbell, J., Liebmann, M., Brooks, F., Jones, J. and Ward, C. (eds) (1999) Art
Therapy, Race and Culture. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Levine, S. and Levine, E. (eds) (1998) Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapies. London
and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Liebmann, M. (ed) (1996) Arts Approaches to Conflict. London and Bristol, PA: Jessica
Naor, Y. (1999) The theatre of the Holocaust. In S. Levine and E. Levine (eds)
Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley
Publishers, 22339.
Nitsun, M. (1996) The Anti-Group. London and New York: Routledge.
Pavlicevic, M. (1995) Transforming a violent society. Human Development 16, 2,
3942.
Pavlicevic, M. (1999) Music therapy improvisation groups with adults: Towards
de-stressing in South Africa. South African Journal of Psychology 29, 2, 949.
244 GROUPS IN MUSIC
PART III REFLECTING

14. How Formed is Your Listening (and How Informed is Your Speaking)?
Aiello, R. and Sloboda, J. (eds) (1994) Musical Perceptions. New York and Oxford:
Deutsch, D. (ed.) (1982) The Psychology of Music. New York: Academic Press.
Press.
Sloboda, J., Davidson, J. W. and Howe, M. J. A. (1994) Is everyone musical? The
Psychologist 7, 7, 34954.
15. Persons as Music (and Finding the Groove)

Bruscia, K. (1987) Improvisational Models of Music Therapy. Springfield, IL: Charles C
Thomas.
Condon, W. S. and Ogston, W. D. (1966) Sound film analysis of normal and
pathological behaviour patterns. Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases 143, 4,
33847.
Malloch, S. N. (2000) Mothers and infants and communicative musicality. Musicae
Scientiae (special issue 19992000), 2958.
Nolan, C. (1987) Under the Eye of the Clock. Pan Books.
Papousek, H. and Papousek, M. (1987) Intuitive Parenting: a dialectic counterpart to
the infants integrative competence. In D. O. Osofsky (ed) Handbook of Infant
Development (2nd edition), pp. 669720.
Pavlicevic, M. (1997) Music Therapy in Context. London and Philadelphia: Jessica
Pavlicevic, M. (1999) Music Therapy Intimate Notes. London and Philadelphia: Jessica
Schogler, B. (1998) Music as a tool in communications research. Nordic Journal of
Music Therapy 7, 1, 409.
Trevarthen, C. (2000) Musicality and the intrinsic motive pulse: evidence from
human psychobiology and infant communication. Musicae Scientiae (special issue
19992000), 155215.
Trevarthen, C. and Malloch, S. N. (2000) The dance of wellbeing: Defining the
musical therapeutic effect. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy 9, 2, 317.
16. Group Music, Identity and Society

Aldridge, D. (1996) Music Therapy Research and Practice in Medicine. London: Jessica
Billington, R., Hockey, J. and Strawbridge, S. (1998) Exploring Self and Society.
Houndmills: Palgrave.
Magee, W. and Davidson, J. W. (2000) Identity In Chronic Neurological Disability: Finding
An Able Self In Music Therapy. Sixth International Conference on Music Perception
and Cognition, Keele, UK.
MacDonald, R., Hargreaves, D., and Miell, D. (eds) (2000) Musical Identities. Oxford:
Oxford Universiry Press.
Ruud, E. (1998) Music Therapy: Improvisation, Communication and Culture. Gilsum, NH:
Barcelona.
Zillmann, D. and Gan, S. (1997) Musical taste in adolescence. In D. J. Hargreaves and
A. C. North (eds) The Social Psychology of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
16187.
18. Group Process and the Inner Track

Barnes, B., Ernst, S. and Hyse, K. (eds) (1999) An Introduction to Groupwork.
Basingstoke and London: Macmillan.
Bion, W. R. (1961) Experiences in Groups. London: Tavistock.
Foulkes, S. H. (1975) Group Analytic Psychotherapy. Methods and Principles. London:
Gordon and Breach.
Nitsun, M. (1996) The Anti-Group. London and New York: Routledge.
Roberts, J. and Pines, M. (1991) The Practice of Group Analysis. London and New York:
Tavistock/Routledge.
Thompson, S. (1998) The Group Context. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley
Publishers.
Tuckman, B. (1965) Developmental sequences in small groups. Psychological Bulletin
63, 6, 38499.
Yalom, I. D. (1995) The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy. 4th edition. New
York: Basic Books.
19. Evaluating and Ending

Ansdell, G. and Pavlicevic, M (2001) Beginning Research in the Arts Therapies: A Practical
Guide. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Company.
Gibson, J., Ivancevich, I. and Donnelly, J. (eds) (2000) Organizations: Behavioral
Structures and Processes. Boston: McGraw Hill.
Robson, C. (1993) Real World Research. Oxford: Blackwells.
closed groups 523
Subject Index cognitive skills 93
communicative musicality 1836
absence and presence 114, 20512 community arts group
being present to absence 20910 instrument-making 623
shifting alliances 2089 norm-setting 4950, 512
thinking through 21011 community music
Africa discourses 25, 29
cultural sensitivity in music primary and secondary aims 94
selection 67 Community Music Therapy 1617
disco in the bush 1314, 2367 concerts
end-of-conference party 1920, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan 1468, 159
237 symphony concert, South Africa
greetings 35 1346
see also South Africa conducting 88
African Symphony 135 conflict resolution/team building
age, and choice of music 67 16772, 216
aims and briefs conversation 1834
clarity 989 cueing 88
external 957 culture, and choice of music 678
group 915 cycles, working and playing 6970
healing ritual 142
and response to undercurrents and Disabled Baby Centre group
overtones 209, 214 absence and presence 211
allowing 89 hidden group outside 1302
anti- and pro-group forces 164, 21617 split focus 12932
whose music? 134
behavioural psychology 98 discourses
binary form 778 and aims 989
Brandenburg Concerto (Bach) 1545 and evaluation 225
planning 2331
calendar year, and choice of music 68, and reflecting 1812
6970 double groups see multi-groups
changing 90
choirs 24, 84, 86, 140 emotional space 801
symphony concert, South Africa enabling 89
1356 ending 90, 2345
whos running this show? 1645 Englishman in New York 67
church music entrainment 180
discourses 28 ethnographic research 221
in- and out-groups 1623, 167 evaluation 22034
see also Evensong; funeral service evaluate what? 2202
clinical/musical intervention 11011 focus group 227323
246
SUBJECT INDEX 247
how do we evaluate? 2234 and musical acts 110

one-off groups 47 group expectations, and negotiated
what do you want to know? 2247 norms 50
what do to with information 234 group forming and re-forming 103114
what to leave out 234 becoming a group 1037
why do we evalute? 2223 musical thinking 10711
Evensong 149, 159 receiving the persons 11113
split-second musicking 11314
facilitating 89 group leaders/facilitators
flops 1612 effects of flops 1657
effects on group leader 1657 roles 879, 200, 218
in- and out-groups 1623 as symbols of authority 42
sticking to the plan 163 tasks 8991
whos in charge? 1634 group membership
whos running this show? 1645 removing members 445, 214
flow 11524 selecting members 434
asynchronies/falling apart 11519 group norms see norms and norm-setting
flowing and grooving 1902 group phases (norming, storming,
learning from non-flowing 11922 forming, performing) 46, 121,
and musical perception 1801 21516
negotiating 1836 group process and dynamics 456,
spotting 1867 856, 21319
unflowing roles 1224 cohesive and disruptive forces
focus group evaluation 22733 21617
following 90 group phases and points of view
Four Seasons 152, 153, 155 21516
free improvisation keep listening 218
binary and ternary form 778 structure and directive work
structureless 78 21315
funeral service 159 whos the leader? 218
group self, primacy in Africa 15
Gestalt psychology 176 group structure, and musical structure 75
Ghazzals 147 Group Theory 45, 111
Greensleeves 1756 groups
groove 115, 187 and individuals 234
creating 1867 guiding 88, 89
finding 11524
flowing and grooving 1902 health, identity and 1978
physical disability and 18790 holding 90
group aims and briefs 915 Horn Concerto (Mozart) 1512, 211
group cohesion
artificiality 217
double groups 1257
248 GROUPS IN MUSIC
identity intervening 90
and choice of songs 204
and health 1978 keeping track 99, 2201
and music 1989 Kumbayah, Ma Lord 199
shifts and stabilities 1935
sounding ourselves 2001, 2024 language, social construction 289
stereotypes 1956 leading 88, 89
whos who 199200 listening, group leaders task 90, 219
improvisation 24 listening to music 14660
absence and presence 211 making sense of music 1756
changing/exchanging instruments musical grammar 1789
64 ownership and meaning 14956
group flowing and grooving 1912 perceptual grouping 177
and interactive capacity 1867 social context 1469
learning from not-flowing 11922 listening exercise 1568
perceptual prominence 17981 listening skills 93
spontaneity 74 long-term groups 48
unflowing roles 1224
see also free improvisation
indexical experience 154 March music 10710
in-groups and out-groups 413, 1623 marketing strategy 98
inner track 27, 91, 96, 97, 1067, 203, meaning, of music 14956
237 association for listeners 1556
institutional context 329 direct 1534
and aims of group musicking 91, episodic 1523, 1556
92, 95 grammatical 153
and choice of music 68 iconic and symbolic 1545
getting trapped 389 music and social context 1469
the group outside 1302 prescribed 1512
and marketing strategy 98 meaning, social construction 278
mission, visions and values 334 mental space 80
and music space 85 mentors 42, 46, 96, 97, 165, 219
staff, hierarchies and power 358 Messiah (Handel), scratch performance
systems 323 54
instruments 5665 monitoring 89
cultural/religious taboos 68 motherese 1845
making 623 mothers-and-toddlers group
people and 601 group cohesion 1257
personal property 634 thanking ritual 13940
range and sound thinking 5860 whose music? 1334
sound advice 568 whose session? 1279
interactional synchrony 120, 185 see Mr Tambourine Man 70
also flow; groove multi-groups/double groups 12537
group cohesion 1257
SUBJECT INDEX 249
hidden groups outside 1302 New World Symphony (Dvorjak) 155

split focus 12930 Nordoff-Robbins approach 138
volunteer group 1323 norms and norm-setting 47, 48, 4952,
whose music? 1334 219
whose session? 1279 and avoiding flops 164
music and response to undercurrents and
identity and 1989 overtones 209, 214
ownership 701, 1334, 14951 task-oriented groups 214
persons as 1902 Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan concert 1468,
predictability and spontaneity 734 159
and society 1320, 669
specific brief/aims 92 one-off groups 47
structure 748 difficulty 172
and you 713 open groups 534
see also listening to music orchestras
music and communication skills 93 group members conducting 88
music education and ownership of music 71
discourses 25, 29 symphony concert, South Africa
primary and secondary aims 94 1356
music space 7986 tuning rituals 140
limits of time, place and person ostinato 767
856
pre-music space 7982 paediatric orthopaedic ward
tuning in to 823 absence and presence 21011
vitality affects 834 becoming a group 1057
music therapy group leaders role 89
awareness of inner track 97 limits of time, place and person
contributions to group 856
music-making 17, 267 pre-music space 7982
definition 26 tuning in to music 823
discourses 25, 29 Parkinsons patients group
keeping track 2201 absence and presence 211
musical thinking 10711 falling apart and repairing 11618
primary and secondary aims 94 patterning 177
shifts in thinking and practice perceptual grouping 1768
1517 perceptual prominence 17981
musical biographies 1516 perceptual psychology 175
emotional absence 211 performances
musical grammar 1789 explicitly musical aims 95
musical signals 88 providing familiarity 75
musical thinking 10711 rituals 140
musicking 17 semi-open groups 545
Peter and the Wolf 152, 153
250 GROUPS IN MUSIC
physical disability, and grooving whos running this show? 1645,

18790 166
physical space 80 see also special school; teachers
play 18 semi-open groups 545
pre-musical silence 120, 122 short-term groups 48
predictability 73 social bonding 14, 68, 104
privacy vs. publicness 1516 social context
professional territories 257 music and 1469, 237
psychiatric hospital rituals and 138
staff, hierarchies and power 37 social/life skills 92
psycho-geriatric wards social rituals
Christmas ritual 1434 and group music 139
musical choices 1589
record keeping see keeping track social space 68, 80
religious calendar, and choice of music society
68 group music, identity and 193204
religious contexts 1718 music and 1320, 669
religious rituals 139 songs
residential nursing home and finding the groove 11718
role and identities 199204, 218 ownership 701, 1334
see also Parkinsons patients group and social/cultural belonging
rituals 13845 1501, 204
developing 1403 South Africa 1416
emerging 13940 concert performance 1346
ending ritual 235 group healing ritual 1413
imposing 1434 musical inclusion and exclusion
social, and group music 139 1501
roles sacred in the secular 1718,
conflicts 218 1445
ebb and flow 137 teacher in-service training 1634
exchanging instruments 64 special school
group leaders 879, 200, 218 musical thinking 10711
and identities 194 spontaneity 734
rondo form 76 spontaneous structure 77
staff and colleagues 358
sacred, in the secular 1718, 1445 stereotypes 1956
schools 24, 86 stress-management group
absence and presence 210, 211 sticking to the plan 163, 1667
physical disability and grooving structureless form 78
18890 sub-cultures, and choice of music 68
receiving the persons 11213 sub-groups 24, 11314
rituals 138 generated by music 149
split-second musicking 11314 pediatric ward 85, 104
SUBJECT INDEX 251
shifting nature 401, 124, 137 brief, norms and response to

supervision 39, 42, 219 undercurrents and overtones
sustaining 90 209, 214
symphony concert, South Africa 1346 stereotypes 196
Systems Theory 323
task-oriented groups 21315

teachers
conflict resolution/team building
16772
in-service training, whos in charge?
1634, 165, 166
team building/conflict resulution
16772
ternary from 778
theme-and-variations 77
theoretical discourses 989
time, African vs. Western understanding
16
tuning in 823
Under the Eye of the Clock (Nolan) 1878

University of Pretoria 15
verse-and-chorus form 76
verse-only form 76
visualization 152
conflict resolution/team building
group 1689, 16970
vitality affects 834
volunteer group 1323
emerging ritual 140
whose music? 134
witnessing 90
Working More Creatively with Groups
(Benson) 49
young offenders
absence and presence 20710
anti- and pro-group forces 217
Verney, Rachel 16
Author Index
Wylie, Julie 128
Achenbach, Chris 126
Aigen, Ken 16
Yalom, Irvin 41
Ansdell, Gary 16
Becker, J. 150
Benson, Jalrath 49
Blacking, John 97
Bunt, L. 26
Davidson, J. W. 197
De Board, R. 32
Feld, Steven 187
Hoskyns, S. 26
Keil, Charles 115, 187
Lewin, Kurt 32
Magee, W. 197
Nolan, Christopher 187-8
Papousek, H. and M. 184

Pavlicevic, M. 122
Ruud, Even 16-17, 198
Sloboda, John 75, 150

Smart, Christopher 17, 139
Stern, Daniel 83
Stige, Brynjulf 16-17
Trevarthen, Colwyn 184

Tuckman, B. 46, 215-16
252

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Groups in Music

Music Therapy Intimate Notes

Music Therapy in Context

Beginning Research in the Arts Therapies

Music, Music Therapy and Trauma

A Comprehensive Guide to Music Therapy

Jessica Kingsley Publishers

The right of Mercds Pavlicevic to be identified as author of this work has

First published in the United Kingdom in 2003

Copyright Mercds Pavlicevic 2003

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN 1 84310 081 9

Printed and Bound in Great Britain by

Part I Planning: Thinking Ahead 21

Part II Executing: Doing 101

Part III Reflecting: Thinking Back and Forth 173

Table 1.1 The discourses we use in generating meaning 29

Figure 1.1 Fit(s) of meanings 30

Although writing is, as always, a lonely task, various people made a

noisiness of the African night. My companion signals to me to calm

Where does this book come from?

framed the high-functioning world of adults who seemed to want group

Who should use this book?

How does this book work (and play)?

The following morning the last day of the conference there is a

Planning: Thinking Ahead

Planning Our Discourses

1 The title of Bruce Chatwins marvellous writings on travelling in foreign parts.

1.2 Professional territories: Having music in common

1.3 Improvising our meanings

These bodies of knowledge each have a distinctive discourse as well as over-

1.4. How considered is your discourse?

Table 1.1 The discourses we use in generating meaning

Potential for rich meanings

Too many assumptions of basic concepts

Discourses fit Complacency/lazy thinking/closed to

False or forced meanings are borrowed

Potential for generating rich/other/new

Figure 1.1 Fit(s) of meanings

1.5 Re-meaning comfort zones

2.1 Institutions as systems with a bit of help

2.2 The first approach: Overt and covert mission, vision

2.3 Staff, hierarchies and power

Find out about channels of reporting/thanking/complaining (both

2.4 Getting trapped

3.1 Why spend so much time on this kind of planning?

3.2 In-groups and out-groups

3.3 Group membership: Being selective about selections?

Table 3.1 Selecting members?

You have a say in selecting On the basis of:

You have some say in selecting On basis of:

You have no say in selecting Pre-existing group (class, ward)

Table 3.2 Leaving the group

Group considerations Person disagrees with the group norms and

Individual Person has poor sense of personal boundaries

3.4 Group process: A brief introduction

group process, generally understood as the dynamic relationships, undercur-

3.5 What kind of group? (How long, how short?)

3.5a The one-off group

3.5b The short-term group

3.5c The long-term group

3.6 Setting norms