Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Research Publications
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ItemMusical Activity as Avoidance-Based Emotion Regulation During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence Across Continents(SAGE Publications, 2023)Argentina and Australia endured among the most severe COVID-19 lockdowns globally. This study examined which artistic creative activities (ACAs) Argentinians in the Buenos Aries region used to support their mental health and wellbeing and compared these findings with existing data for Australians (primarily from Victoria) across a similar period. Adult Argentinians ( N = 86) responded to an online survey regarding 27 listed ACAs, as well as ratings of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. While “watching films and television” was the most commonly reported ACA, it was not rated as effective in supporting mental health and wellbeing. Conversely, musical ACAs were ranked highest. We consider evidence from Australia, North America, and South America that musical ACAs (especially music listening) have been most effective at supporting mental health and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic by way of avoidance-based emotion regulation. We also conclude from the data that Argentinians tended to place greater importance on music-based ACAs than Australians.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableAdela and transformative learning: A Freirean perspective on a community music education project in Melbourne, Australia(SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD, 2023-11)In what ways can a community music education project based on historical re-enactment be a vehicle for transformational learning, empowerment and reconnection with community? In 2018, Serenading Adela was performed to celebrate and remember the 100th anniversary of a moment in history when women sang under the prison cell window of Adela Pankhurst, an anti-conscriptionist. The operatic work, which recruited 100 adult participants, was conceived and developed over almost 2 years and rehearsed for 5 months. The researchers were interested in participants’ motivations and their experiences of engagement with a story of historical injustice. Data were collected by holding interviews and focus groups and analysed using thematic analysis informed by Freirean concepts. Five themes emerged, indicating that the pedagogical approach and ideologies of the directors enabled and nurtured collaborative connections, personal growth, new perspectives, meaning-making and empowerment for a diverse group of adults.
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ItemRich Intercultural Music Engagement Enhances Cultural Understanding: The Impact of Learning a Musical Instrument Outside of One's Lived Experience.(MDPI AG, 2023-01-20)Rich intercultural music engagement (RIME) is an embodied form of engagement whereby individuals immerse themselves in foreign musical practice, for example, by learning a traditional instrument from that culture. The present investigation evaluated whether RIME with Chinese or Middle Eastern music can nurture intercultural understanding. White Australian participants were randomly assigned to one of two plucked-string groups: Chinese pipa (n = 29) or Middle Eastern oud (n = 29). Before and after the RIME intervention, participants completed measures of ethnocultural empathy, tolerance, social connectedness, explicit and implicit attitudes towards ethnocultural groups, and open-ended questions about their experience. Following RIME, White Australian participants reported a significant increase in ethnocultural empathy, tolerance, feelings of social connection, and improved explicit and implicit attitudes towards Chinese and Middle Eastern people. However, these benefits differed between groups. Participants who learned Chinese pipa reported reduced bias and increased social connectedness towards Chinese people, but not towards Middle Eastern people. Conversely, participants who learned Middle Eastern oud reported a significant increase in social connectedness towards Middle Eastern people, but not towards Chinese people. This is the first experimental evidence that participatory RIME is an effective tool for understanding a culture other than one's own, with the added potential to reduce cultural bias.
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Item“First of all, be friends”: Rock music, social connection, inclusion and mobility in Kosovo and North Macedonia: An evaluation of Music Connects, a project using culture as a driver for social innovation in former Yugoslavia(Griffith University & The University of Melbourne, 2021)Music Connects aims to activate youth (ages 15-24) through state-of-the-art rock music education, production, and promotion programs in Kosovo and Northern Macedonia. Music Connects features a carefully developed approach that seeks to build sustainable social inclusion and participation opportunities with young musicians leading the way. This evaluation has examined the social difference that this program makes to participating youth and their communities. This evaluation has investigated the extent to which inclusion and connection among divided youth in Kosovo and Northern Macedonia have been achieved in the programs delivered in three rock schools. Specifically, it has considered the outcomes of Music Connects in relation to social connections, inclusion, changing of perspectives and mobility, and the practices, values, and strategies that facilitate these. This report identifies factors that influence the depth of bonds that may be created, and it foregrounds the voices and perspectives of the young musicians involved, who are the frontline beneficiaries of the program.
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ItemHow Can Music Engagement Address Loneliness? A Qualitative Study and Thematic Framework in the Context of Australia's COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdowns(MDPI, 2023-01)Social isolation and loneliness are serious public health concerns. Music engagement can strengthen social connections and reduce loneliness in some contexts, although how this occurs is not well understood; research suggests that music's capacity to manipulate perceptions of time and space is relevant. This study adopted a qualitative perspective to examine how music engagement shaped the experiences of residents of Victoria, Australia, during conditions of restricted social contact during the lockdowns of 2020. Semi-structured interviews explored participants' lived musical experiences while giving focus to perceptions of time and space (e.g., how music helped restructure home and workspaces in response to lockdown regulations, or punctuate time where older routines were no longer viable). Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of the interview transcripts identified five themes representing the key findings: (1) a super-ordinate theme of perceived control, which comprises four themes: (2) dynamic connection; (3) identity; (4) mobility; (5) presence. Each theme describes one generalised aspect of the way music engagement shaped participants' perceptions of time and space during lockdown and supported their processes of adaptation to and coping with increased social isolation. The authors argue that these findings may inform the way music can be used to address loneliness in everyday life.
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ItemCreativity in lockdown: Understanding how music and the arts supported mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic by age group(FRONTIERS MEDIA SA, 2022-10-06)Recent research has indicated that many people around the world turned to artistic creative activities (ACAs) to support their mental health during COVID-19 lockdowns. However, studies have also shown that the negative psychosocial impacts of the pandemic have disproportionately affected young people, suggesting that the use of ACAs to support mental health in lockdown may have varied across age groups. This study investigated how Australians in four different age groups (18-24, 25-34, 35-54, and 55+) engaged in ACAs to support their mental health during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns. Participants (N = 653) recruited from the general public completed an online survey between May and October 2020, in which they reported which ACAs they had undertaken during the pandemic using an established list. Participants subsequently ranked undertaken ACAs in terms of effectiveness at making them "feel better," and those who had engaged in musical ACAs also completed the Musical Engagement Questionnaire (MusEQ). Additionally, ratings of anxiety (GAD7) and depression (PHQ9) symptoms were obtained and examined for potential variations across four diverse variables: age, exercise, gender and state/territory of residence. ACA rankings showed that younger participants overwhelmingly rated musical activities as most effective, while, with the exception of singing, those aged 55+ rated non-musical activities as being most effective. These differences were further supported by ratings for all six MusEQ subscales, with responses strongly indicating that the youngest participants (aged 18-24) used music in significantly different ways during the pandemic than participants in all other age groups. Specifically, these youngest participants were more likely to integrate music into daily life, use music for emotion regulation, respond to music in embodied ways, and use music to perform a social identity. In line with prior research, further analyses indicated that symptoms of anxiety and depression were lessened for older participants, as well for those who reported exercising more during the lockdowns. These findings provide insight into how ACAs can support mental health during a pandemic crisis for specific age groups, which may inform future policy directions, and suggestions for how this can be done are provided.
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ItemThe role of artistic creative activities in navigating the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia(Frontiers Media, 2022)During the COVID-19 pandemic some Australians turned to artistic creative activities (ACAs) as a way of managing their own mental health and well-being. This study examined the role of ACAs in regulating emotion and supporting mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic, and also attempted to identify at-risk populations. We proposed that (1) participants would use ACAs as avoidance-based emotion regulation strategies; and (2) music engagement would be used for emotion regulation. Australian participants (N = 653) recruited from the general public completed an online survey, which included scales targeting anxiety (GAD7 scale), depression (PHQ9 scale) and loneliness (two UCLA Loneliness Scales, referring to “Before” and “Since” COVID-19). Participants reported which ACAs they had undertaken and ceased during the pandemic using an established list and ranked their undertaken ACAs in terms of effectiveness at making them “feel better.” For their top-ranked ACA, participantsthen completed the Emot on Regulation Scale for Artistic Creative Activities (ERS-ACA), and if participants had undertaken any musical ACAs, also the Musical Engagement Questionnaire (MusEQ). The results supported both hypotheses. ANOVAs indicated that participants ranked significantly higher on the “avoidance” ERS-ACA subscale than the other subscales, and that participants ranked significantly higher on the emotion regulation and musical preference MusEQ subscales than the other subscales. Additionally, while ACAs such as “Watching films or TV shows” and “Cookery or baking” were common, they ranked poorly as effective methods of emotion regulation, whereas “Listening to music” was the second-most frequently undertaken ACA and also the most effective. “Singing” and “Dancing” were among the most ceased ACAs but also ranked among the most effective for emotion regulation, suggesting that support for developing pandemic-safe approaches to these ACAs may provide well-being benefits in future crises. Additionally, correlation analyses howed that younger participants, those who took less exercise during the pandemic, and those with the highest musical engagement reported the poorest well-being.We conclude that ACAs provided an important resource for supporting mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia and could potentially support mental health and well-being in future crises.
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ItemNo Preview AvailableAn Exploratory Study of Historical Representations of Love in an Art Gallery Exhibition(EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING FOUNDATION-AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC, 2022-08)
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ItemPlaying an Instrument(Oxford University Press, 2016)Learning to play a musical instrument is one of the most widespread musical activities for children. While much research in the past century has focused on the assessment of musical abilities and the content of their lessons, more recent research has focused on children’s interactions with their social environments and how these interactions impact their ongoing ability and motivation to learn and play music. This chapter explores these social and cognitive developments starting with how children and their parents select an instrument and negotiate the commencement of formal music learning, through to the task related cognitive strategies children use to overcome the difficulties associated with learning and practice, and the ways they may eventually become able to integrate an identity as a musician with their own sense of self. Aspects of self-regulation and self-determination theory are discussed.