Papers by Ben S Higham
This document reports on an AHRC Research Network (2013) whose aim was to improve understanding o... more This document reports on an AHRC Research Network (2013) whose aim was to improve understanding of the historic, current, and potential roles that community music can play in promoting community engagement.
benhighamconsulting.com
Here we are on the rack of identity, purpose and function again! Perhaps this seems a rather extr... more Here we are on the rack of identity, purpose and function again! Perhaps this seems a rather extreme reaction to what appears to be a fairly straightforward question. Organisation implies structure, structure implies hierarchy (or at least a demarcation of functions/roles), ...
Partnerships between communities and universities are taking place largely in urban areas. Commun... more Partnerships between communities and universities are taking place largely in urban areas. Community partnerships play significant roles in creating diverse contexts for music teaching and learning. The Minnesota Orchestra, a professional orchestra in Minneapolis, Minnesota has long active history of educational and community outreach programs.... In this report, I will a) give a brief overview of the Pennock Listening Project, including the establishment of goals and objectives in the context of a university-level music methods course; b) describe program planning and implementation efforts to reach members of the home school community in and around Minneapolis and St. Paul; and c) summarize the educational value of this collaboration and its effects on the lives of individual students, their parents, and the UM/Minnesota Orchestra partner institutions.' Research Notes: Case study of a project evaluating an orchestral and university outreach community music programme in the US established in 1996. The Pennock Listening Project brought together the Minnesota Orchestra, students in the Music Education Division of the University of Minnesota, local schools and, notably, parentteachers and children in home schooling situations. Workshops led by new university students, a series of Young People's Concerts by the orchestra, and the author's own experience as a music lecturer of teaching the students, are all contextualised. A survey by the author, employing a questionnaire, evaluated the effect and impact of the project, and its findings are reported here. A sample questionnaire included. URL:
Public service provision in the UK is being challenged by changes to structure, process and fundi... more Public service provision in the UK is being challenged by changes to structure, process and funding. This project has sought to develop a clearer understanding of the cultural and operational issues posed by these changes. The process involved interviews with public service professionals, followed by a colloquium involving interviewees and invited guests representing a range of professional perspectives.
The context in which professionals and managers are required to deliver rapid change is characterised by paradox, inconsistency and incoherence. These confusions reflect the tension between the drive for higher quality services, and the urgent reduction in the funding available to support such improvements. The issues in tension are itemised within the text of this report.
Professionals appear to be offered greater freedom and autonomy, and a move away from a target-driven culture, at the same time as the monitoring of simplistic and countable ‘outcomes’ is intensified. Innovation and change are encouraged rhetorically, while the experience and professional confidence that would be needed to deliver these things are eroded by the shedding of experienced staff, and an obsession with governance and protocol.
The Transformation of Adult Social Care is a prominent and early expression of a wider commitment... more The Transformation of Adult Social Care is a prominent and early expression of a wider commitment to the radical reform of the public service agenda. At the heart of this is the commitment to give individuals control over their own destiny – that is to provide services that respond to the individual needs and preferences of service users (as opposed, for example, to standardised services whose design may be overly influenced by the convenience of the provider). The Transformation is also associated with a reduction in costs, an improvement in efficiency, and the encouragement of innovation.
This moment is linked to the conviction that Third Sector organisations – in particular Social Enterprises
– could and should play an expanded role in innovative, cost efficient service delivery.
This report seeks to establish the terms of a dialogue between commissioners and service providers in the social enterprise sector which can lead to a greater shared understanding of the market opportunity, and how it can be made to work best for service users. We hope to point to practical benefits for all parties in this market, and indicate what conditions will need to be in place for these benefits to be fully realised.
How can social enterprises and their customers adapt to the opportunities arising from any change... more How can social enterprises and their customers adapt to the opportunities arising from any change of values and expectations in the current business environment?
The role of values and judgements in the development of autonomy in the music teacher and communi... more The role of values and judgements in the development of autonomy in the music teacher and community music tutor. Diverse professional musical experience and a common interest in action research leading to a dynamic view of music teacher/community music tutor training and praxis. A different approach.
I have cited Handy here because this is a very attractive and "sexy" way to start us th... more I have cited Handy here because this is a very attractive and "sexy" way to start us thinking. However, I have to immediately take issue with the notion that we have to walk backwards and on our hands to make sense of the present and prepare for the future. The feeling is right but the dimension is wrong; to get
International Journal of Community Music, 2012
The aim of the research network on which this document reports was to improve understanding of th... more The aim of the research network on which this document reports was to improve understanding of the historic, current, and potential roles that community music (hereafter CM) can play in promoting community engagement, within the terms of the AHRC's 'Connected Communities' initiative.
Articles and chapters by Ben S Higham
The first of the questions offered by the iSME Community Music Commission (1990) for discussion i... more The first of the questions offered by the iSME Community Music Commission (1990) for discussion is in three parts: "what are the community's needs? Who decides what they are? Who determines the training musicians get?" And the second question asks "What skills and qualities does a community musician need and how can these be developed?" I propose to address these questions in the context of Community Music East's experience over the last seven years.
This research review, consisting of a 90-entry annotated bibliography, was produced as part of an... more This research review, consisting of a 90-entry annotated bibliography, was produced as part of an AHRC Connected Communities programme project entitled Community Music, its History and Current Practice, its Constructions of ‘Community’, Digital Turns and Future Soundings. It supports a 2,500 word report written with this same title for the AHRC
The UK has been a pivotal national player within the development of community music practice. In ... more The UK has been a pivotal national player within the development of community music practice. In the UK community music developed broadly from the 1960s and had a significant burgeoning period in the 1980s. Community music nationally and internationally has gone on to build a set of practices, a repertoire, an infrastructure of organisations, qualifications and career paths. There are elements of cultural and debatably pedagogic innovations in community music. These have to date only partly been articulated and historicised within academic research.
This document brings together and reviews research under the headings of history and definitions; practice; repertoire; community; pedagogy; digital technology; health and therapy; policy and funding, and impact and evaluation. A 90-entry, 22,000 word annotated bibliography was also produced (McKay and Higham 2011). An informed group of 15 practitioners and academics reviewed the authors’ initial findings at a knowledge exchange colloquium and advised on further investigation. Some of the gaps in research identified are: an authoritative history, an examination of repertoire, the relationship with other music (practice), the freelance practitioner career, evidence of impact and value, the potential for a pedagogy.
Conference Presentations by Ben S Higham
We live in a world of cultural confusion. Under considerable, and misguided, pressure to be every... more We live in a world of cultural confusion. Under considerable, and misguided, pressure to be everything to everyone (with extraordinary caveats attached for some) we are not losing but denying our individual circumstances and contexts, the elements that make our engagement with society meaningful and that inform how we understand the world. The danger is that this influence is insidiously received and is often interpreted by people as an internal restraint rather than an external constraint. As a consequence there is little potential and encouragement for the emergence of a creative person, that is someone who understands the purpose and nature of creative activity and engages in it as ethical behaviour. As a country we are the poorer for this lack of natural capacity and intelligence.
An exploration of the use of music-making activity within a structured group response to school r... more An exploration of the use of music-making activity within a structured group response to school refusal including the evaluation of the benefits across the curriculum and the implications for practice development for teachers and community music tutors.
Community Music East Ltd. (CME) is an independent organisation with charitable status working in ... more Community Music East Ltd. (CME) is an independent organisation with charitable status working in community education through the medium of music. Users of the project include schoolchildren, both able-bodied and disabled, youth, the general public, young offenders, prisoners, adults with mental and/or physical disabilities and young people with mental health problems. The organisation provides in-service training to a range of professionals from the care, education and arts sectors as well initial teacher training for B. Ed students and as part of post- graduate music teacher training courses in university.
The following paper was written, in part at least, as an internal and formative research exercise examining the nature and implications of evaluation in the work of CME: an exercise in trying to set a context in which colleagues might be encouraged to examine their work confidently, accurately and critically. It achieved its objective in that it started something that will never be finished, a conclusion that all of us at CME are only just beginning to fully understand.
Is the notion of "multiculturalism"-potentially so attractive as a political and educational conc... more Is the notion of "multiculturalism"-potentially so attractive as a political and educational concept that promotes greater understanding-nothing more than a new form of cultural imperialism? Are there not better ways to encourage specific cultural voices that secure value and meaning? " What educates is significant experience. " (Mursell, 1934) We live in a changing world. Increasingly, countries and peoples find themselves inhabiting a new social and political dynamic. More often than not this dynamic is led by international, even global, understandings of how social and political "justice" and "freedom" shall be achieved. Worldviews as we currently understand them tend to be orientations of Western perception. One of the first possible casualties of such worldviews is that of cultural identity. Our investigations and discussions have led us to the perception that community music activity is characterised by the following principles: decentralisation, accessibility, equal opportunity, and active participation in music-making. These principles are social and political ones, and there can be no doubt that community music activity is more than a purely musical one. (Olseng, 1990, p. 84) In the sense just described community music praxis embraces the spirit of UBUNTU, the age-old African term for humaneness. It is vital that we not only develop approaches to community music activity that encourage diversity, understanding and humanity but also that we ensure that identity, the very purpose of cultural expression and the outcome that gives meaning to the previous qualities listed, is secured in the process. To this end we must not allow ourselves to be party to sloppy liberalism and we must be rigorous in our methods if we are to achieve opportunities for the development of personal autonomy, which is the very basis of freedom, and a sense of worth, which is the foundation of justice.
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Papers by Ben S Higham
The context in which professionals and managers are required to deliver rapid change is characterised by paradox, inconsistency and incoherence. These confusions reflect the tension between the drive for higher quality services, and the urgent reduction in the funding available to support such improvements. The issues in tension are itemised within the text of this report.
Professionals appear to be offered greater freedom and autonomy, and a move away from a target-driven culture, at the same time as the monitoring of simplistic and countable ‘outcomes’ is intensified. Innovation and change are encouraged rhetorically, while the experience and professional confidence that would be needed to deliver these things are eroded by the shedding of experienced staff, and an obsession with governance and protocol.
This moment is linked to the conviction that Third Sector organisations – in particular Social Enterprises
– could and should play an expanded role in innovative, cost efficient service delivery.
This report seeks to establish the terms of a dialogue between commissioners and service providers in the social enterprise sector which can lead to a greater shared understanding of the market opportunity, and how it can be made to work best for service users. We hope to point to practical benefits for all parties in this market, and indicate what conditions will need to be in place for these benefits to be fully realised.
Articles and chapters by Ben S Higham
This document brings together and reviews research under the headings of history and definitions; practice; repertoire; community; pedagogy; digital technology; health and therapy; policy and funding, and impact and evaluation. A 90-entry, 22,000 word annotated bibliography was also produced (McKay and Higham 2011). An informed group of 15 practitioners and academics reviewed the authors’ initial findings at a knowledge exchange colloquium and advised on further investigation. Some of the gaps in research identified are: an authoritative history, an examination of repertoire, the relationship with other music (practice), the freelance practitioner career, evidence of impact and value, the potential for a pedagogy.
Conference Presentations by Ben S Higham
The following paper was written, in part at least, as an internal and formative research exercise examining the nature and implications of evaluation in the work of CME: an exercise in trying to set a context in which colleagues might be encouraged to examine their work confidently, accurately and critically. It achieved its objective in that it started something that will never be finished, a conclusion that all of us at CME are only just beginning to fully understand.
The context in which professionals and managers are required to deliver rapid change is characterised by paradox, inconsistency and incoherence. These confusions reflect the tension between the drive for higher quality services, and the urgent reduction in the funding available to support such improvements. The issues in tension are itemised within the text of this report.
Professionals appear to be offered greater freedom and autonomy, and a move away from a target-driven culture, at the same time as the monitoring of simplistic and countable ‘outcomes’ is intensified. Innovation and change are encouraged rhetorically, while the experience and professional confidence that would be needed to deliver these things are eroded by the shedding of experienced staff, and an obsession with governance and protocol.
This moment is linked to the conviction that Third Sector organisations – in particular Social Enterprises
– could and should play an expanded role in innovative, cost efficient service delivery.
This report seeks to establish the terms of a dialogue between commissioners and service providers in the social enterprise sector which can lead to a greater shared understanding of the market opportunity, and how it can be made to work best for service users. We hope to point to practical benefits for all parties in this market, and indicate what conditions will need to be in place for these benefits to be fully realised.
This document brings together and reviews research under the headings of history and definitions; practice; repertoire; community; pedagogy; digital technology; health and therapy; policy and funding, and impact and evaluation. A 90-entry, 22,000 word annotated bibliography was also produced (McKay and Higham 2011). An informed group of 15 practitioners and academics reviewed the authors’ initial findings at a knowledge exchange colloquium and advised on further investigation. Some of the gaps in research identified are: an authoritative history, an examination of repertoire, the relationship with other music (practice), the freelance practitioner career, evidence of impact and value, the potential for a pedagogy.
The following paper was written, in part at least, as an internal and formative research exercise examining the nature and implications of evaluation in the work of CME: an exercise in trying to set a context in which colleagues might be encouraged to examine their work confidently, accurately and critically. It achieved its objective in that it started something that will never be finished, a conclusion that all of us at CME are only just beginning to fully understand.