Becoming the right musician for the job: Versatility, connectedness, and professional identities during personalized, online music-making in hospital maternity wards

Abstract

The beneficial potential for music in hospital contexts is well established, with research showing that music can promote patient well-being and support recovery. However, less attention has been paid to the ways in which musicians’ practices and professional identities are informed by working in hospital settings. As arts-and-health approaches continue to proliferate, it is essential to recognize the values, emotional labor, and skills associated with these approaches through understanding the experiences of practitioners. As part of an international collaboration led by Hanze University in the Netherlands, the ProMiMiC project explores the professional development of musicians and nurses through person-centered music-making in hospital settings. The current study focused on five conservatoire-trained musicians’ delivery of personalized music-making via Zoom in a hospital maternity setting in London during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their experiences of adapting to the new context, and the impacts on their personal and professional development, were explored using reflective journals, group discussions, and semi-structured interviews. The data were interpreted using the theoretical lens of vocational habitus to examine the skills and dispositions required to be the right musician for this job. Qualitative synthesis revealed the musicians’ developing musical values as they adapted to the online maternity setting, highlighting the centrality of communicative and musical versatility as well as the ability to connect and empathize through music. The findings offer insights into possible ways of supporting emerging music practitioners in healthcare settings and emphasize the imperative for higher music education to prepare and train musicians for this type of work.