Community music as intervention: Three doctoral researchers consider intervention from their different contexts

Abstract

There is a rising critique of the process and position of decision-making across music interventions, which has been evidenced through the MUSOC research network debates that we, as doctoral students, have participated in. In this article, we specifically discuss ‘intervention’ as ‘deliberate strategies that seek to enable people to find self-expression through musical means’ (Bartleet and Higgins 2018: 3). We offer three perspectives from three different intervention contexts: community music in schools, organizational settings and music-making workshops. Through this article, we share and reflect on our experience with intervention and decision making within our practice. We give specific focus to: how intentions and motivations underpinning interventionist practice manifest in different contexts; how this is currently informed by the decision-making structures through which community music is practised in each context; and, the extent to which dominant modes of practice have potential to disempower participants, including how they are reinforced and re-enacted through this process. Finally, we suggest that how we talk about intervention across peers, and how we enact it through our practice as practitioners and researchers is possibly misaligned. This warrants further consideration if explorations of the term ‘intervention’ are to feed into discussion and action for responsible practice.