Una MacGlone | What’s inside the black box of community music? Investigating musical and paramusical communications of practitioners and participants with and without disabilities

Event details

Speaker: Dr Una MacGlone (University of Edinburgh)

Date: Thursday 14 March 2024

Time: 5.15 - 6.45pm.  

Venue: Alison House, Atrium (G10)

Abstract

A growing body of research suggests creative musical activity is one of the ways in which it is possible to promote psychological health, especially for those with disabilities. This is demonstrated in a raft of recent research-based publications and evidenced by the increase in arts-related social prescribing by NHS. However, the nature of musical interventions is under-reported – music is often seen as some kind of magical ‘black box’.

Existing research in group creativity indicates understanding the distributed nature of musical creativity in community contexts requires an empirical focus on moment-to-moment interactions. This presentation will outline results from a key strand of my BA postdoc research which has taken such an approach to analysing the discursive function of both musical and verbal communications in community music workshops for children with and without disabilities. This research serves to illuminate the decentralised and cross-modal nature of communications possible in creative musical tasks and gives insight into types and patterns of interactions which build collaborative environments and may benefit wellbeing.

Biography

Dr Una MacGlone is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Reid School of Music in the University of Edinburgh. She has research interests in improvisation, pedagogy and social and wellbeing effects of creative music-making, publishing in several music psychology and music education journals. She was co-editor of an anthology: Expanding the Space for Improvisation Pedagogy (2019), published by Routledge.  Her research uses person-centred and mixed-methods approaches to develop understandings of creativity and interdisciplinary settings. Una is also an experienced creative educator particularly with Early Years and individuals with an additional support need. She is a founder member of Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra (GIO) and leads on projects such as an annual collaboration with Ceòl ‘s Craic exploring Gaelic literature, song and improvisation. Live improvisations and commissions have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 as well as on TV in Germany and Japan. She has an international profile as a teacher of free improvisation, and has given workshops and lectured across Europe and North America.