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Revolutionary Songs From Myanmar: Reconsidering Scholarly Perspectives On Protest Music, Heather Maclachlan

Music Faculty Publications

Since the February 1, 2021 military coup in Myanmar, Burmese musicians have been creating and circulating anti- coup songs. This article describes a representative sample of these songs, explaining how the lyrics reference important tropes in Burmese life and history. Further, the article argues that these anti-coup songs, while they can be understood as protest music, do not fit precisely into categories previously delineated for protest songs. Nor do these songs provide a neat answer to the question that scholars so often pose of protest music, to wit: do these songs work to persuade listeners to take an anti-authoritarian position? …

Robert Heller’S Magical Mystery Tours, Jessie Fillerup

Music Faculty Publications

Robert Heller, a virtually unknown figure in music-historical accounts, trained in the 1840s at the Royal Academy of Music in London and gave the American premieres of Beethoven’s Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos with the Germania Musical Society. But he also pursued a parallel career in theatrical magic, using his musical virtuosity to elevate his social and artistic stature as a conjurer. Between 1852 and 1878, his magic act was seen by millions in Europe, East Asia, and the United States, including states and territories in the American West never visited by contemporary piano virtuosos like Thalberg and De Meyer. …

How A Medical Orchestra Cultivates Creativity, Joy, Empathy, And Connection, Roma Subramanian, Matthew J. Brooks

Music Faculty Publications

Background: Inspired by research indicating that exposure to humanities correlates with reduced burnout, the Nebraska Medical Orchestra was founded in 2018 as a collaboration between the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the University of Nebraska at Omaha School of Music.

Methods: Semistructured interviews about orchestra participants’ experiences were conducted with 9 musicians and recorded and transcribed. Transcripts were analyzed using the constant comparative method.

Results: The interviews suggested that participants are drawn to the orchestra to pursue a love of music, to be part of an ensemble, and to connect with others in an environment that provides a lighthearted, …

Burmese Buddhist Monks, The Seventh Precept, And Cognitive Dissonance, Heather Maclachlan

Music Faculty Publications

Burmese Theravada Buddhist monks have varying degrees of involvement with music; this study of 22 monks from across Burma/Myanmar reveals that most of them often listen to recorded music. At the same time the monks acknowledge that Buddhism’s Seventh Precept is (or ought to be) a guide for their behavior, agreeing that to be “attached” to music is to violate their monastic rule. They therefore experience cognitive dissonance, and they respond to this dissonance in predictable ways - that is, in ways documented by researchers working with Western populations. They differ, however, in their phenomenological experiences of attachment.

Introduction To Special Issue, Music In World Religions: A Response To Isabel Laack, Heather Maclachlan

Music Faculty Publications

This article serves to introduce a special issue of Religions, titled Music in World Religions. A 2015 article by religion scholar Isabel Laack claimed that the study of music and religion has been neglected by Laack’s peers in the field of religions. Responding to Laack, I argue that scholars of music have been making important contributions to the study of music and religion and, indeed, have been addressing the twelve specific topics she highlights for decades. After summarizing academic works which respond to Laack’s twelve categories of inquiry, I introduce each of the articles in this special issue, showing that …

Reducing “Treble” With Performance Focused Music Programs In Medical School: A Student Driven Needs Assessment To Clarify Participation Barriers Amongst Undergraduate Medical Students, Alexander Tu, Tiffany Truong, Kristy J. Carlson, Matthew J. Brooks, Jayme R. Dowdall

Music Faculty Publications

Introduction: The beneficial impact of performing arts involvement within undergraduate medical education, such as music, has been studied, but support for the arts varies significantly by institution. Research has suggested that medical student involvement in the arts can help develop their identities as physicians and may reduce stress and burnout, an increasingly difficult problem within the medical student community.

Methods: We used a mixed-method cross-sectional study design, using a questionnaire and semi-structured interview designed amongst a team of music professionals and healthcare providers with music backgrounds. Out of 511 enrolled medical students, 93 students participated in the study for a …

"Jesus Is Not A Foreign God":Christian Music-Making In Burma/Myanmar, Heather Maclachlan

Music Faculty Publications

Christians in the Southeast Asian country of Burma, also known as Myanmar, make up approximately five percent of the national population. The Christian community of Burma includes both Catholics and Protestants, and the Protestants are divided into many denominations. Baptist Christians are predominant among this group, and they provided most of the ethnographic information upon which this article is based. In the article I argue that twenty-first century Baptists in Burma fulfill both aspects of a “twofold legacy” bequeathed to them by Adoniram Judson, the first Baptist missionary to Burma, and that their fulfillment of this legacy is manifest in …

Safeguarding Curricular Self-Experiences In Undergraduate Music Therapy Education And Training, James Hiller, Courtney Belt, Susan Gardstrom, Joy Willenbrink-Conte

Music Faculty Publications

The purpose of this paper is to put forth a model to support the psychological safety of undergraduate students as they engage in a form of experiential learning called self-experiences. Self-experiences pair active engagement in learning episodes with learner self-inquiry. The need to safeguard curricular self-experiences is grounded in the American Music Therapy Association’s Professional Competencies and Code of Ethics and the Certification Board for Music Therapists’ Board Certification Domains. We first explicate several types and benefits of self-experiences and identify potential risks and contraindications that may compromise learners’ psychological safety and even cause harm. Next, we describe …

Hooked On A Feeling: Influence Of Brief Exposure To Familiar Music On Feelings Of Emotion In Individuals With Alzheimer's Disease, Alaine E. Reschke-Hernández, Amy M. Belfi, Edmarie Guzmán-Vélez, Daniel Tranel

Music Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Research has indicated that individuals with Alzheimer's-type dementia (AD) can experience prolonged emotions, even when they cannot recall the eliciting event. Less is known about whether music can modify the emotional state of individuals with AD and whether emotions evoked by music linger in the absence of a declarative memory for the eliciting event.

OBJECTIVE: We examined the effects of participant-selected recorded music on self-reported feelings of emotion in individuals with AD, and whether these feelings persisted irrespective of declarative memory for the emotion-inducing stimuli.

METHODS: Twenty participants with AD and 19 healthy comparisons (HCs) listened to two 4.5-minute …

Therapist And Individual Experiences And Perceptions Of Music Therapy For Adolescents Who Stutter: A Qualitative Exploration, Jessica O'Donoghue, Hilary Moss, Amy Clements-Cortés, Carol Freeley

Music Faculty Publications

Introduction

Affective reactions frequently reported by adolescents who stutter include embarrassment, frustration, and feelings of anxiety about further stuttering. It is possible that music therapy may enhance stuttering treatment outcomes; however, little is known about how individuals who stutter, and therapists working with this group, view such therapy. The purpose of this study was to explore individuals who stutter and therapist experiences with, and perceptions of, music and music therapy for stuttering. This work is part of a larger mixed-methods project to explore the effectiveness and potential benefit of music therapy with adolescents who stutter.

Method

Semi-structured interviews were conducted …

The Impact Of Singing Engagement On Food Intake Of Individuals With Alzheimer’S Disease And Related Dementias: A Multi-Site, Repeated Measures Study, James Hiller

Music Faculty Publications

Malnutrition among older adults with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) is a serious and long-recognized health concern. Identifying nonpharmacological means for enhancing the volume of nutrition intake is an urgent need. Researchers have explored the use of music and music therapy as nonpharmacological avenues in this regard, but most music-based studies related to food intake focus on receptive interventions wherein participants are exposed to recorded music during meal times. The purpose of the present research is to investigate whether residents with ADRD would significantly increase their volume of food intake during the midday meal immediately following 30 minutes of …

Social Prescribing For An Aging Population, Amy Clements-Cortés, Joyce Yip

Music Faculty Publications

As the human population is moving toward a demographic of aging individuals, increased levels of stress will be placed on the current health care system. “… As people live longer, there is a tendency or the onset of disease to occur closer to the end of life” (p. 441) and the incidence of mental health illnesses is prevalent in older adults. Currently, the medical model is dominant in the health care system and aims to cure any issue(s) without considerations in the cause or source. Social prescribing/social prescription enables physicians and health care professionals to refer individuals to non-clinical services, …

From Inclusion To Inclusivity: A Scoping Review Of Community Music Scholarship, Deanna Yerichuk, Justis Krar

Music Faculty Publications

This article investigates how community music scholarship has taken up inclusion. Using a modified scoping review methodology, the authors analysed 47 articles published in the International Journal of Community Music from 2008 to 2018, examining how scholars have defined and operationalized the terms ‘inclusion’ and ‘inclusivity’, which were used interchangeably in the literature. The authors found that inclusion was often normatively invoked with no definition or approaches provided. In those articles that provided more detail about inclusion, many focused on musical access, such as removing auditions and not requiring previous music skill or knowledge, and processes of musical inclusion, such …

Community Music Therapy And Participatory Performance: Case Study Of A Coffee House, Elizabeth Mitchell

Music Faculty Publications

This case study research explores the impact of a musical performance event—the Coffee House—held bi-annually at an adolescent mental health treatment facility in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Any client or staff member is welcomed to perform at this event, which is organized by the facility’s music therapist and framed here as an example of community music therapy. Drawing upon Turino’s (2008) ethnomusicological perspective on performance, I will argue that the Coffee House’s success within this context is due to its participatory ethos, wherein success is primarily defined by the act of participation. Here, performance takes place within an inclusive and supportive …

Are We Doing More Than We Know? Possible Mechanisms Of Response To Music Therapy, Amy Clements-Cortés, Lee Bartel

Music Faculty Publications

Due to advances in medical knowledge the population of older adults struggling with issues of aging like Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and stroke is growing. There is a need for therapeutic interventions to provide adaptive strategies to sustain quality of life, decrease neurologic impairment, and maintain or slow cognitive decline and function due to degenerative neurologic diseases. Musical interventions with adults with cognitive impairments have received increased attention over the past few years, such as the value of personalized music listening in the iPod project for AD; music as a tool to decrease agitation and anxiety in dementia; …

‘Self As Instrument’ – Safe And Effective Use Of Self In Music Psychotherapy: Canadian Music Therapists’ Perceptions, Heidi Ahonen

Music Faculty Publications

This article introduces the results of a pilot survey conducted with accredited Canadian music therapists investigating their perceptions of personal psychotherapy and the concept of Safe and Effective Use of Self (SEUS) in the music therapy relationship. An emailed survey questionnaire covered both closed and openended questions on SEUS-related topics. The open-ended questions were analysed using the qualitative data analysis software Nvivo. Simple percentages were calculated to analyse the results of the closed-ended questions. The results suggest that music therapists engaging in psychotherapy seem to work with similar client populations, use similar theoretical approaches and techniques, and hold very similar …

On Large Ensembles: A Cross-Cultural Content Analysis Of English And Chinese-Language Articles, Patrick K. Freer, Leonard Tan

Music Faculty Publications

This article reports a cross-cultural analysis of journal articles pertaining to large ensembles published in English and Chinese languages from 2007–17. Topics addressed in the articles included issues of equity and access, the value of large ensembles in young people’s lives and to the field of music education, the development of large ensemble music education in Asia, and implications for the field of conductor-teacher preparation. Three conceptually distinct but interrelated themes emerged: power, participation, and pedagogy. “Power” refers to the authority, command, and influence commonly associated with conductors. “Participation” refers to issues of access, recruitment, retention, attrition, and other sociological …

The 4th International Conference Of The International Association For Music And Medicine (Iamm), Amy Clements-Cortés

Music Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Examining Equity In Tenure Processes At Higher Education Music Programs: An Institutional Ethnography, Deborah Bradley, Deanna Yerichuk, Lori-Anne Dolloff, Kiera Galway, Kathy M. Robinson, Jody Stark, Elizabeth Gould

Music Faculty Publications

As part of a larger mixed-methods study, this article presents findings from research on processes of tenure in Canadian higher education music faculties. The Principle Investigator and three teams of two researchers analyzed the process of tenure at three Canadian institutions to gain insight into how tenure decisions are made in relation to gender and race/ethnicity. The researchers used institutional ethnography, developed by sociologist Dorothy Smith, to examine institutional documents that organize tenure, as well as how documents organize people’s actions, studied through interviews with key stakeholders, such as directors, tenure applicants, and union representatives. The findings from the three …

Problem-Based Learning And Structural Redesign In Methods Courses, Patrick K. Freer

Music Faculty Publications

This article describes the process of structural redesign of an undergraduate music education choral methods course. A framework incorporating Problem-based Learning was developed to promote individualized student learning. Ten students participated in the accompanying research study, contributing an array of written and spoken comments as well as drawn images depicting their experiences and perceptions. Visual and textual data were gathered, transcribed, and analyzed according to existing protocols. Students uniformly reported positive outcomes. A list of suggestions for implementation concludes the article.

A Cover Story: Music Educators Journal And Historical-Political Narrativity, Patrick K. Freer

Music Faculty Publications

This article reports results of a comprehensive content analysis of the 644 Music Educators Journal (MEJ) covers published between September 1914 and December 2015. For more than a century, MEJ’s covers conveyed carefully selected visual and textual imagery to all members of the growing association. The results of the content analysis were secondarily analyzed for elements of historical narrativity and political narrativity in music education. Results indicate that imagery related to nationalism and patriotism increased during times of conflict, the representation of people diversified as time progressed, and there is evidence that the first images of Black …

Terraformation: For Violin Or Viola And Computer, Seth Shafer

Music Faculty Publications

This paper introduces my real-time notation (RTN) work Terraformation (2016–17) for violin or viola and computer. Program notes, performance directions, and two score excerpts from violinist Florian Vlashi’s performance on May 25, 2017 at the Third International Conference on Technologies for Music Notation and Representation are included.

Adding Music Therapy To The Care Plan, Amy Clements-Cortés

Music Faculty Publications

I have chosen to write a short editorial on a topic not often included at the forefront of palliative care; music therapy. At the launch of an important journal that encourages articles addressing quality of life, while offering an educational forum for healthcare professionals to maintain relevance, it seems fitting to raise a topic that does not receive adequate attention in many palliative care settings.

Soothing Relaxation Journeys: Designing Evidence Based Music And Imagery Opportunities, Amy Clements-Cortés

Music Faculty Publications

This paper provides information on the creation of an original collection of music and imagery journeys based on the literature in oncology and palliative care. Background evidence is shared about music and relaxation, music relaxation in medical settings, and music and relaxation in oncology/hospice treatment. The development of the resource is illuminated with respect to principles that guided the design. The Journeys collection is a tool that can be used independently by persons experiencing a variety of issues including: anxiety, pain, stress, low self-esteem, and low mood, etcetera; as well as with groups when implemented by a healthcare professional. While …

Short-Term Effects Of Rhythmic Sensory Stimulation In Alzheimer’S Disease: An Exploratory Pilot Study, Amy Clements-Cortés, Heidi Ahonen, Michael Evans, Morris Freedman, Lee Bartel

Music Faculty Publications

This study assessed the effect of stimulating the somatosensory system of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients at three stages of their illness with 40 Hz sound. In this AB cross-over study design, 18 participants (6 mild, 6 moderate, 6 severe) each participated in 13 sessions: one intake and 12 treatment. Treatment A consisted of 40 Hz sound stimulation and Treatment B consisted of visual stimulation using DVDs, each provided twice a week over 6 weeks for a total of 6 times per treatment. Outcome measures included: St. Louis University Mental Status Test (SLUMS), Observed Emotion Rating Scale, and behavioral observation by …

Creating Under Pressure: Effects Of Divided Attention On The Improvised Output Of Skilled Jazz Pianists, Martin Norgaard, Samantha N. Emerson, Kimberly Dawn, James D. Fidlon

Music Faculty Publications

A growing body of research suggests that jazz musicians concatenate stored auditory and motor patterns during improvisation. We hypothesized that this mechanism allows musicians to focus attention more flexibly during improvisation; for example, on interaction with other ensemble members. We tested this idea by analyzing the frequency of repeated melodic patterns in improvisations by artist-level pianists forced to attend to a secondary unrelated counting task. Indeed, we found that compared to their own improvisations performed in a baseline control condition, participants used significantly more repeated patterns when their attention was focused on the secondary task. This main effect was independent …

The Changing Voices Of Male Choristers: An Enigma . . . To Them, Patrick K. Freer

Music Faculty Publications

This paper reports a study designed to identify the understandings and perceptions of boys enrolled at the London Oratory School about the male adolescent voice change, singing, and choral pedagogy. The study took place on the twentieth anniversary of researcher John Cooksey’s 1992—1994 study concerning the vocal development of boys at the London Oratory School. A secondary goal of the study was to determine any long-term impact of Cooksey’s work at the school itself. Twelve boys aged 12-18, representing continuous and non-continuous singers, participated in individual interviews. Interviews focused on boys' knowledge of their changing voices, the perceived effects of …

Promoting Metacognitive Reflection In Music Theory Instruction, Anna Ferenc

Music Faculty Publications

Since 1976 when John Flavell coined the term metacognition, a significant body of literature has emerged in psychology and education research documenting the importance of it to the process of learning and advocating its development through reflection to promote deeper, more thoughtful, and self-regulated learning. In the domain of music, discussions of reflection and/or metacognition appear particularly in literature on teacher training, music teaching at primary and secondary levels, and performance, but these topics are hardly addressed in research on music theory pedagogy. This article begins to redress this situation. It presents a theoretical overview of metacognition and reflection, describes …

Music Therapy As Procedural Support For Young Children Undergoing Immunizations: A Randomized Controlled Study, Olivia S. Yinger

Music Faculty Publications

Background: Children undergoing routine immunizations frequently experience severe distress, which may be improved through music therapy as procedural support.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine effects of live, cognitive-behavioral music therapy during immunizations on (a) the behaviors of children, their parents, and their nurses; and (b) parental perceptions.

Methods: Participants were children between the ages of 4 and 6 years (N = 58) who underwent immunizations, their parents (N = 62), and the nurses who administered the procedure (N = 19). Parent/child dyads were randomly assigned to receive music therapy (n = 29) …

Sound Stimulation In Patients With Alzheimer’S Disease, Amy Clements-Cortés

Music Faculty Publications

Sound stimulation is an important approach to consider when working with patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Both music and other forms of sound stimulation can contribute to improved health and well-being and are often easily implemented in the long-term care (LTC) environment. This paper provides an overview of the two basic approaches to the use of sound with persons in LTC (music therapy and music medicine), as well as a discussion of considerations for implementing various types of sound stimulation in the LTC setting.