‘Legacy: Participatory Music Practices with Elderly People as a Resource for the Well-being of Healthcare Professionals’ was a qualitative research project into the learning and well-being of hospital nurses and nursing home caregivers working with vulnerable elderly people and participating in live music practices Meaningful Music in Healthcare (MiMiC) and Music and Dementia in the Netherlands.The data collection (2016-2019) employed an ethnographic approach and data triangulation of participant observation, episodic interviews and group discussions. The constructivist grounded theory approach to data analysis proceeded from sensitising concepts to initial and focused coding, ultimately reconstructed into a thick description merging empirical data, theory and the researcher’s interpretations. The emerging core categories, Participation, Experience and Learning Benefits, were conceptualised within an epistemological framework of philosophical pragmatism.The findings suggest that, through an emerging community of practice, healthcare professionals could collaborate with musicians to connect with patients or residents. The collaboration enabled the use of shared musical experiences as a resource for compassionate care. Still, allowing oneself to participate musically and showing emotional vulnerability were challenging. The accumulation of ‘experiencing’ and collegial encouragement supported healthcare professionals’ participation beyond their professional performance.Person-centred music-making resonated with the values of person-centred care. It enabled healthcare professionals to take time and become engaged with patients or residents in musical situations. Healthcare professionals described gaining new understandings of the patients or residents and each other, which could be seen promoting a cultural shift from task-centredness towards relationship-focused person-centred care.Musicians’ communication provided new professional insights into teamwork. Also, observing patients and residents’ responses to the music evoked sympathetic joy in healthcare professionals. Looking through the eyes of ‘the other’ was central for nurses and caregivers’ meaning-making of the value of music-making and awareness of its impact on patients, residents and themselves. The perceived benefits of the music practices for healthcare professionals’ job resources and satisfaction seemed connected to changes in care relationships, work atmosphere, sense of mindfulness and recognition.The conclusions of the research suggest that participatory music practices might be considered as supportive of delivering person-centred care. The findings could be applied in training programmes and professional development of musicians, nurses and caregivers.
Music can touch people deeply, and lead to wellbeing as an all-encompassing word for everything that makes life worth living, or at least can make it liveable. Musicians can play an important role in these processes, not as pseudo-therapists, but from their own artistic identity, with an approach in which they profoundly understand the social contexts to which they respond. In essence this is about connecting as a musician with those who, due to whatever circumstances, are vulnerable, and/or those who do not easily get into contact with live music.This requires new qualities and skills from such “new audience musicians” who want to engage with people in contexts beyond the concert hall, jazz club or church, like schools, hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, or e.g. the corporate world.Underpinning engagement with those new audiences is first and foremost a set of values that implies that music can work as a catalyst for communication between various groups of people from different cultural and social contexts, and can bring about social change, no matter how small (Smilde 2018: 673). Point of departure is the idea that artistic processes can have transformative potential which can bring about a sense of community, inclusion and collective identity.In this chapter, research into musicians’ engagement with new audiences will be explored through examples in the field of music and healthcare. I will do that from a biographical perspective, where the musicians’ personal and professional development is strongly influenced by their experiences in their artistic practice. Here, biographical learning processes are at the core of what we might term, musicians’ “professional performance” (Lombarts 2010).Two examples are discussed in this light, a research into the project “Music for Life”, on music and dementia, taking place in elderly care homes, and another, termed “Meaningful Music in Healthcare”, which is on music in the hospital. After that the chapter will address what everything learnt means for learning and teaching in higher music education, embracing the idea of engaging with new audiences and the potentials of Musikvermittlung.
Since 2015, the research group Lifelong Learning in Music of Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen, together with the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), has developed and researched the MiMiC practice for patients and nurses on surgical wards. The musicians make tailor-made music in the patients' rooms in collaboration with patients and nurses. They do this on the basis of verbal and non-verbal contact with patients and nurses. Person-centred music-making turns out to be easy to realise in a medical setting and to be meaningful for all involved. People who have just had surgery experience less pain. Nurses feel more deeply involved with their patients. Musicians show sensitivity for the social context in which they carry out their artistic practice.In this project the research group is developing an innovative artistic practice with a focus on elderly patients. Musicians work with patients and the care staff that are taking care of these patients during their stay in hospital. The research should lead to insights in the effects of this practice and to a new training for master students and professional musicians who want wish to specialise themselves in this field. Pilots on six different wards of the UMCG with professional musicians and master students are part of the research which will last two years in its entirety. The project has been granted funding from the 'Banning de Jong Fonds' of the national 'Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds' and the 'Fonds Sluyterman van Loo'.
Het onderzoek Meaningful Music in Health Care (MiMiC) biedt kansen voor interprofessionele samenwerking van musici en verpleegkundigen. Daarnaast blijkt MiMiC ook tot een versterkt contact tussen patiënten en verpleegkundigen te leiden en tot een toename van compassie van verpleegkundigen. Wat houdt deze interprofessionaliteit precies in en hoe kan deze worden verder vorm krijgen?In Professional Excellence in Meaningful Music in Healthcare (ProMiMiC), beoogt een internationaal consortium van partners uit de muziekwereld en de gezondheidszorg de bestaande live muziek praktijk van MiMiC steviger te verankeren in ziekenhuiszorg. De partners bestaan uit instellingen voor muziekvakonderwijs en ziekenhuizen uit Groningen, Den Haag, Londen en Wenen.Samen hebben alle partners de expertise om praktijkgericht onderzoek naar professionalisering van deze muziekpraktijk uit te voeren. Daarmee kan een bijdrage geleverd worden aan ontwikkelingen als uitkomstgerichte zorg, positieve gezondheid, en een bredere maatschappelijke inzet van musici.Live muziek in het ziekenhuis? MiMiC - Meaningful Music in Health Care – is precies dat: een kleine groep musici die persoonsgerichte improvisaties voor patiënten en verpleegkundigen speelt. De musici maken op de patiëntenkamers muziek ‘op maat’, in interactie met de patiënten, op basis van hun voorkeuren, herinneringen, etc. Dit levert waardevolle momenten van esthetische ervaring en zingeving op, voor zowel patiënten als verpleegkundigen en musici.Sinds 2015 heeft het lectoraat Lifelong Learning in Music van de Hanzehogeschool Groningen samen met het UMCG de MiMiC-praktijk ontwikkeld en onderzocht voor patiënten van chirurgische afdelingen. Persoonsgericht musiceren blijkt goed te realiseren in een medische setting en voor alle betrokkenen zeer betekenisvol te zijn. Patiënten ervaren minder pijn en voelen zich beter. Daarnaast biedt deze innovatieve praktijk musici en verpleegkundigen nieuwe mogelijkheden om zich professioneel verder te ontwikkelen. Daartoe willen we ProMiMiC uitvoeren.ProMiMiC speelt in op de behoefte van musici en verpleegkundigen om beter samen te werken en daarin van elkaar te leren, alsook om persoonsgerichte live muziek te kunnen gebruiken als katalysator voor een compassievolle patiëntrelatie. Met de verdere professionalisering van musici en verpleegkundigen is de MiMiC praktijk geschikt voor brede toepassing in de ziekenhuiszorg. Daarmee kan een bijdrage geleverd worden aan ontwikkelingen als Uitkomstgerichte Zorg, positieve gezondheid, en bredere maatschappelijke inzet van musici.In het consortium zijn uit drie landen hooggekwalificeerde kennisinstellingen op het gebied van muziek en van zorg gebundeld. Samen hebben zij de expertise om in een rijke context toegepast onderzoek naar professionalisering in MiMiC uit te voeren. Dit leidt tot een verbeterde uitvoering van de MiMiC praktijk en hierop aansluitende scholing van studenten en professionals in muziek en zorg. Dit zal musici en verpleegkundigen in staat stellen excellente professionals te zijn m.b.v. gepersonaliseerde live muziek in de zorg.
Following the Samen met Muziek pilot research project in 2023-2024 in ZINN Zorg Short Stay rehabilitation departments in the locations De Brink and De Dilgt, REVA BEATS is a co-research project between the research group Music in Context and ZINN Zorg Short Stay departments revalidation of the location De Brink. In this mixed methods research, multiple research foci included: 1) aspects of care innovation and impact measurements will be researched by ZINN Zorg, and 2) aspects of musical expression, communication and wellbeing of musicians and participants, the entrepreneurial skills and development of musicians, and the learning and experiencing of collaborating care professionals will be explored by research group Music in Context. Additionally, there is a PhD-fellow from the HKU researching the practice through the lens of care ethics. The REVA BEATS project will run between February 2025-January 2027, and includes in total 12 music projects, while the preparational work of the projects has started in June 2024.
