Care for Music - an ethnography of music in late life and end of life settings

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The project focuses on music-making in situations of modern dying and in relation to both (i) end-of-life (time-limited illnesses or conditions) and (ii) late life (more lengthy 'dwindling' and/or long-term disability). The research begins with a basic question which in our view has not yet been answered adequately: how does music work in situations of care? Behind this question is an assumption that musical care is more complex than models in music therapy and community music might imply. These models have tended to prioritise the activities and agencies of specialist music providers through a notion of music 'for' 'care recipients' and in individualistic and pathologised ways. But looking at music 'for care' (as opposed to 'care for' music) sidesteps the complex collaborative practices, and forms of agency, on the part of all the people involved (musicians, music therapists, carers, health professionals, family and so-called 'care-receivers'), that make music helpful (and meaningful) within scenes of care. A focus on this practice brings to the surface three otherwise implicit problems in the music and care literatures. These are perceptual, ontological and methodological. Processes of musical engagement are often tacit, fleeting and socially-spatially distributed and therefore difficult to perceive. They are also tied to a language of 'music' as an object and therefore to an ontology of stimulus-response rather than music as a joint activity. They are difficult to document unless they are observed in temporal and spatial contexts and in terms of their evolving histories - and for this specialist methods are required. The methodological perspective to be employed is ethnographic, to trace connections and relationships between people as they are crafted from moment to moment in real time through music and in ways that may be consequential for action opportunities within settings of care. The project will produce four interlinked ethnographic case studies: (1) A longitudinal study of community music therapy in a care facility (with specialty in neuro-disability), tracking the micro-detail and developing connections within and between individual and collective musical-communicative work (2) and (3) Studies of music/music therapy across the milieu of two flagship hospices, one in the UK, one in Norway. (4) A study of a novel approach to working relationally with people with memory loss by cueing pre-chosen sounds and memories using simple digital resources.In each case, the project will examine the subtle, adaptive, and often unnoticed practices of managing to make and attend to music under constrained circumstances - how mutual orientation takes shape, how allowances are made, how musical gestures and acts are supported, by whom, with what and how. This focus will in turn support a second key task which will be to map the diversity of musical practices to be found and to follow these practices as they are connected (by participants) to other practices, activities, situations, and events that develop concurrently within the setting and in ways that inform future events. Ultimately, the project will address the question of how making music together may open new opportunities for caring understood in its widest sense, for example, fostering musicalised situations within which clients and carers may discover new forms of relation, empathy, activity, and mutual understanding.