Community Music: Perspectives on a New Model for Music Education and Social Change in Italy

Abstract

Community Music (CM) is one of the most innovative directions in musical-pedagogical practice, originating in specific educational needs related to social and cultural context, the need for inclusion, integration and social change. Although numerous and highly diversified internationally, all the approaches to CM share four basic elements: community, context, participation and pedagogy, which contribute to outline the theoretical framework within which the debate on CM is taking place internationally and in Italy. In recent years, approaches to CM have broadened significantly, embracing theoretical-scientific aspects of research and connecting with other fields, such as musicology. The latter has, in recent decades, grown increasingly receptive to pedagogical tools and to modes of knowledge transfer, and is showing remarkable interest in the results obtained by CM both in ensemble musical practice and in theoretical aspects. New models based on narration, and on the collaborative creation of diversified expressive experiences, now embrace the possibility of creating educational settings that also foster historical knowledge and aesthetic appreciation.