Community Music Contexts, Dynamics, and Sustainability

Abstract

Across the world, much community music-making continues to flourish as ‘organic’ practices. But as communities and their circumstances change, sometimes the need arises for active interventions with the aim to establish or restore. It is mostly these interventions that are now widely referred to as ‘community music activities’. A third—and rarely recognized—aspect on the community music spectrum is institutionalized music-making. Often depicted as the very antithesis of community music-making, I will argue in this chapter that most music institutions in fact arose from an expressed community need, and they are therefore essential in understanding the full scope and dynamics of community music-making. Next, a nine-domain framework of key characteristics of community music practices serves to address the problem of trying to define a great diversity of practices. From there, the discussion moves towards the relationship between community and the sustainability of music practices, introducing the concept of ‘musical ecosystems’.