Acts of hospitality: the community in Community Music

They came for the kids and stayed for the teacher: The Desert Winds Community Steel Orchestra

“…Children's influence on adult music making Higgins (2007) notes that participants' previous musical experiences help form their beliefs on musical participation and new experiences, such as with a non-elite community group, assist in shifting members' paradigms. This was also my experience (both as an observer and as a participant) during my time with the DWCSO.…”

Characteristics of Music Teachers Who Effectively Promote Social Capital

“…Langston (2011) put forth a similar idea of encouraging activity outside of the group, in a study on social capital development within community choirs. Higgins (2007) observed the environment of a community band of all ages and found,…”

Towards an ethical music education? Looking through the lens of Levinas

“…Two strands of thinking have been particularly helpful over recent years in developing a conception of music-making as a mode of encounter; Lee Higgins' notion from Derrida of community music as the practice of hospitality, with the double-edged significance of the Latin root 'hospes' as both guest and enemy, the transgressive act of crossing the threshold, and the welcoming in of the outsider to choose to belong or to stay separate, and Christopher Small's holistic notion of 'musicking', where a wide-ranging definition of participants model 'ideal relationships', suggesting that engaging in music-making together with others offers a uniquely wholesome experience of how we can relate to each other (Higgins 2007;Small 1999).…”