What should musicians’ health education sound like? The floor is yours!
Workshops funded by Realab and the IMR
Wednesday, 19 September OR Monday, 24 September 2018 | 11.30 AM, Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM), Manchester, UK
Tuesday, 25 September OR Saturday, 29 September 2018 | 11.30 AM
Institute of Musical Research, Senate House, London, UK
The physical and psychological demands of the training and practice that musicians must achieve to perform to a high standard can produce deleterious effects on their health and wellbeing. However, music conservatoires still endorse practices that are informed by tradition more than evidence, while health literacy and critical thinking are still not embedded in music students’ core training. Finally, there are no guidelines or regulations regarding what conservatoires should provide in terms of health education.
We want to address that AND we need your help!
We invite psychologists (both researchers and practitioners, from any specialism and not restricted to those who work with musicians) to join us in this discussion! We have prepared comprehensive lists of topics and we shall discuss their relevance and priority in small groups. Additionally, we will brainstorm ideas about what other topics might be needed as part of the conservatoires’ curricula.
Places are free, but limited. While we prioritise psychologists (due to the nature of our task and topic focus), we also welcome:
- Health professionals working with musicians
- Philosophers (yes, yes! We’d also like to discuss cognitive biases and logical fallacies!)
- Cognitive scientists
- Specialists in music education
- PhD students in any of the topics above
Please note the same workshop will be held four times. Please choose only one and register your interest here: https://mmu.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/musicians-health-education-workshop-sept-2018
For any queries, please contact the organisers: Raluca Matei, AHRC-funded PhD student in music psychology: [email protected] | +44 757 061 2760 OR
Keith Phillips, PhD student in music psychology: [email protected]
Generally speaking musicians are no different to other professionals working in creative or stressful (performance) settings and so their health education requirements will be little different and should cover issues such as
- mind/body interaction
- stress and its management
- healthy lifestyle
- mental health
- help seeking
- etc etc
However, there may be one or two very specific issues
- e.g. specific stresses of performance e.g. critical solos. Mindfulness or cognitive approaches, exercise, yoga etc could all be helpful
- working in orchestras etc with strong personalities, dealing with demanding colleagues - materials on dealing the difficult people work well
- hearing damage from exposure to peak noise from instruments such as brass
I would suggest the best approach is a quick literature review, consultation with colleagues (you have many experts in regional universities), and then a brainstorm of the musician specific issues. In combination this should give you a good platform. Finally I should add that mention should be made of the health benefits of music participation as this is also an important aspect.
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