Voices ResourcesA website for the worldwide community around the journal Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy

Happy New Year I wish to all readers of our world forum for music therapy.

Three months ago also for me starts an important new period with my new position as professor of music therapy in social work in my new University of applied sciences of Wuerzburg and Schweinfurt in the south of Germany. One of my first new trials I did in my teaching was a little survey research with my new students. This should be the basis for a practical project of Community Music Therapy in my new home town of Wuerzburg.

Students were very interested in the listening habits of adolescents in the city of Wuerzburg. In dancing halls and clubs they observed, that people seems to separate often one from another with a special style of music. Some only visit one club and never another. One student also reported that she wants to bring friends of her together. She visits different dancing halls and clubs, but her different friends seem to have no interest in each other. It seems to be that they are socialized in different "musical communities" which have no contact to each other.

In our little survey we asked two different groups of about 12 persons in each group. One group was a dancing training group with a background of Hip Hop and Rap. The other group was an alternative traveling group from differing social backgrounds. We asked for their most favorite music, their friends, their musical knowledge and competencies, their musical interests beside their favorite music and which music they never listen to. The results were very interesting. The favorite music of group A was Hip Hop/ Rap and Soul. The favorite music of group B was Rock and Punk. Both groups reported that all their friends have the same favorite music they have. Both groups did not know anything about the history and origin of their favorite music (90 %). The music they never listen to was for group A classical music and metal, and for group B Hip Hop. There it is: the contrary musical communities of adolescents in Germany. Of course, it is only a little group of about 20 persons. However, also these groups confirm empirically the observations of my students about the meaning of music in the context of isolation in different communities in our society.

Isolation of individuals and of different communities in our society is a kernel in our day sociological discussions in Germany. There are discussions that the middle class is lost and more and more the upper class and the lower class increase. There is a discussion about lost solidarity in our society. Finally there is a discussion about the loss of equal rights in academic education in Germany. All these discussions have the tenor of a economic bases. The interesting point of our little survey was that e.g. group B had very different economic backgrounds, from very poor to very rich. However, they were one musical community and friends. The basis of this phenomenon seems not to be the money. The basis of this could be the difference of experiential communities. However, also these experiential communities know a group they don’t listen to.

Our idea for the practical project in this case is a two day workshop in a studio for producing a little CD or video. One music style seems to be "acknowledgeable" for both groups and we liked to use this. One group had some resources in instrumental competencies and the other in singing and dancing. Bringing these competencies together could offer a link between the two groups, could offer new experiences in a very complex world, based on the level of music making and accompanied with lots of other experiences in these two days. May be, it can also cut down isolation. This time this is only an idea. However, this could be an important task for us in our future work to work with and acknowledge both meanings of music: the meaning of isolation and the meaning of communication.

How to cite this page

Wosch, Thomas (2008). Isolation with Music or Everyday Music Sociology in Germany. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 15, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=fortnightly-columns/2008-isolation-music-or-everyday-music-sociology-germany