‘Music and quality of life are two of the most stable and everlasting human desires,’ claim C. Victor Fung and Lisa H. Lehmberg in the very first line (p. 3) of Music for Life: Music Participation and Quality of Life of Senior Citizens. As music education professors, they propose a timely and purposeful review of the evidence that could reposition music education on a lifelong perspective, and could illuminate important questions: What is the purpose of music education in people's lives, and does it have to occur in school systems? Considering the brief portion of our lives spent in school, how should music educators argue for a longer musical grounding and ongoing opportunities?
Most interesting for those involved in music for health and the central question to the book, however, is the role music education can play if applied knowledgeably and deliberately to benefit the quality of life of older individuals. Focusing on healthy seniors who are able to live independently, the authors reiterate Heiner Gembris’ message that there is no evidence to suggest that musical development stops before the end of life (Gembris, Reference GEMBRIS, Colwell and Richardson2002), and that our focused literature on the musical development of young, in-school populations has been at the expense of understanding how learning and participating in music can help us flourish in every stage of life. Seeking to remedy this, they present here a substantial mixed-methods study, observing in detail the musical lives past and present of residents in a retirement community in the southeastern United States.
To start, the authors provide meticulous background, such as theories of adult learning and conceptions of the phases of the lifespan, each with careful definitions and an overview of their historical and theoretical development. This section includes a particularly valuable tabled summary of findings across fields of study (music education, gerontology, medicine and music therapy) of the physical and psychological impacts of music participation. It is noteworthy that the authors chose not to include advances in the neuroscience of music, possibly because this rapidly expanding field has been covered in length elsewhere. Their investigations of quality of life measures to apply in their substantive analyses then lead the authors to a framework of six domains, the QOLS (Burckhardt and Anderson, Reference BURCKHARDT and ANDERSON2003), a modified and updated version of the only published measure of quality of life found by the authors which explicitly mentions music in its factors (Flanagan, Reference FLANAGAN1978).
The second part of the book begins the authors’ own original research project, in what they have named Evergreen Town, with a survey and series of focus groups with residents addressing their musical participation and the ways in which they find it beneficial. Comparing those who participate in musical activity to those who do not, they find a small increase in quality of life in the music group and a correlation between number of years of musical involvement and quality of life. While the town and the opportunities it presents is in many ways a music researcher's dream, it does come with considerations – the sample is largely homogenous in ethnicity and socio-economic status, and there is a broad range of diverse and attractive activities going on for its population. What this does mean is that the authors can explore the ways in which music's roles are perceived by those who do not participate in music making and the reasons why they choose not to join in, an intriguing question for music researchers and those who wish earnestly to extend musical opportunities to all. What can be expected from previous research in our field is that in this group we will still find many music lovers and music listeners.
Indeed, as we might suspect, ‘the biggest inhibitor for those who did not participate was that they believed they were not talented or did not have the musical ability’ (p. 75), but it is satisfying that the focus groups follow up in detail on this perception and how it develops. Some seniors certainly felt simply embarrassed if they were unable to keep up with more musically adept group members, but the more long-standing influence of early negative experiences is the most interesting theme here, with forced practice as punishment, criticisms and unfavourable comparisons to other family members remembered over many decades. Overall, family support and encouragement is proposed by the authors as the notable difference between musical participants and non-participants in later life. While both groups might enjoy listening, the former focus on the value and joy they find in music-making and musical collaborations.
The other two most substantive chapters of the book cover detailed investigations into two musical collectives of Evergreen Town, a respected and successful church choir and a bluegrass group of many members, relatively open structure and with a keen local following. These give the fullest background picture of the situation in which the musical collaboration takes place, and the individual musical histories and continued learning processes of members. Each case study allows the authors to delve further into musicians’ beliefs on a musical contribution to their quality of life, their responses then placed on a thoughtful continuum between enjoyment and enhancement of daily life, through to truly profound impacts (‘a lifeline to survival’). The themes echo the strong responses given by pain sufferers in my own and others’ previous work, that music is nothing short of something making them thankful to be alive. While those not participating in music also reported enjoyment from it in their lives as listeners and concert-goers, those more actively involved here had the weighty, multi-faceted reasons and responses about the impact of their musical lives.
What makes the book engaging is the level of immersion the authors achieved in the world of their case study, and the positivity they express throughout. Emerging researchers concerned that the area of music in the lives of seniors might be less ‘exciting’, could find themselves drawn in to lives with rich experiences, freedom of opportunity, desire to give back and contribute to communities. The musical learning the participants discuss is also relevant, self-managed, and challenging.
It is very much a social book about relationships with music and with community, and the intersection between the two, but the nature of Evergreen Town brings other experimental questions to mind that would be fascinating to investigate, including the physical health, mental health and cognitive/attention capacities of its musical residents. The authors conclude with a proposal for educational missions to place at their core an increased integration between schools and their local communities via musical activity, providing ongoing ‘re-entry’ points for those who wish to enhance their musical skills at a later time. The insights they gained into the collaborative and open-natured bluegrass group and its accessibility to all also lead them to consider the performance-based model of school music as a possible hindrance to wider engagement. Their evidence overall is intriguing to read and boldly supports the message that we must strive to open musical opportunities for everyone, across the lifespan.
