How Music Accessibility can be used in Art Based Research experiences

Abstract

Arts-based Research (ABR) ‘can be defined as the systematic use of the artistic process, the actual making of artistic expressions in all of the different forms of the arts, as a primary way of understanding and examining experience by both researchers and the people that they involve in their studies’ (Knowles & Cole, 2008, p. 29). However, music is an art form that in Western culture, the practice of which is usually restricted to a few individuals with specific skills. Commonly, musical activities are left out of ABR works because of the inherent difficulties of the musical process. In this article, we review and provide multiple ways of how, through accessibility processes, music can be made by a wide range of participants regardless of their musical knowledge. The argument is made that the ways of accessibility presented open up the possibilities of using a wide-ranging use of participatory musical activities in research inquiries, assessment and evaluation. This chapter thus focuses on the ways in which music making can be made accessible and so increase the possibilities of its use partially or entirely as a provocation for inquiry, in collecting and analysing data, as a means of dissemination in research, assessment and evaluation processes.