Music: Community Music: Introduction
The Laurier Library supports the study and research in community music and related themes of the Laurier Centre for Music in the Community (LCMC). For questions about your research and teaching, contact the Music Librarian.
Key readings in Community Music Books
The Library owns a number of Community Music books.
The following articles may be helpful as well:
Peluso, D. C. C. (2014). Informal and Participatory Cultures in Music Education. SFU Educational Review, 5. https://doi.org/10.21810/sfuer.v5i.359
Stewart, J. (2024). Community-based music making and music-based community making: The case of the We Are All Musicians (WAAM) project. Circuit (Montréal, Québec), 34(2), 35‑50. https://doi.org/10.7202/1114331ar
Community Music Journals
International Journal of Community Music (ICJM, 2007-present)
- A peer-reviewed journal on scholarship focusing on community music in theory and in practice. The journal also has a "ICJM Conversations" podcast (YouTube, Apple podcasts)
International Journal of Music Mediation (IJMM (IJMM, 2024 - present)
- A peer-reviewed open access journal dealing with music mediation as a hybrid discipline in all its facets. The journal includes scholarly articles, practice reflections, interviews and conference reports.
Music and arts in action (MAiA, 2008 - present
- A peer-reviewed Open Access journal published by the SocArts Research Group and the Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology of the University of Exeter.
Locating Scholarly sources
Understanding types of sources
Journal articles
Mitchell, E. (2019). Community music therapy and participatory performance: Case study of a coffee house. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 19(1). https://doi.org/10.15845/voices.v19i1.2701.
Books
Morgan-Ellis, E. M., & Norton, K. (2024). The Oxford handbook of community singing. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197612460.001.0001.
Book chapters
Yerichuk, Deanna, and Justis Krar. “The Problem of Community: What Does It Really Mean to Be Inclusive?” In Community Music at the Boundaries, edited by Lee Willingham, 7–25. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.51644/9781771124591-006.
Conference proceedings
Calefato, F., Iaffaldano, G., & Lanubile, F. (2018). Collaboration success factors in an online music community. Proceedings of the 2018 ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work, 61–70. https://doi.org/10.1145/3148330.3148346.
Reference sources
David Horn, H., John Shepherd, S., Heidi Feldman, F., & Gabrielle Kielich, K. (2019). Bloomsbury encyclopedia of popular music of the world. (Sub-Saharan Africa) (Vol. 12). Bloomsbury Academic.
Magazine articles
A choir that creates community. (2013). Canadian Mennonite (Vol. 17, Number 22, pp. 33.). Mennonite Publishing Service.
Primary sources
Haleem, A. (2015). The Qurʼan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Videos
Williams, Jeni. (2022). Citizens of the world singing against oppression in Liverpool. The Open University. https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.rd.15070236
Newspaper articles
Breaux, A. (2018). Prison choir to make its debut in NYC opera. USA Today (Arlington, Va.), 06.
Letters to the editor
Letter to the editor. "Religion Shouldn't be Forced on Students." Nanaimo News Bulletin, Dec 12, 2019.
Editorials
Milloy, John. "Religion can Help Bring Us Together." Waterloo Region Record, A9. May 03, 2023.
Dissertations or theses
Hirner, S. J. (2024). (Trans)itioning voices: Gender expansive vocal pedagogy and inclusive methodologies for choral directors and teachers of singing (PhD, University of Southern California). No. 31332782. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I.
Grey literature
Black, V. (2024). AI Job Displacement: Perspectives on the Future of Work From Beneath the Silicon Ceiling. Somatmosphere.
Immigration Partnership of Waterloo Region (2021). Waterloo Region Immigrant Survey Summary Report (pdf).
Podcasts
Terry, A. (Host). (2023, August 2). Discovering The Well-Being Benefits of Community Choirs with Sarah Summers (No. 122) [Audio podcast episode]. In Singing Teachers Talk. Bast Training.
General Searching tips
- Consider word variations and synonyms
- think about how others might refer to your ideas
- e.g, child death, perinatal death, neonatal death, stillbirth, sudden infant death, etc.
Search Tactics
What is the tactic? | What does the tactic do? | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Boolean AND | Use AND to ensure that all terms appear in every search result. | depression AND homecare |
| Boolean OR | Use OR to ensure that at least one term appears in every search result. | auditory OR acoustic OR sound Tutorial: Better searching using AND, OR, NOT |
| Phrase searching | Use “quotation marks” to find more than one term in a row. | “community choir” |
| Truncation | Use an asterisk* at the end of a term to include multiple endings. (sometimes $) | trauma* trauma, traumatic, traumatically, traumatize, traumatized, traumatizing |
- Employ search limiters (available limiters depend on the database)
- peer reviewed, article type, date, language, etc.
- Identify key publications and authors
- note citations, and cited references, repeated author names
- Document and track everything you do in the steps above
Locating Articles
In addition to the Community Music journals listed above, use Omni to identify other relevant magazine, trade, and journal articles at Laurier.
- on the results page, limit to "Articles"
- further limiters under "Resource Type", e.g., Magazine articles
- remember to use "quotation marks" when searching for phrases
- limit publication year if applicable
Omni is a large index, but it only contains what Laurier owns, so it is important to duplicate your searches across other subject databases to see what else is out there. Research in Community Music is likely to be of an interdisciplinary nature. Here are some examples of databases you could search.
Connecting to Library resources in Google Scholar
The library subscribes to many magazines that are otherwise subscription-based if you come across the title via Google. For example:
- Music trades (magazine website) vs. Music trades (library subscription)
- Use Omni's Journal search to see if the Library subscribes to a title
Locating Books/Ebooks
Use the Omni to identify popular and academic books at Laurier.
- limit to "Books and eBooks" on the left side of search results
- remember to use "quotation marks" when searching for phrases
- limit publication year if applicable
See also the list of key readings in Community Music.
Locating News articles
The Library subscribes to a wide variety of Canadian, US, and international news sources, both current and archival. More information.
Locating Podcasts
Listen Notes
Freely available podcast search engine.
Locating Grey Literature
Grey literature is information produced outside traditional scholarly publications. It includes reports, policy briefs and reports, major research papers, white papers, working papers, government documents, speeches, etc. There is no single database that covers grey literature well, so Google is helpful in cases like this. Consider the following tips when searching Google, often using these in combination:
- limit to domain
- site:ca, site:edu
- limit to document type
- filetype:pdf, filetype:pptx
- think how a document might phrase something, enclose that in quotes
Dissertations and theses
Dissertations and theses may be considered scholarly sources since they are closely supervised by a dissertation committee made up of scholars, are directed at an academic audience, are extensively researched, follow research methodology, and are cited in other scholarly work. However, dissertations are still considered student work and are not peer-reviewed. They often contain extensive bibliographies.