The Social Value of Music

At the beginning of December 2019, Nordoff Robbins hosted a conference entitled 'The Social Value of Music'. Nick Wilsdon (Youth Music's Research & Evaluation Manager) and I were pleased to present some of the research we've currently been doing on the link between Youth Music funded projects and the wellbeing of young musicians at this conference, and the following blog is a summary of some of the ideas which were shared over the two-day event.

There were people from many different organisations and disciplines in the room, offering a lot of differing opinons on what is meant by the word 'value'. A fascinating keynote on the first day from Michael Dugher, CEO of UK Music, took us through the economic and financial value of music in the UK, but ended by posing the question: most musical activities taking place in the UK are not done professionally, but in our spare time. If the majority of musicians are not paid for their activity, then how else can music be valued?

At Youth Music, we're constantly shouting about the personal, social, educational and emotional value that music and music-making can have, particularly in the lives of young people experiencing barriers to participation. From recent research (Youth Music, Sound of the Next Generation, 2019) and from evaluation reports submitted by Youth Music grantholders (Youth Music, Impact Report, 2019), we can say with confidence that participation in music-making activity can have a huge impact on the wellbeing of the young musicians supported by the projects we fund. We've been doing some additional research to explore this further, and hoped to add to the conversation around the value of music by presenting some of the findings from our research. Further details on this research will be published in early 2020, but, in summary:

We ran a pilot research project over 2 and a half years with 10 organisations in receipt of a Fund B grant. The purpose of this project was to pilot a shared approach to impact measurement: in other words, all 10 organisations using the same validated scales and measures to collect evaluation data from their participants. We looked specifically at wellbeing: how to measure it formally, how practitioners assess it informally, how the perceptions of wellbeing differ between academic theory and practice, and whether the participating young musicians involved demonstrated an improvement in their wellbeing as a result of the project they were taking part in.
Using the Short Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well Being Scale (SWEMWBS) we found a slight increase in wellbeing of participants between baseline and endpoint data collections - and given that SWEMWBS is an externally validated scale, we were able to compare these results with national averages.
Using a shared set of qualitative interview questions, we were able to draw out some interesting themes about young people's perceived benefits of music making - with many themes linking to ideas that correlate with the concept of wellbeing. These included self-esteem, finding a sense of purpose, a means of connecting with others, motivation to work towards and accomplish goals, and mood regulation/emotional expression.

We presented on some initial findings of this work at the conference, as well as some of the things we've observed in terms of evaluating music activities: the reasons why we do it, the differing perspectives on those taking part in research and evaluation, and questions about how it could be made easier or more engaging for organisations. Often there is a disconnect or misunderstanding of priorities between delivery organisations and funders when it comes to evaluation: we know anecdotally that there's a feeling amongst delivery organisations that funders only want to know about the positive outcomes of their projects, and a worry that reporting on the negative or unexpected outcomes might impact on their chances for future funding. At Youth Music we're really keen to hear from our grantholders about the things that didn't go so well as well as the things that did: this is all learning, all valuable knowledge - but based on what grantholders and practitioners tell us, this view isn't always shared (or at least it isn't communicated) by other funders. Following our presentation (which was part of a set of talks on the subject of music in educational settings) there was a lively panel discussion around some of these questions. There are a lot of different perspectives on what information is valuable: funders, researchers, policy-makers, music therapists, teachers, participants - all want to hear about different outcomes of the work. But...

How do we decide what information is the most valuable? Is it even up to us to decide? And how do we ensure these efforts to evaluate our work are heard and used to the best effect?

We didn't quite find the answers to all these big questions during the two-day conference, but some interesting ideas were shared that could help us get a little closer:

The theme of participant voice came up in multiple presentations. Speakers including Amy Mallett and Susanne Burns discussed the idea of user-centred evaluation designs, taking a collaborative approach with participants of their research to determine the focus, giving them the chance to define what is most valuable to them. Other speakers including Laura Cook and Mariko Hara told us about their creative interviewing approaches with their research participants, eliciting detailed qualitative data on individual musicians' stories, which can't be replicated using statistics alone. At Youth Music, we've been undergoing a lot of organisational change to help us better embed youth voice into our organisation, and we're currently spending time considering how we can ensure this happens in our research as well. If young people are more directly involved in our research and evaluation, we can better understand what is most valuable to them about the work they're taking part in.
These ideas were echoed in Norma Daykin's keynote on day two of the conference. She asked important questions about the kinds of evidence that should be prioritised when evaluating arts practices, challenging delegates to consider how the experiences of artists and participants can be reflected in research. She also posed thought-provoking questions about the role of the arts in research, acknowledging that the arts are often used well in data collection and reporting processes, but calling for researchers to think about how the arts can inform the data interpretation and analysis stages of research. If we're more creative with how we use our evaluation data, could this make a difference to how it is received by others?
Finally, there was a strong recurrent theme of communication evident across the majority of panel discussions, with several questions raised by presenters and delegates about how we broadcast the messages of our research in more effective ways to ensure the right people take note. In her presentation, Grace Meadows from Music for Dementia 2020 called us to action, encouraging those in the room to tell stories with participants rather than about them, or in her own words, using a collective voice. Going forward, an immediate outcome of the conference was to form a solutions-focused working group, open to members of all backgrounds and disciplines, to think about and act on ideas that can collectively help us to shout more loudly about the social value of music. Youth Music have expressed an interest in being involved in this exciting next stage, so look out for more information on this, and of course, get in touch if you want to be part of the conversation.

Please visit the Nordoff Robbins website to view the full conference programme and follow them on Twitter to keep up to date with the next steps. Full details of our shared measurement and wellbeing projects will be published in 2020, but do get in touch if you'd like to learn more.