Art, Heart, and Soul Music: Spiritual Values and Implications of Relational Composition within Community Music

Abstract

This paper re-examines research on composers within community music who embody relational composition in which they reflect philosophical and values’ shifts, resulting in composition purposes that balance or prioritize well-being with musical products. The spiritual values that undergird the practices of certain community composers are examined through the lens of Sheldrake’s definition of spirituality as a vision for the full potential of the human spirit to live out deep and meaningful values. While not ruling out the potential for personal transcendental experience, the framework of engagement rather than escape centres a type of spirituality that is community-focused and reflects the ways in which relational composers use engagement for beneficial purposes as they seek to overcome music’s disconnections from its social contexts and extra-musical functions. This approach to composition could be viewed as a rediscovery and return to lost roles of composers in society, and it suggests that community music leaders realize the spiritual aspects of their roles in order to address healing, reconciliation, and local or global concerns and to facilitate the development of related repertoire and music-making.