Music as a way out: How musicking helped a collaborative rock band of ex-inmates

Abstract

This article explores how the members of Me and THE BAND, a rock band consisting of three ex-inmates and a music therapist, experienced playing together, how it helps them, and whether and how this can be related to the concept of self-help. Focus group interviews were conducted to explore the members’ experiences, analysis was grounded in a hermeneutic philosophical understanding and the theoretical framework is based in a community music therapy approach. The study indicates how musicking helped the band members of Me and THE BAND’its to create agency, structure, meaning and community. The band appeared to function through collaborative processes, and the music therapists as facilitator need to prepare the qualities of equality, mutuality and participation. As a conclusion, the members of Me and THE BAND’its do not identify as being a self-help group, although they clearly report that musicking helps them. The crux of this paradox is that it is important for the group members to identify as a band, but they still include self-help concepts and traditions. They maintain their own uniqueness and independence, while making musicking a possible way out of criminality.