Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T06:03:50.488Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Get back to where you once belonged!’1 The positive creative impact of a refresher course for ‘baby-boomer’ rock musicians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 April 2012

Helen O'Shea
Helen O'Shea
Affiliation:
Faculty of Education, Monash University, Clayton 3800, Victoria, Australia (retired) E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article reports on a study of participants in a Weekend Warriors Program for ‘lapsed’ rock musicians in Melbourne, Australia. It observes musicians over a six-week period that included a jam session, coaching sessions and a gig (concert). It examines the learning pathways of participants and their goals and experiences alongside those of the programme organisers within the comparative context of music learning practices among young and older musicians and in the light of academic research into the midlife ageing process. A question that arises from the data is the extent to which the experience and actions of middle-aged women musicians coincides with the literature on gender in youth rock music scenes and the literature on music, ageing and gender. The article concludes that the Weekend Warriors Program draws on the learning practices that the musicians involved had adopted in their youth and which act as a catalyst for their further musical and social participation and self-directed group learning. Age appeared to create no barrier to their enjoyment or their achievements; indeed in many ways it seemed to make them less inhibited and self-conscious in realising individual objectives that were further encouraged by working within a supportive if loosely bonded group.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 31 , Special Issue 2: As Time Goes By: Music, Dance and Ageing , May 2012 , pp. 199 - 215
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2007. Music in Australia: A Statistical Overview (Canberra, Australian Government Printing Service)Google Scholar
Bayton, M. 1990. ‘How women become musicians’, in On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word, ed. Frith, S. and Goodwin, A. (London, Routledge), pp. 238–58Google Scholar
Bennett, H. Stith. 1980. On Becoming a Rock Musician (Amherst, University of Massachusetts Press)Google Scholar
Biggs, S. 1999. The Mature Imagination: Dynamics of Identity in Midlife and Beyond (Buckingham and Philadelphia, Open University Press)Google Scholar
Biggs, S., Phillipson, C., Leach, R., and Money, A.-M. 2007. ‘The mature imagination and consumption strategies: age and generation in the development of a United Kingdom baby boomer identity’, International Journal of Ageing and Later Life, 2, pp. 31–59Google Scholar
Bruner, J. 1996. The Culture of Education (Cambridge, Harvard University Press)Google Scholar
Chopra, D. 1993. Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old (New York, Harmony)Google Scholar
Clawson, M. 1999. ‘Masculinity and skill acquisition in the adolescent rock band’, Popular Music, 18, pp. 99–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, S. 1991. Rock Culture in Liverpool (Oxford, Oxford University Press)Google Scholar
Cohen, S. 1997. ‘Men making a scene: rock music and the production of gender’, in Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender, ed. Whiteley, S. (London and New York, Routledge), pp. 17–36Google Scholar
Cook, S.C., and Tsou, J.S. 1994. Cecilia Reclaimed: Feminist Perspectives on Gender and Music (Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois Press)Google Scholar
Fast, S. 2010. ‘Bold soul trickster: the 60s Tina signifies’, in She's So Fine: Reflections on Whiteness, Femininity, Adolescence and Class in 1960s Music, ed. Stras, L. (Farnham, Ashgate), pp. 203–34Google Scholar
Featherstone, M., and Hepworth, M. 1989. ‘Ageing and old age: reflections on the post-modern life course’, in Becoming and Being Old: Sociological Approaches to Later Life, ed. Bytheway, B. (London, Sage), pp. 143–57Google Scholar
Finnegan, R. 1989. The Hidden Musicians: Music-making in an English Town (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)Google Scholar
Green, L. 1997. Music, Gender, Education (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press)Google Scholar
Green, L. 2002. How Popular Musicians Learn (Aldershot, Ashgate)Google Scholar
Green, L. 2008. Music, Informal Learning and the School: A New Classroom Pedagogy (Aldershot, Ashgate)Google Scholar
Huber, J., and Skidmore, P. 2003. The New Old: Why Baby Boomers won't be Pensioned Off (London, Demos)Google Scholar
Jones, L. 1980. Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation (New York, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan)Google Scholar
Jones, K.M., Whitbourne, S.K., and Skulkety, K.M. 2006. ‘Identity processes and the transition to midlife among Baby Boomers’, in The Baby Boomers Grow Up: Contemporary Perspectives on Midlife, ed. Whitbourne, S.K. and Willis, S.L. (New Jersey and London, Lawrence Erlbaum), pp. 149–64Google Scholar
Knowles, M.S. 1990. The Adult Learner: A Neglected Species, 4th edn (Houston, Gulf Publishing)Google Scholar
Koskoff, E. 1987. Women and Music in Cross-cultural Perspective (Westport, Greenwood Press)Google Scholar
Lambley, P. 1995. The Middle-Aged Rebel: Responding to the Challenges of Midlife: A Dynamic Approach (Shaftesbury, Element)Google Scholar
Lilliestam, L. 1996. ‘On playing by ear’, Popular Music, 15, pp. 195–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magrini, T. 2003. Music and Gender: Perspectives from the Mediterranean (Chicago and London, Chicago University Press)Google Scholar
Massey, D. 1994. Space, Place, and Gender (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press)Google Scholar
O'Brien, L. 2002. She Bop II: The Definitive History of Women in Rock, Pop and Soul (London and New York, Continuum)Google Scholar
O'Shea, H. 2008. ‘“Good man, Mary!” Women musicians and the fraternity of Irish traditional music’, Journal of Gender Studies, 17, pp. 55–70Google Scholar
Sheehy, G. 1996. New Passages: Mapping Your Life across Time (New York, Random House)Google Scholar
Westerlund, H. 2006. ‘Garage rock bands: a future model for developing musical expertise?’, International Journal of Music Education, 24, pp. 119–25Google Scholar
Whitbourne, S.K., and Willis, S.L. (eds.) 2006. The Baby Boomers Grow Up: Contemporary Perspectives on Midlife (New Jersey and London, Lawrence Erlbaum)Google Scholar