Promoting health in music education: better practice

The physical and psychological demands of the training and practice that musicians must achieve to perform to a high standard on their instruments can produce deleterious effects on health and wellbeing, arising mostly from musculoskeletal and neurological causes. The available evidence on promoting musicians’ health has been reviewed. Musical Impact, an AHRC-funded research project involving all nine UK conservatoires (2013-2017) seeks to enhance the health and wellbeing of musicians in Britain. Better Practice, one of three sub-projects, asks (1) What can be learned from existing approaches to promoting musicians’ health? (2) How can such approaches be adapted, applied and evaluated across educational and professional contexts in the UK and internationally? Given the complexity and context specificity of the interventions and programmes, a realist synthesis approach was applied. Published full-text quantitative and qualitative studies in English were included. Databases were searched for interventions and health programmes targeting musculoskeletal and music performance anxiety issues among musicians. Quality and validity are enhanced by continuous discussion among the reviewers. Few taught courses on health and wellbeing have been evaluated systematically. Zander et al. (2010), using pre-post, longitudinal testing of one programme in Germany, reported a stabilising effect on psychological health, but no effect on physical symptoms. Purpose-designed interventions based on endurance exercises reduced levels of perceived exertion, pain and fatigue (Kava et al., 2010). Current approaches vary widely and present substantial methodological flaws. This project is intended to inform the development and implementation of a new evidence-based programme for promoting health, behaviour change and managing ill-health in musicians