Music education practices in Maltese Band Clubs pre, during and post COVID-19

Oct 15, 2026

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This paper explores the narratives of two members from a Malta School of Music affiliated with a band club, examining music education practice before, during, and after COVID-19 and its effects on the community. It investigates factors supporting community and adult music-making within the social fabric, highlighting challenges in Malta such as restoring cultural interaction, ensuring fair digital equity access, and preserving community tradition.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time28 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Background

Literature: the democratic community of learners

Practice, Participation and Social Activity

Music education practices in Maltese Band Clubs pre, during and post COVID-19 Jes Grixti, Western Sydney University a u s t r a l i a n a s o c i e t y s f o r m u s i c m e d u c a t i o n e i n c o r p o r a t e d Abstract This paper explores the narrative of two members of one of the Schools of Music affiliated to the same band club in Malta, focusing on the practice pre, during and post COVID-19 and the impact on its community impact. The paper also investigates the contributory factors of community and adult music-making as part ofthe social fabric. The UN Policy Brief (2020) states that the COVID-19 pandemic has created the largest disruption of education systems in human history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries. The challenge in Malta is to restore cultural interaction, fair access of digital equity, and the preservation of community tradition. Sparkman (2017) highlights ideas of updating music education to close the social gap, making it accessible for all, and validating the contribution of music to community welfare and human well-being. A similar rationale advocated by Muezzinoglu and Gorgoretti (2019) suggests catering for student interests with new music teaching approaches that are inclusive and complementary with today’s social expectations. Music education needs to strike a balance between the attention to developing technical and expressive facility – aesthetic encounter (Greene, 2001) and the social aspect of collective music-making-collectivism. In exploring the views of two members of one of the Schools of Music affiliated to the same band club in Malta, the interviewees’ narratives shed light on the three categories of Practice, Participation and Social Activity. The interviews with participants not only address the sustainability of community and adult music practice, but also a sense of belonging that is the Band Clubs as a community of learners. In doing so it is focused on the music education practice pre, during and post COVID-19 in the Band Clubs and its community impact. Data was analysed with content analysis and findings suggest this community institution has and does offer socially sound music education, but with a need for informed current and future practice. Key words: Bands, community music, Malta. Background Community music has been defined as “musicmaking practices that strengthen a community and support its musicians”(Whiteoak & Scott-Maxwell, 2003, p. 158). This applies to the music-making in Malta however, these sentiments need to be appreciated in the local cultural context. Malta is a small country which, together with its sister island of Gozo, is situated between Africa and Europe, with its closest proximity being Sicily, south at 80 kilometres (58 miles). The Republic of Malta is a sovereign state and full member of the European Union (EU). Maltese and English are interchangeably used as the island’s officiallanguages, the latter being a reminder of British colonial rule from 1800 to 1964, which substituted Italian as the language of the educated class (Montebello, 2021 pp. 12-18). Malta’s community music is diverse reflecting its history of a bi-partisan yet united and interchangeable diaspora resulting in homogeneity as a dualistic bi-product. It encompasses people from all walks of life, gender, age, level of education and occupation. Different music groups are formed and developed into social gatherings, that is, a community of practitioners, a phenomenon Australian Journal of Music Education 41 referred to in this paper as communities within communities. This is a selective form of collectivism which is both formally institutionalised and nonformally institutionalised. This paper explores the narrative of two members of one of the Band Clubs’ School of Music, one of Malta’s formally institutionalised music communities. It focuses on the music education practice pre, during and post COVID-19 in the Ba

FAQs

What does the paper examine about COVID-19’s impact on band club music education?

It focuses on music education practices before, during, and after COVID-19 in Maltese band clubs and how these practices affect the community.

How does the paper define community music in its background section?

It cites community music as music-making practices that strengthen a community and support its musicians, applied to the Maltese context.

What three categories structure the interview findings in the study?

The narratives are organized into Practice, Participation, and Social Activity.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Kurz