‘Music triggered a healing process from within me… I started singing for the joy of singing myself…and it helped me carry my recovery beyond the state I was in before I fell ill nine
years ago…to a level of well-being that I haven’t had perhaps for thirty years…’. This book explores the experiences of people who took part in a vibrant musical community for people
experiencing mental health difficulties, SMART (St Mary Abbotts Rehabilitation and Training). Ansdell (a music therapist/researcher) and DeNora (a music sociologist) describe their long-term
ethnographic work with this group, charting the creation and development of a unique music project that won the 2008 Royal Society for Public Health Arts & Health Award. Ansdell and DeNora
track the ’musical pathways’ of a series of key people within SMART, focusing on changes in health and social status over time in relation to their musical activity. The book includes the
voices and perspectives of project members and develops with them a new understanding of how music promotes their health and wellbeing. A contemporary ecological understanding of ’music and
change’ is outlined, drawing on and further developing theory from music sociology and Community Music Therapy. This innovative book will be of interest to anyone working in the mental health
field, but also music therapists, sociologists, musicologists, music educators and ethnomusicologists. This volume completes a three part ’triptych’, alongside the other volumes, Music Asylums:
Wellbeing Through Music in Everyday Life, and How Music Helps: In Music Therapy and Everyday Life.
