Internship Placement Report
With research group Lifelong Learning in Music, Hanzehogeschool
Research project: “Dichtbij met Muziek”
Rosie Taekema
S3791637
Supervised by Barend van Heusden
Faculty of Arts
Master track: Arts Policy and Cultural Entrepreneurship
2020
Contents
Introduction . . . 2
The Organisation . . . 4
The Development of My Role in the Team . . . 6
Evaluation . . . 9
Conclusion . . . 12
Appendix: Abstract to final research article . . . 13
Introduction
During the second semester of my (Faculty of Arts—APCE track) Master study at the University of Groningen, I was required to work at an internship placement in a relevant field, for a minimum of 1 280 hours overall, either full- or part-time. Having already lived in Groningen for over seven years up to this point—completing a Bachelor in classical music at the Prins Claus Conservatoire (PCC), 2 actively working in the field as a freelance musician and community arts (event) entrepreneur—I already had a strong network of contacts in the field and clear ideas of what types of work I would be interested in doing. Therefore, I chose to find my own placement independently, without much help from the university.
After a few months of brainstorming about where I might look, and passing the word out to colleagues and friends about my search for an internship, I eventually stumbled upon the research project that, as it turned out, was able to provide a useful placement for me in the Spring. The research project “Dichtbij met Muziek” (in English, named “Music Near You”) is a practice-based project run by the Hanze research group Lifelong Learning in Music, in collaboration with the musicians collective Foundation Mimic Music, which aims to develop new formats of “person-centred” music making for vulnerable, independently-living elderly people and those that care for them. As my personal interests, both in research and my own entrepreneurial organisation/career centre around practices of using music to benefit community and human wellbeing, this project was highly relevant for me—both in terms of utilising my previous experience and knowledge on the topic, as well as in taking me further in the direction that I would like to continue being involved in, in my future work.
The main coordinator of the research project, Karolien Dons , had in fact previously shown interest in 3 me as a potential assistant to their research team for the project the year before; however, they had not then managed to receive enough funding to pay a full wage to an extra employee and had thus not been able to hire me at that time. This time, however, when I bumped into Karolien coincidentally (whilst I was running errands of my own at the PCC building) and told her of my search for an internship placement, she told me that the same project was going to be starting again soon, and expressed that she was very happy to do what she could to try to have me on board for it this time.
1 (like every other student in this Master programme) 2 (performing and teaching the cello)
3(who had had a small role in my Bachelor study as a course leader and evaluator to my teaching/pedagogy
After discussing this with the head supervisor of the research group (Rineke Smilde) and reviewing the project’s financial possibilities, they were able to provide me with an appropriate role in the team, as well as a small wage of 275 euros per month for three months, working three days per week.
My main role in the research team was to prepare and write a literature review for use in their eventual research article, concerning the practice of “person-centred” music making for vulnerable elderly people. With the subject of this research project in mind (as well as simply having a good rapport with this teacher in previous courses), I requested Barend van Heusden as my placement supervisor.
I began my internship, initially, at the end of February 2020. However, when the COVID-19 regulations first came into place only a few weeks later, the whole project had to be reconsidered and everyone was unsure of how things would develop further, so we decided to put my placement on hold until the situation would become clearer. Though the original plan for my work schedule eventually changed quite a lot due to the changed circumstances, we were able to continue with my placement on-and-off over the following few months in such a way that my role was maintained and I could eventually complete the number of hours needed (and still be paid the full amount that had been promised, as well).
Various other aspects of the research project and my work in the placement, of course, also had to be adapted to the new situation; the most drastic of these being the practical part of the study and the research question itself. Fortunately, the team did manage to find solutions for the research to continue in a slightly new direction (online) which not only allowed the project to survive but even, in many ways, to thrive. The main subject of the project, which now incorporated and embraced the new circumstances by attempting to do the music sessions with elderly people online via video-calls, actually became a somewhat more interesting, innovative, and streamlined research question to work with than it had been in the initial project plan. Additionally, by the time I had returned to my active role in the project in early June, the online journal Music, Health, and Wellbeing had accepted the preliminary abstract of our research article, that had been submitted by Karolien Dons in response to their call for articles concerning work during the pandemic period (a collection of which will be published in their autumn edition). The final article that we created together is now being sent to the journal and, if all goes as planned, will be published publicly online during the autumn.
The Organisation
The research project “Dichtbij met Muziek” is run by a small team of research practitioners from the 4 (PCC-based) Hanzehogeschool research group Lifelong Learning in Music, which:
“aims to contribute to the development of musicians by helping them become learning, inquisitive and entrepreneurial musicians in society. The research group does this by exploring the different roles that musicians can fulfil and by examining the development of their leadership in relation to their lifelong personal, artistic and professional development. The central question is what it means for musicians to develop innovative practices, whilst engaging with new audiences, based on a fundamental understanding of the various cultural and social contexts to which they have to respond.”
(lifelonglearninginmusic.org)
The research group is headed by Rineke Smilde but I personally never met her during my internship, 5 as her work with this particular project appeared to be more supervisory than active. However, it was clear that everything in the project was communicated with her and that her approval and guidance was fundamental to the project (for example, it was to Rineke that we sent the first draft of our article before making the final edit for the journal, and her comments on the draft were taken very seriously, as she is a research professional). In action, Karolien Dons seemed to be the main manager of this collaborative project on the ground, and the go-between for Rineke and the research practitioners. The musician practitioners in this project have a history of working with this research group in similar practice-based studies, namely with the organisation MiMiC (Meaningful Music in Health Care), in which they improvise and perform music in hospital wards. They also have previous experience in working with the same research group to improvise and perform for elderly people in care settings and independent living . There were four musicians in total, split into two teams that worked with one 6 elderly recipient each. All of the musicians also played a part in documenting their work but only one musician from each team (the ones with the most research experience) was fully responsible for the
4 See https://www.hanze.nl/eng/research/centre-for-applied-research/art-and-society/professorships/professors hips/lifelong-learning-in-music/research-projects/healthy-ageing-through-music--the-arts/dichtbij-muziek 5 See https://www.hanze.nl/eng/research/profiles/professors/rineke-smilde 6 See https://www.hanze.nl/eng/research/centre-for-applied-research/art-and-society/professorships/professors hips/lifelong-learning-in-music/research-projects/healthy-ageing-through-music--the-arts/professional-exc ellence-meaningful-music-healthcare
auto-ethnographic data collection and analysis that would be used in the paper. These two are the ones that I also had contact with.
The “Dichtbij met Muziek” research project is focused on a practitioner perspective of using “person-centred” music-making to empower and uplift vulnerable elderly people who live independently, as well as those who care for them. The “person-centred” approach is the key method that their practice is centred on and entails a tailor-made approach to making music, based on each individual that they are working with. The other key framework which they concentrate on in their overall perspective is the concept of “lifelong learning”, which refers to the constant development of musician practitioners throughout their lifetime and the importance of their ability to adapt to environmental and societal change within their artistic practices. These fundamental points made the team well equipped for being able to continue and thrive under the sudden COVID-19 pandemic changes, which forced the group to change most of their initial plans for the project to fit to the new circumstances by moving the practice to an online format for the first time and making this migration from “real space” to “virtual space” into the main question for the research . 7
Most of the staff involved with this research group also work as professors or administrators with various other responsibilities within the Hanzehogeschool and, particularly, the Prins Claus Conservatoire. Therefore, their main physical base is the PCC building. This also means that I was already familiar with all of the people involved in this project and in the workplace, to varying degrees, from my previous study there as well as from networking with that circle of professionals in connection to my own socially-engaged arts-based projects. It is why I found a place in this research group for my internship in the first place and also helped me to become immediately comfortable and integrated into working there (for example, I already had a good relationship with Evert Bisshop Boele—an ethnomusicology researcher—in the office next door so I was able to borrow books from him and ask for advice on different things), as well as acting as a way to further strengthen these relationships for my own work in the near future.
The Development of My Role in the Team
My overall role in the research team was to take (almost full) responsibility for reviewing the literature connected to the research project that was taking place in practice, to bring in relevant theoretical frameworks, write most of the literature review section for the eventual research paper, and to simply be a fresh and critical eye to the research project overall. In the beginning, I was given the assignment through the project supervisor, as follows:
“The research focus of the project will be: how can (person-centred) music making enhance human dignity of vulnerable elderly people and how can that be sustained in the social, institutional and societal surroundings of these elderly and their carers/family? My request to you is to conduct a preparatory literature review for the field work.”
For this task, I immediately had many ideas of literature and topics that I could potentially cover (thanks to my pre-existing interest in reading about similar subjects). To make the most of my first meeting with Karolien that would kick off my first working week, I conducted a quick, independent literature review sprint and brainstorm about the assignment, and made some preliminary notes about these sources and ideas to bring to our meeting for discussion. She was enthusiastic about all of my intentions at that point, agreeing that I should continue in the ways that I had in mind to see where they would lead, and gave me some input on which areas would be more or less useful to focus on, etc. However, at that point, the topic was still very broad; the type of publication, length, focus points, and intended audience were still undecided. Therefore, my first literature review strategy was to find sources which could be interesting and relevant and skim-read them, and pick out particular points of interest that I came across, while also discarding aspects to narrow down the scope as much as possible.
For the first couple of weeks of work, I spent my three days per week at a desk in a shared office in the Prins Claus Conservatoire building , collecting, reading, and making notes on relevant literature, and 8 forming a preliminary outline of the literature review I had in mind. This was of course then interrupted quite suddenly when regulations were put into place in response to the pandemic, which not only urged everyone to work from home as much as possible but closed the PCC building for a couple of months. This had even more of an impact, of course, on the practical side of the research project, which had initially relied on face-to-face interactions of performing music to elderly
8This was a slightly funny experience, since I was a student there only a couple of years ago! And also because I
had/have other roles which I still perform there once per week — meaning that I had to shift my personal role a little bit, mentally and socially whilst working there on my placement.
individuals—the most at-risk and therefore, now most strictly isolated population group. Due to such a large and unprecedented obstacle facing the project plan, the team needed time to figure out what (if anything) could still be done. Additionally, everyone also needed time simply to put their own personal lives in order and come to terms with the blow that this pandemic created to all aspects of each individuals’ lives—myself included. For this reason, it seemed wise to put my placement with the group on hold, until the situation became clearer and new plans could be made.
After the initial, temporary “lock-down” period had passed and the government announced it would need to be extended further, it gradually became clear that the restrictions and the risk of the virus were not going to subside any time soon. Karolien and I then had contact again in order to plan further . We decided to continue waiting until they had sorted out the practical side of the project9 before I would rejoin the team to complete my internship, and that we would have contact again in May to plan again. When we reconnected in May, Karolien updated me on the progress of the project—explaining that the musician practitioners were now working with a couple of elderly recipients from their homes via video-call, and that they had also decided to shift the research focus from the initial question to specifically exploring what the results of moving such a project to an online format would be. (She apologised for the fact that the work I had done in the first few weeks had now been made mostly redundant but I did not mind at all, since I had learnt things for myself during those weeks of reading that I can keep for later use in life, and I actually felt very positive about the new, and more explicit direction of the research project in its new form.) When discussing the timeline of both the overall project and my own preferences (I was busy working on my Master thesis at that point and felt it would be better to continue focusing on my first draft of that before rejoining the internship placement), we decided that I would come back to work for them (now, of course, from home) at the beginning of June.
In June, I not only went straight to working on my own individual part of the research paper, but was also included in a few Skype meetings with Karolien and the two musician practitioners to discuss 10 their practice-based findings so far, methods of data collection, and plans for the paper. Once again, I presented my (new) ideas for the topics that could be useful for me to cover in the literature review
9With each new development/plan I would also send an update to my Rug supervisor—Barend van
Heusden—as well, and he was always in agreement with the choices we had made.
10Both of whom I already knew as colleagues that I had practiced and performed music with a few years ago,
so, though the role and circumstance was different and I was joining the project team in the middle of the work they had been doing up until that point, it was nevertheless quite comfortable and easy for me to integrate into the research group, quickly.
and they were again quite happy about my ideas. At this point, it was still a little unclear what the research paper would look like and precisely how the roles would be divided in writing it. As a team of four contributors—Karolien as the main research leader and writer, me in charge of literature and frameworks, and the two musician practitioners as both auto-ethnographic data collectors and in charge of writing about the results of their own work—it took a little while before the details of the roles within the writing of the paper itself were totally clear (for example, should I only write about the literature and frameworks within that chapter of the article or should I also bring them in, in the analysis as well?). When Karolien received the news that the journal Music, Health, and Wellbeing
had accepted the abstract of our potential article for their upcoming publication, and they then sent us their requirements for the word-count, style, and formatting of the paper, this all became significantly easier! Finally, I knew at least how many words my part should be and, therefore, what to keep and what to discard from my ideas for it (a lot had to be discarded, of course!).
Rather than me simply picking out theory and then the research-practitioners trying to fit their findings into them, we had some back-and-forth communication between us which allowed me to listen to/read about their practice-based findings and notice the aspects that connected to the literature I had read from their data. This helped me to decide which sources and theories to highlight and which to discard or only briefly mention. In a couple of the Skype meetings with the team, I introduced my colleagues to a few of the theories that I thought were relevant so that they were also able to start integrating some of the existing terminology and frameworks into their own findings and analysis.
During one of the first of these meetings, it became clear that they did not yet have a very efficient method of sharing files between them online. Having a fair amount of experience in online teamwork before this, I therefore suggested that we try using a Google Shared Drive or Microsoft Teams to make this file sharing—and especially the eventual joint writing of the article—smoother, and offered to take responsibility for managing this myself. Due to issues with me receiving a guest account with the Hanze intranet, it turned out that Microsoft Teams was not an option for us so we went with Google Drive instead (which was better for me anyway, since I have more experience with that). I therefore created the shared folder and a couple of documents for us to work with (one for writing notes/ideas and one for writing the article itself). I also took charge of entering a template of all the headings and subheadings in our article Doc, as well as formatting the file, and teaching the others how to use the editing, suggesting, and commenting tools in the program. Using a shared Google Drive folder to see each other’s data collection, and using Google Docs to write the article together, proved very effective
and meant that we could all contribute to the work simultaneously and have each other’s updates processed automatically and immediately.
Later on in the process, I also offered to take responsibility for the overall formatting of the paper and references into the Harvard Style and specific requirements that were given in the Style Guide document provided by the journal. Furthermore, I offered to help with the final proofreading and editing of the paper, since that is one of my strengths as a native English speaker, university student familiar with academic language and critiquing of research papers, and especially having previous experience in doing this as a side-job for other people (freelancing as a proofreader/editor of English texts). For this last part, we decided, therefore, to delay my final two days of work in the placement to be timed for the moment when a final edit would be needed (which eventually happened on 19-20th August—roughly a month after finishing the main period of my placement).
Evaluation
I was lucky enough to be working with a very small team of colleagues and, especially, a supervisor who already had respect for me as a person, treated me immediately as an equal member of the group with valuable contributions, and were flexible and willing to listen to my wishes and needs (though I do believe that they would have treated a stranger this way too!). Thanks to this, I had a lot of control over my own role in the project, as well as being trusted to predominantly self-manage my working process and my time (whilst still having guidance along the way). This dynamic worked very well for me, as my personal needs are a little different to most people and can be difficult to fit into strict structures, but at the same time, I also seem to work better when I feel a responsibility to others to be productive and timely, as well as when I have other people to bounce my ideas off of and divide tasks between. Therefore, this balance of working in a small team, each with different roles and tasks, and a clear mutual goal but also a flexible and predominantly independent mode of working, worked out to be a good balance for me.
While I feel generally pleased and proud of my overall work in this internship placement, and my supervisor, Karolien, apparently does too, there are of course strengths, weaknesses, and learning curves that this experience provided me with which are worth noting. My general weaknesses were, of course, the same ones that I usually face in life, in general. Therefore, I did my best to avoid or control these as much as I could from the beginning of this placement, but still felt their effects to varying degrees, throughout. On the other hand, the same goes for my strengths as well; having already learnt much about myself and my abilities over the course of my adult development so far, I was able to
carefully consider both the negative and positive sides of my abilities and thus attempted to utilize my strengths to my advantage as much as possible in this work.
The two biggest challenges that I faced overall are the same as those that hamper all areas of my life but which are especially difficult in my working life (whether that is working in an office, being a full-time student, or performing as a cellist). These are (1) my physical health and (2) having Attention Deficit Disorder. The first was most disruptive and noticeable in my first couple of weeks of working physically in the office. Since I suffer daily from Fibromyalgia (a type of full-body chronic pain and fatigue) and Irritable Bowel Syndrome, it was a bit of a struggle to arrive on time to the office in the mornings (though my arrival time could thankfully be quite flexible) and to eat well within my dietary restrictions at the school building. Additionally, I was often interrupted by my frequent need for toilet breaks and felt the physical effects of pain and fatigue in my body after spending several hours at a desk. With these issues in mind, the pandemic regulations then strangely acted as a positive force for my overall health and wellbeing, since having to work from home actually allowed me to take better care of my physical health! Indeed, this is something which this experience has (further) taught me about myself for my future work, in that it would be preferable for me to find work which I can do mostly from home.
The second issue, ADD, however, was a little more difficult to manage at home than in an office space. Even though I take prescribed medication that helps me to concentrate and feel motivated, the medication is not foolproof against all ADD symptoms; so, while working in an office was physically challenging for me, on the other hand it did make it easier for me to stay focused during those working hours, whereas working from home has been a little more difficult to manage regarding self-discipline and external distractions. However, over time, I was able to find a rhythm that worked for me better than my initial attempts (for example, at what time of day to start working, when to take breaks, when to take my medication, what helps or hinders my focus at home, and so on). While I am still not fully satisfied with my overall efficiency, I am now at a point where I feel that, in fact, I am able to work pretty much as effectively from home as I could elsewhere, and that the more that I continue to do it, the better I will become.
One big thing which I always struggle with is deadlines. Though my work is always very thorough and, eventually, tends to be completed to a (often more than) satisfactory level, my working processes for getting there are usually quite slow. Both my mental and physical disabilities also have a large effect on this but it does seem that whatever I try to do to improve this about myself, it is still always a huge challenge for me! In this internship placement, I managed to do pretty well overall in sticking to the
important deadlines; however, in the smaller planned deadlines along the way, I was never quite able to fully produce precisely what we had agreed upon and when, in the form of drafts, etc. Luckily this was not too much of a problem, as I was at least able to communicate about my progress and planning very well with my colleagues (so that if something was not yet written in full, I could at least explain it to them and discuss my plans for how it was going to be, etc.) and the working process of the whole group was quite flexible and based on each individuals’ needs, anyway. Also, I did manage to finish my part of the work on time before the first complete draft deadline and the last edit, which was the most crucial! So overall I am quite pleased with how I managed it, considering how much of a challenge this always is for me and how well I did in comparison to myself but, simultaneously, I am objectively not fully satisfied with my own productivity, and this issue continues to frustrate me in all areas of my work. Hopefully, this is something which I can continue to improve on with more practice.
Though my time-management and sticking to plans is not very good in practice, however, my theoretical planning and strategic thinking is pretty strong, and this was a great asset for working in a team like this. Communication is another strong point of mine which was particularly useful here—even more so since we had to work together remotely. This meant that through my use of emailing, my participation in meetings, and the extra roles that I took for myself in managing a shared Google Drive folder, etc., I believe that I aided the collaboration in running more smoothly. By consciously doing the best that I could in both utilizing my areas of strength and minimizing my areas of weakness, I believe that I was able to contribute to the project quite positively overall.
When it comes to the work of the research article itself, my year and a half (Pre-Master and then Master) of study at the RUG were essential to most of it. Had I not followed this education, I would not have been able to to conduct a literature review in any form, be familiar with academic styles of writing about a research project, or how to cite sources within a particular style. Therefore, this internship really put into practice everything that I have learnt during my time at the University! Though I was still not totally comfortable with how to begin writing a literature review for such a project (particularly in the beginning, when the guidelines were less clear), over time, and with the feedback of Karolien, I believe that I did a good job in the end. Before doing this internship, I had only really written one complete literature review assignment before (and was still in the process of completing the one within my Master thesis) so the process of forming this one was slower than it perhaps would have been for someone with more practice in this. I began with a huge number of sources and ideas for possible links that could be made between literature and the research question
which, in the end, had to be mostly discarded due to word count and scope limitations. However, there were things which I came across in that wide search in the beginning which ended up being extremely useful for the eventual findings of the research practitioners later on so, though the final product showed only a fraction of the work that I put into the preparation of it, I am confident and pleased that the small amount of material which was kept was very much relevant and of worth to the study. Additionally, on a personal level, the process taught me a lot which has made me more confident in how to approach similar assignments in future.
This experience has shown me that I can do well at working in a research team. Even though I generally prefer to work alone on my tasks, working in a team in which tasks are split and individual roles are clear seems to allow me to work better than I can in a fully independent research project (e.g. my Master thesis!). This has given me more interest in perhaps working with/for research teams in future, as a collaborator or assistant. It has also given me more confidence in my own abilities within such research practices, more generally, and while I do not aim to make that my main/only career path, it is something which I have recently become interested in being further involved in to some extent after graduation.
Conclusion
Overall, this internship placement was a very positive experience for me. I learnt more about my own strengths, weaknesses, and interests, and gained confidence in my ability to do this kind of work, if the opportunity arises in future. I am also happy that the article that I contributed towards in this internship acts as a tangible result which I can (and do) feel proud of, will play a (small) part in contributing to the advancement of a field of research and practice that I feel passionate about, and will also include my name in the public, published journal article when it is released—an outcome which feels very satisfying to me.
Though the process of this semester included many unexpected turns and a lot of uncertainty, I am lucky to be one of the few who could continue to do the internship placement that I had planned and to even make the changes work to our advantage. The fact that this internship coincided with the pandemic and having to work from home, also taught me that working from home can be a good option for me, where possible. Ideally, I would like to have a mix of part-time occupations within the fields of music, community, education, and/or research, in which I can work some days from home and some days on more active practices in “the real world”.
Appendix:
Abstract to final research article
Abstract
As a result of the COVID-19 measures, many people experienced social isolation and lack of meaningful contact, especially vulnerable elderly people. For a specific group of musicians specialized in artistically-led participatory practices with a person-centred approach in healthcare settings, this sparked the exploration of migrating their practice online making use of video-calling. From a ‘lifelong learning’ perspective—considering musicians as able to respond to societal change by creating new, meaningful artistic practices—such a migration within the exceptional COVID-19 circumstances was an instant challenge to the musicians to demonstrate their flexibility and adaptability. The immediacy of the response combined with the diminished feeling of humanness in virtual interaction seemed to threaten the person-centred values that the work of this group is built upon. This article explores this by expanding on the musicians’ flexibility towards person-centredness and their attempts to safeguard these values when they switch from ‘physical’ to ‘virtual’ space in a short period of time. The musicians systematically produced reflective writings during the project period, which were analysed thematically. The results show the various ways through which the musicians tried to compensate for the lack of physical co-presence: by creating (new) virtual ways of making meaningful musical connections and invigorating a sense of ‘liveness’ through careful consideration of (1) the musical approach, (2) building an appropriate social (virtual) space and (3) managing their self-development. The multiple professional and personal challenges that the musicians faced required them to act as exceptional lifelong learners and their response to these challenges suggests that their flexible attitude, which is an inherent part of their approach, was exactly what could enable them to perform the switch to virtual person-centred music-making successfully.
