This book explores the power music has to address health inequalities and the social determinants of health and wellbeing. It examines music participation as a determinant of wellbeing and as a transformative tool to impact on wider social, cultural and environmental conditions. Uniquely, in this volume health and wellbeing outcomes are conceptualised on a continuum, with potential effects identified in relation to individual participants, their communities but also society at large. While arts therapy approaches have a clear place in the text, the emphasis is on music making outside of clinical contexts and the broader roles musicians, music facilitators and educators can play in enhancing wellbeing in a range of settings beyond the therapy room. This innovative edited collection will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners of music, social services, medical humanities, education and the broader health field in the social and medical sciences.

This book examines regional and rural popular music scenes in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia. The book is divided into four parts.  Part 1 will focus on the spatial aspects of regional popular music scenes and how place and locality inform the perceptions and discourses of those involved in such scenes.  Part 2 focuses on the technologies and forms of distribution whereby regional and rural popular music scenes exist and, in many cases co-exist in forms of trans-local connection with other scenes.  Part 3 considers the importance of collective memory in the way that regional and rural popular music scenes are constructed in both the past and the present.  Part 4 examines themes of industry and policy, in relation to culture and music, as these impact on the nature and identity of rural and regional popular music scenes.

This book explores the power music has to address health inequalities and the social determinants of health and wellbeing. It examines music participation as a determinant of wellbeing and as a transformative tool to impact on wider social, cultural and environmental conditions. Uniquely, in this volume health and wellbeing outcomes are conceptualised on a continuum, with potential effects identified in relation to individual participants, their communities but also society at large. While arts therapy approaches have a clear place in the text, the emphasis is on music making outside of clinical contexts and the broader roles musicians, music facilitators and educators can play in enhancing wellbeing in a range of settings beyond the therapy room. This innovative edited collection will be of great interest to scholars and practitioners of music, social services, medical humanities, education and the broader health field in the social and medical sciences.