In the Music Real E123, I catch up with Today I chat with Music Researcher, Dr. Ben Green is a cultural sociologist with interests in popular music and youth studies. Ben is an adjunct research fellow at the Griffith Center for Social and Cultural Research and a sessional academic at Griffith University. In affiliation with the Regional Music Research Group, he has undertaken industry and audience research in live music scenes, with policy impact including the City of Gold Coast’s Live Music Action Plan 2019–2023. Other work explores memory, affective belonging, and cultural change in music scenes based on ethnographic research in Brisbane. Ben introduces his present research project called Young People Music Making and Wellbeing During a Public Health Crisis. Ben shares powerful insights into the data about our industry to give us a perspective when it comes time to plot out a pathway to recovery post COVID lockdown. Ben’s current research project seeks to understand the importance of music-making for young people (between the ages of 18 – 35) as a source of well-being during the COVID-19 crisis. A key objective of the research will be to evaluate if music-making has contributed to young people’s individual well-being (extending in this context to both physical and mental health) and their sense of connection with others. Given the unprecedented circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, the project offers a significant opportunity to examine and evaluate the importance of music-making for young people, in both an individual and collective sense, in a time of rapidly shifting and increasingly uncertain socio-economic conditions.
Connect with Dr Ben Green and the Young People Music Making and Wellbeing During a Public Health Crisis project:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03007766.2020.1730647
