A Blog-Ode Endings: Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra’s three-day annual GIOfest ended last night (November 30, 2024). As always, it took place at Glasgow’s CCA (Centre for Contemporary Arts), GIO’s material and spiritual home for the past two decades (and a place Tia well remembers when, in the early 1980s, it was the Third Eye Centre). This …
Author Archives: gamutexe
Ray, Singer-Songwriter at Mountbatten
On poems, musical companionship, the folk scene, songs as layered creations, and the ‘cherry on top’ “This is another one that started off as a poem,” Ray says, introducing his second original song of the afternoon. We are at the Mountbatten Folk Club. The Island-based musicians who convene this club have so-far offered a mix of …
The Mountbatten Folk Group
As part of the Care for Music Festival, held at Mountbatten on the beautiful Isle of Wight, we took part in a ‘knowledge exchange’ event with local musicians. Originally, and thinking of the very special ‘Moody Blues’ piano that’s available in Mountbatten’s John Cheverton Centre (JCC), we’d intended the event to be for Island-based pianists. We thought they …
No kjem en vals, den vil jeg ha med deg.
What I learn from people caring for music (by Wolfgang Schmid) Heavy clouds, drizzle, called yr in Norwegian, and strong winds herald the beginning of spring in Bergen. One of my colleagues at the hospice once explained to me “we have two seasons in Bergen: White winter and green winter. And such weather indicates the green one”. Nevertheless, …
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The Festival!
The Care for Music Festival at Mountbatten The Care for Music team is just back from Newport, Isle of Wight. The Project is now nearly at the end of its formal schedule (though we will continue with writing and outreach and connect to the Island Life and Death project which runs through 2024). We were …
“And the lynxes purred with pleasure”
The kantele, ‘her’ personality, and a Nordic hospice setting Last month Tia visited Wolfgang to follow him and his kantele as they made their rounds at the hospice. It is obvious that Wolfgang’s kantele does a lot of beautiful work. Now Wolfgang and Tia (and, in fact, the kantele) are writing a book about that …
On ‘Late’ Learning and Creativity
Who Cannot Learn? Wolfgang, Fraser, Gary and Tia are delighted that our article on ‘late’ learning is now published in a Special Issue of Scuola Democratica, Edited by Anna Lisa Tota and Antonietta De Feo. Other articles in this rich SI address Disability and Arts Education, Prison Theatre, Epistemology, Educational Research Training, Teaching Sociology through …

Rachel Verney, An Ode of Thanks We’ve been meeting with our Project Consultant, Rachel Verney, on and off throughout the analysis stage of Care for Music. Rachel was trained by Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins and has had vast experience working as a music therapist, and training many, now quite senior and well-known, music therapists. …
Gary Ansdell and Mercedes Pavlicevic Receive 2022 European Music Therapy Confederation Award
The Care for Music Team is very pleased to announce that Care for Music Investigator, Gary Ansdell and his research partner at Nordoff Robbins, Professor Mercedes Pavlicevic have received the European Music Therapy Confederation Award for 2022. The Conference meets every three years. We are very happy to be able to include Gary’s message of …
“Do you think they sang at the Last Supper?”
Easter at Hill House The day I start working at Hill House I ring the bell and to my surprise a priest answers it. She just happens to be near the door, getting ready to do a communion service for a small group of residents in a side room. When I announce myself as the …
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