Recruiting Participants for Randomized Controlled Trials of Music Therapy: A Practical Illustration

Background: Failure to recruit sufficient numbers of participants to randomized controlled trials is a common and serious problem. This problem may be additionally acute in music therapy research.

Objective: To use the experience of conducting a large randomized controlled trial of music therapy for young people with emotional and behavioral difficulties to illustrate the strategies that can be used to optimize recruitment; to report on the success or otherwise of those strategies; and to draw general conclusions about the most effective approaches.

Methods: Review of the methodological literature, and a narrative account and realist analysis of the recruitment process.

Results: The strategies adopted led to the achievement of the recruitment target of 250 subjects, but only with an extension to the recruitment period. In the pre-protocol stage of the research, these strategies included the engagement of non-music therapy clinical investigators, and extensive consultation with clinical stakeholders. In the protocol development and initial recruitment stages, they involved a search of systematic reviews of factors leading to under-recruitment and of interventions to promote recruitment, and the incorporation of their insights into the research protocol and practices. In the latter stages of recruitment, various stakeholders including clinicians, senior managers and participant representatives were consulted in an attempt to uncover the reasons for the low recruitment levels that the research was experiencing.

Conclusions: The primary mechanisms to promote recruitment are education, facilitation, audit and feedback, and time allowed. The primary contextual factors affecting the effectiveness of these mechanisms are professional culture and organizational support.

Colloquium on Sound and Music

Invited participation in a colloquium on Sound and Music at CREATIVE RESEARCH INTO SOUND ARTS PRACTICE unit of the London College of Communication.

Belfast's Traditional Music Scene: A Narrative of Change and Development

Today Belfast is home to a vibrant traditional music scene. There have never been more sessions, concerts, classes or lectures devoted to traditional music in the north's biggest city. A complex system of promoters, performers and listeners has emerged in a city that is growing in confidence as it moves away from the dark days of the Troubles. But how does this system function? While Dowling (2014) has examined the development of traditional music-making in Belfast as it shifted from a pre-conflict to conflict ridden environment, little research has been carried out into the reasons behind the boom in traditional music-making in a post-conflict setting.

This paper examines the impact upon the traditional music scene of the first wave of students to arrive in Belfast after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. These musicians, such as Donal O'Connor, Ruadhrai O'Kane and Aidan Walsh have had a lasting impact upon the lives of musicians native to Belfast, helping to bring traditional music to new venues and audiences.

The work of Belfast-based music schools with varying remits, such as Belfast Trad., and the Andersonstown School of Traditional and Contemporary Music, is also examined for the purpose of illustrating how both adults and young people are being educated about their musical heritage.

To be inside someone else's dream: On Music for Sleeping & Waking Minds

Music for Sleeping & Waking Minds (2011-2012) is a new,overnight work in which four performers fall asleep while wearing custom designed EEG sensors which monitor their brainwave activity. The data gathered from the EEG sensors is applied in real time to different audio and image signal processing functions, resulting in continuously evolving multichannel sound environment and visual projection. This material serves as an audiovisual description of the individual and collective neuro physiological state of the ensemble. Audiences are invited to experience the work in different states of attention: while alert and asleep, resting and awakening.

Compositional and Performance Mapping in Computer Chamber Music: A Case Study

The mapping problem is inherent to digital musical instruments (DMIs), which require, at the very least, an association between physical gestures and digital synthesis algorithms to transform human bodily performance into sound. This article considers the DMI mapping problem in the context of the creation and performance of a heterogeneous computer chamber music piece, a trio for violin, biosensors, and computer. Our discussion situates the DMI mapping problem within the broader set of interdependent musical interaction issues that surfaced during the composition and rehearsal of the trio. Through descriptions of the development of the piece, development of the hardware and software interfaces, lessons learned through rehearsal, and self-reporting by the participants, the rich musical possibilities and technical challenges of the integration of digital musical instruments into computer chamber music are demonstrated.

Thomas Moore Music Project:The Genesis of Thomas Moore's Irish Melodies

This is a selection of images from the Gibson-Massie Moore Collection, supplement by a table created by curator Sarah McCleave. The purpose is to identify the numerous creators involved in the Irish Melodies series (music editor, illustrators, engravers, etc.), and to illustrate some characteristics kinds of variants