If singing, dancing and drawing are good for K-12, why not for grownups?
July 6, 2013 11:24 AM   Subscribe

I'm looking for examples and evidence of how amateur artistic expression is beneficial to adults, particularly the value of doing rather than watching. My hunch is that a grownup who plays the harmonica or takes a photography class in their spare time might find that the activity helps with their day job, relieves stress, and promotes personal growth. However, I can't find evidence that this is so. Most of my googling brings up the importance of arts for kids or the elderly rather than all adults. My question: Does participation in the arts help amateur adults, and if so, how? Quotations, studies, articles, anecdotal evidence - anything at all would be helpful.
posted by bunderful to Media & Arts (11 answers total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
 
I did a quick google, and found this page of research studies on the impact of arts programming on incarcerated adults. I don't know how generalizable the results are to the general population, but it may be a place to start?
posted by KathrynT at 11:28 AM on July 6, 2013


There are arts and crafts sessions in psychiatric hospitals and rehab centers so you might find something researching it from that.
posted by Jacqueline at 12:09 PM on July 6, 2013


There was a story bouncing around in April about a study that showed choral singing is associated with reduced anxiety. Here's the study and a representative article on it. Apparently the subjects were all college students who were enrolled in choir courses, though, so it's not exactly a broad scope.
posted by Aquinas at 1:26 PM on July 6, 2013


Anecdotal of course, but I took a hip-hop dance class through my local recreation district, and it was definitely a stress reliever! It was incredibly fun, pushed me out of my comfort zone, and I met neighbors that I would never have met just sticking to my usual home & work area. It was a part of my week I really looked forward to, especially while I was working a boring office job. To sum up what I felt the benefits were - I got a fun workout, engaged my brain in a totally different way than usual, and met new people in my community. It was just such a great experience overall.
posted by augustimagination at 2:22 PM on July 6, 2013


I worked for a major Australian corporation who paid for music or art lessons for their staff. One person on my floor was learning to paint and one was having piano lessons. So I suspect that you will find some evidence, as I don't think they would have offered it otherwise.
posted by AnnaRat at 4:16 PM on July 6, 2013


You might look into the Philosophy of Leisure.
posted by SyraCarol at 4:38 PM on July 6, 2013 [1 favorite]


On mobile so will come back with more but arts participation has been shown (in articles which I don't have at hand) to increase social capital which is a building block in happy healthy communities and happy healthy people. Wish I could put it more eloquently than that.

For me, as an adult, I k ow I am sadder when I don't participate in art making.
posted by jujulalia at 6:01 PM on July 6, 2013


My friend is going into a professional program to become a music therapist. She just finished an internship in a psychiatric hospital, but there are more areas in which that can be applied. So there is at least music therapy that I know of, and Wikipedia says it is a form of expressive therapy, a category that also includes art, dance, drama, writing, and horticultural therapy.

I took amateur singing and piano lessons with this friend during a rough patch, and judging from my experience, I can say it helped me build my confidence by getting to know my voice better, and by learning to trust myself to carry a tune through an entire song (in front of a small public). I also felt it reminded me of the wonder of that human ability to learn new skills, even as an adult. It was encouraging to get the feeling that my learning years are still far from over.

We've also done solmization in a small group, a technique she introduced to us as an intuitive way to develop pitch and understand melodies, relationships between notes and the intervals in different scales. According to the one method she uses, you're supossed to sing the notes without "thinking", so it kind of involves letting go in a way that is normally very difficult for the perfectionists in the group, and therefore a great exercise to overcome self-consciousness.
posted by ipsative at 6:50 PM on July 6, 2013


You said anecdotal evidence was welcome so...about a year ago, when I was 27, I decided to learn to play the violin (no one told me that violin is really hard. Man, I completely underestimated it, or overestimated myself.) It's the most frustrating and rewarding thing I've done, and playing is one of the highlights of my day. I think there are a bunch of things going on:

1. Right now I'm pretty bad at it, and I'm aware of that, and I'm making myself do it in spite of my badness. It's a little scary that I'm in my late twenties and this is the first time I've had to persist through being bad at something, but it's been really instructive.

1a. It's made me a better teacher because before, when taught something, I just got it, so I didn't really know how to teach.

1b. It's given me more patience with myself; I recognized that I'm bad now but I'm working hard and I am getting better. So it's made me learn to love slow gains and small victories.

2. It's a form of meditation for me. It's honestly the only time of my day when I'm actually in the moment and I'm concentrating on nothing but what's before me.

3. It leads me to invent. I played piano as a kid and teenager, and I can count on one hand the number of times I tooled around on the piano trying to figure out a song or a new tune. Now - perhaps because there's less creativity in my life overall - it's a part of my daily practice.

4. It gave me faith that I won't get bored or boring as I grow older. There's always something out there to learn, and most of them will be easier than this.

5. It's increased my appreciation of music SO MUCH. I'm learning more theory this time around, and honestly now listening to music is like a drug. I'm completely mesmerized. So it's really enriched my enjoyment of music in general.

Also:

Here's an interesting link that has links to some studies you might like about the benefits to playing music for adults.

Here's a thesis on the benefits of music education for adults.

Here's a WSJ article about returning to piano as an adult.
posted by punchtothehead at 7:43 PM on July 6, 2013 [7 favorites]


This may be a bit tangential, but a local Cleveland non-profit organization I've had some professional involvement with is the Community Partnership For Arts & Culture, who have a Research Library section of their website with links to a variety of studies and papers.

Most of it is concerned with "larger picture" issues of the arts' economic impact on a region, or their use in improving neighborhoods and community development, and such like that, and I get the impression you're more interested in aspects of personal, individual development.

But it does raise the idea that poking around the websites of similar organizations - organizations whose mission is to promote the general growth of the arts in communities and/or to distribute public monies to artists & arts organizations - might find you some research more in line with what you're looking for.

I'm also under the impression that various European countries have a longer and deeper history than the U.S. (generally speaking) in public funding for the arts, and it might be worth seeing what you can find through other countries' branches of government concerned with the arts.

Or even our own government, come to think of it. I just had a quick look at the National Endowment for the Arts' website, and they have what seems an extensive Research section. Under the "Participation" category I found a paper titled "The Arts and Civic Engagement" (PDF link) and the first paragraph says, "The Arts & Civic Engagement demonstrates - with statistically reliable data - that arts participation overwhelmingly correlates with positive individual and civic behaviors." So that might also be a good place to look.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:46 AM on July 7, 2013


I saw this on the Guardian today and I thought of you. I hope you find what you're looking for!
posted by ipsative at 6:14 AM on July 10, 2013


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