The Five Dimensions of Community

Sandra Krempl

Perth: Community Arts Network WA (2002)

Reviewed by Huib Schippers

Over the past two decades, what is referred to as ‘community music activities’ has gained importance and respect in the international dialogue on musical practices in contemporary societies. The term mostly refers to active interventions in the musical infrastructure with the aim to recreate the sense of musical community that is traditionally found in settings like Javanese Village gamelans, African percussion ensembles, and brass orchestras.

While previously, community music was consistently associated with dabbling rather then depth, striking examples of musical as well as communal success are changing that perception. A number of community music initiatives in Latin America, Africa, and the UK would put many well-funded and highly organised music education provisions in other countries to shame.

What is often lacking in the discussions on community music, however,  is a frame of reference to place or define what community music really is about. Sandra Krempl’s unconventional The Five Dimensions of Community is an interesting step in that direction. Based on a culturally diverse background and 30 years of experience (the last twelve of which in Western Australia), she sketches a highly personal view of how community arts have the potential to counterbalance the harshness of contemporary urban culture, and the demands and exclusivity of high arts practices.

Sometimes her approach borders on a new age approach that some readers will feel uncomfortable with: “You have to know the silent and still to know the story and receive the answers to questions that you have” (p. xiv). At other times, she is very refreshing. When speaking of youngsters hanging around, she remarks: “Hanging around is a skilled activity. It requires an A+ in observation skills, body language, intuition, eye movements, voice modulation and the like” (p. 35). She argues that it is values like these, associated with the personal, ideas and beliefs (she calls them first person values as opposed to the more detached third person values) which are strengthened by community cultural development.

Although Krempl is a musician herself, the book is not really about music. It is more about visions of society and community. At times, her ideas seem to have no more than a tangential relationship to community music activities. But The Five Dimensions of Community can certainly help in making clearer the values and mechanisms underlying musical practices that aim to include wide cross-sections of Australians.

Music Forum Vol 10 No 5