Prepared by Jon Hawkes, Community Music Victoria. Submitted 28 March 2008.

Entered on knowledge base 3 September 2008.

Strengths

• Its ordinariness
• Its power
• Its biological underpinning (everybody wants to do it)
• Its ease of implementation (virtually no resources required)

Weaknesses

• No commonly held sense of identity or purpose
• Confusion / argument about what it ‘is’
• ‘Fear of judgment’ – many have been convinced that they can’t do it
• Loss of a common repertoire

Opportunities

• Development of public policy in the areas of health promotion (wellbeing) and social inclusion (belonging)
• Shift in education perspectives (multiple intelligences, civics, community engagement)
• Scientific research (particularly neuroscience)
• DIY-type attitudes

Threats

• Commodification
• Trivialisation / marginalisation
• Invisibility
• Public outcome fetishism
• Appropriation
• ‘Expertism’ (& public policy focus on professionalisation)
• ‘Excellence’ obsession