“I didn’t know I could use my music for others”: Community Music as Transformative Education at a South African University

In response to South African higher education’s transformation agenda, the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) introduced community music (CM) as a BMus degree subject in 2012. In this article I examine the potential of CM to realise community engagement (CE) within higher education transformation policy mandates. From my perspective as researcher-practitioner, I consider CM as a curriculum transformation; its impact on student learning, and how CM transforms their musicianship to enhance the music degree. Using data from students’ reflective essays, students’ applied drama-facilitated reflections, and focus groups, I describe students’ transformative learning in the Wits CM courses, focusing on their service-learning (SL) experiences and reflections, over the past eight years. The findings suggest that CM re-orientates South African music curricula towards social engagement and artistic citizenship. I argue that integrating CM in the academy constitutes transformative education that changes students’ ways of knowing, learning, and being, and in so doing, develops critically aware, responsible citizens who can use their musicianship to benefit others. The research offers a model of CM in a South African university that speaks to higher education CE, and which is intended to highlight the significance of CM in the academy more broadly.