Community music may be described as an active intervention between a music facilitator and musical participants. As a scholar and activist, I am interested in the unique opportunities music making offers for creating community and correlated extra-musical outcomes. To date, my work has focused on three populations 1) people experiencing homelessness, 2) refugee youth and 3) economically-marginalized youth.

A through line in all of these activities is the ways in which community music making can be used to develop personal assets like sense of belonging and self-efficacy. Additionally, I am interested in the ways these community music practices can be leveraged and incorporated into traditional K-12 music classrooms.

My teaching in core methods courses (e.g. Secondary General Methods) is geared towards modern band. Modern band is an approach to music making that is oriented toward popular music instruments and genres. It is student-centred, highly differentiated (Knapp 2020), and in its essence, community based (Knapp & Abelgore, 2020). The power of this modern band approach to community music became apparent to me during graduate school in Tallahassee, Florida where I facilitated the “Shelter Band,” a rock band comprised of people experiencing homelessness (Knapp 2013, 2019). My two years with this band personally demonstrated a new way of thinking about music education that placed participants' experiences at the center of the ensembles' activities. Qualitative research on the Shelter Band demonstrated increased sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and decreased criminal and drug-related recidivism.

When I arrived in Syracuse, I was determined to design similar programs responsive to community needs. Because Syracuse is home to one of the largest refugee populations per-capita in North America, I developed partnerships with local refugee organizations and began the “New American All-Stars,” a vernacular music ensemble for refugee youth. Similar in approach to the Shelter Band, the All-Stars sought to take participants' extant personal and cultural assets to enable musical practices that allow for the development of community and self-efficacy. This program and ongoing research has been supported through the Music in Community (MiC) program that I began by fundraising $130,000 in private donations.

Related Publications:

Smith, G. D., Powell, B. & Knapp, D. H. (2022). Little Kids Rock and Modern Band in American schools: A punk problematic. Research in Education.

Knapp, D. (2022). Undergraduate music educators’ experiences in modern band. Journal of Popular Music Education. Bristol, UK: Intellect.

Knapp, D., Powell, B., & Smith, G. (In press). A national profile of teaching and learning in modern band programs: Teacher perceptions. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education.

Knapp, D., & Abelgore, N. (2020). The New American All-Stars: Informal learning and community music with refugee youth. School Music News. Westbury, NY: NYSSMA.

Knapp, D. (2020). Modern band and special learners. General Music Today. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Knapp, D., & Silva, C. (2019). The Shelter Band: Homelessness, social support and self-efficacy in a community music partnership. International Journal of Community Music, 12(3).

Knapp, D. (2013). The Shelter Concert Series: Reflections on homelessness and service-learning. International Journal of Community Music, 6(3), 321-332.

Knapp, D., & Darrow, A.-A. (2013). Share the music: Music majors’ experiences at a community homeless shelter. Oregon Music Educators Journal, 65(4), 4-7.