THE MUSICAL WORKSHOP AS “OPTIMAL EXPERIENCE” FOR LEARNING AND INCLUSION

In the framework of the STALWARTS university modules implemented at the University of Bologna, several workshops have been realised with the aim to create moments of optimal experience based on creativity, during which the participants could experience creative and inclusive musical activities, discuss, and reflect. The activities were carried out according to the perspective of the teacher’s professional profile developed in Bologna, with special attention to the inclusive potentialities of the musical experiences (see Addessi & Sandri, in this volume). In the workshops, musical experiences and concepts were developed and acquired through a spiral path that goes from practice to theory, during which practical moments alternate with meta-reflective and conceptualisation moments; the heuristic-guided method is predominant, exploration, creativity and invention understood as moments of high inclusiveness, collaborative playing, observation, group work, interdisciplinarity, reflection and conceptualisation. The activities were structured in different ways, but within them there were always moments of listening, exploration and musical invention. The aim was to let the students/teachers live the musical experience as an experience of “well-being” and inclusion. In this perspective, the workshop is an ideal place for the "optimal experience" as described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the Flow theory. The workshops have represented the starting points of the small enquiries and project works carried out by the students in their professional contexts: primary and middle compulsory schools, adult choirs, instrumental music lessons, social centers and volunteering. In this chapter, we will introduce the methodological guidelines, and some of the activities that have been carried out in the workshops on improvisation, Dalcroze rhythmics, and music and movement. The workshop participants signed a consent form prepared by the University of Bologna and they were aware that the activities were going to be written up both for the STALWARTS report and for future publications, including photographs and audio data.