Raising awareness of participatory music options: The Canadian Community Music Group Database

Many adults with musical skills struggle to find outlets for their musical interests. Despite the ubiquity of the internet, it can be difficult to find community music groups unless one knows what one is looking for. This article documents the inventorying and cultural mapping history and development of the Canadian Community Music Group Database, a non-commercial, online resource with over 1600 entries that allows for various forms of data visualization. The author shares his struggles with sustaining the database, while challenging community music researchers in other countries to emulate the aims and purposes of this project in order to better support those who may benefit from a consolidated music participation database and to help advance community music research generally by surfacing issues related to what is and what might be in community music.