Despite their extensive musical and social role, wind or community bands receive relatively minor scientific attention, although their functions as cultural mediators and community builders have long been known (Hollós, 1980; Marosi, 1994; Hartz, 2003; Dubois, Méon & Pierru, 2013). This is especially true with regard to Hungarian community bands, where, from a scientific point of regard, we can find an almost completely unexplored area. In Hungary, these bands are mainly identified with traditional military bands, even though in the field of music education these ensembles are considered to be a popular communal musical activity for both young and adult age groups. However, these ensembles have so far received no scientific attention, and there are countless unanswered questions about them. We do not yet know the socioeconomic and demographic background of this orchestral type, why they choose this hobby for themselves, what they generally think about bands as a musical community and the place of bands in the Hungarian music scene…

            The research focuses specifically on adult community band members. because this age-group often chooses this musical activity alongside work and/or family, even though band membership often involves a number of cancellations. For this reason, the question arises: why they go to community bands at all, what are the factors and what is the individual driving force that makes adults playing in these ensembles. The importance of adult education and thus lifelong learning is now unquestionable, but in this approach it is often understood as vocational or linguistic further trainings aligned with the labour market, however in our present research we focus on the group of leisure and hobby courses in the context of which we are mapping the motivational aspects of adult music learning at amateur level.

            We mainly rely on international literature about adult music learning, which overall can be considered as a young research territory, the first major studies carried out in the 1980s (Coffman, 2002) However, in recent times, more and more music teachers and researchers have recognised the importance of the topic (Myers, 1995; Graessle, 1999; Coffman, 2002; Pitts; 2009; Tsugava; 2009; Jutras, 2011) Since then, the majority of the studies have centred around a main question: Does listening to music or active music-making affect the quality of life?

            Our current research and the questions for the pilot study is mainly based on Coffman's paper (2002), which show that individual motivations for adult music can be grouped into three categories:

- personal motivations, like the need for self-expression, recreation, proper use of leisure time

- music motivations, like the love of music and the need to music-making

- social motivations, like the need of social interactions and to belong somewhere (Coffman, 2002).      

For our research, we conducted a qualitative survey with 5-5 members of two community bands. The common point of the members is that they all perform their regular musical activities besides an other profession and family. When selecting subjects, we sought to get the narratives of members playing different instruments, thereby giving a more colourful overall picture, so for our study we used responses of musicians playing flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, two trumpets, trombones, tenor horn, tuba and bass guitar. The two ensembles have different age mixes. One of them is a youth orchestra, consisting mostly of primary or high school students, and young adults, while the other band is made up of adults without exception. In semi-structured interviews, we focused on the aspects of band membership, in particular their individual motivations, the role of the family, and the factors influencing long-term orchestral activity.

Our research was based on the hypothesis that the results of international studies on individual motivation or driving force can also be observed in Hungarian adult community band members. This hypothesis proved to be true, since the three strongest motivation factors (personal, musical and social motivation) match those expressed by Coffman (2002). Through the interpretation of narratives, it was clearly shown that successful adult music learning depends largely on supportive family backgrounds and childhood musical experiences. Of course, due to the low number of elements, we cannot draw definitive conclusions on the basis of the results, although there is a line for further studies.

Coffman, D. Don (2002): Adult education. In: Colwell, Richard & Richardson, Carol: The new handbook of research on music teaching and learning. Oxford University Press, Oxford. 199-209. Dubois, Vincent; Méon, Jean-Matthieo & Pierriu, Emmanuel (2013): The Sociology of Wind Bands. Amateur Music Between Cultural Domination and Autonomy. Ashgate Publishing, Farnham. Graessle, R. K. (1998): Adult Music Programming in Member Schools of the National Guild Of Community Schools of the Arts. Dissertation. University of Oklahoma, Oklahoma. Hartz, Jason Michael (2003): The American Community Band: History and Development. Thesis, Marshall University, Huntington. Hollós Lajos (1980): A fúvószene története. Népművelési Intézet, Budapest. Jutras, Peter (2011): The Benefits of New Horizons Band Participation as Self-Reported by Selected New Horizons Band Members. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education. 49. 183. 65-84. King, Tyler C. (2009): Factors Influencing Adults’ Participation in Community Bands of Central Ohio. Thesis, Ohio State University, Colombus. Marosi László (1994): Két évszázad katonazenéje Magyarországon. A magyarországi katonazene története; Katonakarmesterek 1741-1945. Zrínyi Kiadó. Budapest. Myers, David E (1995): Lifelong learning: An Emerging Research Agenda for Music Education. Research Studies in Music Education. 4. 1. 21-27. Pitss, Stephanie (2009): Roots and routes in adult musical participation: Investigating the impact of home and school on lifelong musical interest and involvement. British Journal of Music Education. 26. 3.sz. 241-256. Tsugava, Samuel (2009): Senior adult music learning, motivation, and meaning construction in two New Horizons ensembles. Doctoral Dissertation, Arizona State University, Arizona.