CIMSRS: Community Instrumental Music Service for Rural Scotland
Introduction to Arianna’s research:
‘CIMSRS’ is a PhD research project that looks to discover the impacts of providing accessible (cost-free) tuition for adults living in rural Scotland, who are often excluded from musicmaking and learning opportunities due to age and geographic barriers. The findings of this work were phenomenal, from participants describing an improved feelings of physical, psychological, and social isolation, sense of self-worth and confidence, a deeper connection to their families, local communities, and a means of finding support when challenges throughout adulthood can place identity and wellbeing in a state of flux.
About Arianna:
Arianna Ranieri, BMus is a freelance violist, session musician, upper strings instructor, research assistant, PhD researcher at Edinburgh Napier University. Her research project ‘CIMSRS: Community Instrumental Music Service for Rural Scotland’, received national recognition Scottish Rural Land & Estates Helping It Happen Awards 2025 (finalist), and media features including a primetime segment on STV News, special feature on BBC Radio Scotland Arts Mix, the Strad Magazine, the Scotsman and more. She has presented her work at national and international conferences and led a workshop and research project related to this work with ‘Stråkorkester för Alla (String Orchestra for All) in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden in early 2026.
Figure 1- ‘Edinburgh Napier University | Community Instrumental Music Service for Rural Scotland’
Figure 2- ‘Stråkorkester för Alla (String Orchestra for All) Örnsköldsvik, Sweden – CIMSRS Workshop
Stråkorkester för Alla (String Orchestra for All) Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, is an adult community orchestra that welcomes all levels of playing, and has been successfully operating for 15 years, under the direction of Anna Risberg. The orchestra has been transformative in the lives of participants, and for many, the orchestra is their family, home, and life. Risberg contacted Ranieri after seeing coverage of the CIMSRS project in the Strad Magazine, sparking a strong, international connection. Risberg presented on her work with the orchestra at the CIMSRS Symposium in 2025 at Edinburgh Napier University, and Ranieri visited the orchestra in Sweden to conduct ethnographic research on the orchestra, and led a workshop, which included a performance of Ranieri’s arrangement of the Scottish tune, ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’ specially arranged and dedicated to the orchestra
Overcoming Challenges: CIMSRS: Community Instrumental Music Service for Rural Scotland
Adults in rural Scotland are often excluded from learning and making music due to their age and geographic barriers. School music education ceases at the age of eighteen, and rural communities typically have limited, if any, access to local music educators, meaning that people are forced to travel to pursue music, at great personal cost and effort. ‘CIMSRS’ is a PhD research project that looks to discover the impacts of providing accessible (cost-free) tuition for adults living in rural Scotland, who are often excluded from musicmaking and learning opportunities due to age and geographic barriers. CIMSRS participants lamented their lack of access to music education, noting, for example: ‘I never had the chance’, I feel like we are just forgotten about’, and ‘I didn’t realise how isolated I was’. In response, ‘CIMSRS’ creates impact on communities and overcomes these challenges through the provision of accessible music tuition and enriching community music-making opportunities for adults in rural Scottish communities, providing significant life improvement for participants.
Logistical and financial challenges include advertising for recruitment, sourcing of instruments, venues, and permanence. Instruments were borrowed from local instrumental music services, music libraries and music shops, free of charge. Some participants invested in their own, while others borrow long-term; no one is left without an instrument. Venues were acquired by selecting venues in the research areas that played a central role in their communities, funded by the Edinburgh Napier University Public Engagement Funding.
Other challenges include creating an encouraging and motivating space, by adopting a humanizing pedagogy; a structured yet flexible approach led by individual’s needs, respecting the demands of adulthood, the vulnerability of being an adult learner, by foregrounding compassion, and ensuring a positive, rewarding experience for all.
Supporting the local community
Despite the foundation of music education, CIMSRS’s impact was and continues to be community-wide. For the research project, in 2024-2025, over the course of 39 weeks (12 weeks in each location) in three rural communities (Millport, Auchtermuchty and Glencoe) of around 20 adults, of all levels, received regular, accessible, bespoke group tuition, followed by a jam session open to all, led by Arianna Ranieri. After the project’s end, they still continue to be supported through connections made through the project with local players, professionals, and workshops delivered by Arianna Ranieri (primary researcher). For many, this provided opportunities to learn an instrument for the first time, a pathway for continuity for current players, and a space to make music with others in a supportive, local environment.
The impact of this project has been enormous. Participants report feeling less socially and psychologically isolated, an increased sense of purpose (especially after bereavement, retirement, and childbirth), new friendships, anxiety relief, building self-confidence and skills, and even less usage of pain medication. As a result, participants have started their own music groups, such as Millport’s ‘Bothy Bowers’, and Auchtermuchty’s ‘Eden Session Players’ and Glencoe’s ‘Coe Bow Society’. This project sparked social cohesion on various levels, from family life, where parents began learning alongside their children who receive music tuition in school, as well as bringing together others across the community in the jam sessions and community events, including concerts, Christmas light-up events, and collaborating with local theatre groups and choirs.
CIMSRS widens the margin of beneficiaries of music tuition, strengthening the position for continued support of the local instrumental music service in schools, by building a pathway for continuity after young adults leave school for lifelong learning. CIMSRS uses local venues (supporting the local economy) contributing to self-sustaining music scenes building on the culture, traditions, and needs of the community.
Ethical and environmental standards
Being an adult learner comes with many challenges, and it is important to recognize this vulnerability and the needs of each individual rural community and person for a successful project. The ethical basis for this project is centered around ‘humanness’. The pedagogy and structure of the project is to support the lives of adults and the challenges that come with adulthood, providing opportunities for engagement, not further barriers. Attendance is open, flexible, and materials are provided. All levels of playing are welcome, and a wide range of genres are performed for wider engagement. The teaching is bespoke and focuses on healthy playing for adults, with guidance on how to practice, group playing to foster a sense of agency and ownership in music-making from the first day.
What makes this project unique is that it is regular, bespoke tuition that is relevant, student-led, and local to rural communities. Environmentally it reduces several dozens of cars on the road travelling to lessons and jam sessions, by having the teacher as the only traveler, reducing the carbon footprint from fuel emissions. The instruments are borrowed and reused, creating less waste and keeping products and materials in circulation.
CIMSRS is a sustainable project, in community learning development, providing adults with the opportunity to engage with music learning and making, which brings overwhelming benefits to overall wellbeing and quality of life. The human-focused, community-driven approach, the environmental and local benefits have proven to be powerful in the enrichment of life in these rural communities.
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