Alexandra Lamont

Exploring engagement with music in everyday life using experience sampling methodology

Recent qualitative research has highlighted differences in people’s music-listening behaviour according to their level of involvement with and interest in music, yet these findings are mainly based on retrospective accounts of patterns of behaviour (Greasley, 2008; Greasley & Lamont, 2006; Lonie, 2009). Experience sampling methodology (ESM) is a valuable tool for studying music in everyday contexts, and it has been shown to increase people’s conscious awareness of the role of music in their lives (Sloboda, O’Neill, & Ivaldi, 2001). Using ESM, the present study explored differences in people’s everyday engagement with music by recruiting three different types of listener: those identified as having low, moderate, or high engagement with music. Over seven days, quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 25 young adults (aged 18–30) on what they were doing while hearing music (e.g., activities) and the functions/effects of music (e.g., reasons influencing choices). Post-study interviews with 23 participants then generated retrospective accounts about specific musical experiences. Analysis revealed two broad types of listener: the less engaged, who listened for fewer hours a week (min = 3 hours, mean = 12 hours), were less likely to be hearing self-chosen music, and were more likely to listen to music to pass time, out of habit or to help them feel less alone; and the highly engaged, who listened for a greater number of hours per week (mean = 21 hours, max = 40 hours), were more likely to be hearing self-chosen music, and were more likely to use music to evoke specific moods, create an atmosphere, or enhance an activity. The study confirmed the usefulness of ESM for investigating the complex (and interacting) factors involved in people’s daily musical choices, and highlighted ways in which music can fulfil different functions concurrently. Findings show that future research on everyday musical behaviour should continue to account for the context of music listening in shaping responses to and uses of music; and account for individual differences in people’s levels of engagement with music.

Short- and Long-Term Musical Preferences: What Makes a Favourite Piece of Music?.

Within the growing field of music preferences, little is currently known about the concept of a favourite piece of music. The current study explores listeners’ nominated favourite pieces of music over short and longer time-spans, combining diary and interview methods to uncover what a favourite means, how stable it is, and what factors influence the development of favourites. Nine undergraduate students participated in a diary study spanning one month, with follow-up interviews conducted with two participants. Results indicate that musical favourites are subject to rapid change and highly context-dependent. Most daily favourites were heard on the day, either deliberately or by chance. ‘Magpie’ listeners collected a large number of relatively transient favourites, while ‘squirrel’ listeners had a large catalogue of music stored from which to select. Long-term favourites differed from daily favourites, being associated with intense emotional events in listeners’ lives. In this small-scale study, diary methods successfully captured fluctuations in music preferences over time for most listeners, while interviews revealed more about listeners’ motivations and personal stories connected with their favourite music. Future research is required with larger samples to tease out the complexities of developing music preferences over time and engagement with music in everyday life settings.

University Students' Strong Experiences of Music: Pleasure, Engagement, and Meaning:

Research has begun to explore the nature of strong experiences of music listening, identifying a number of individual components from physiological through to psychological (Gabrielsson & Lindström Wik, 2003), but this has not yet been considered in relation to mainstream theories of happiness. Drawing on positive psychology, Seligman’s (2002) framework for achieving balanced wellbeing includes the components of pleasure, engagement, and meaning. In the current study, 46 university students (median age 21) gave free reports of their strongest, most intense experiences of music listening. Accounts were analysed thematically using an idiographic approach, exploring the relevance of Seligman’s framework. Most strong experiences were positive, and occurred at live events with others. A wide range of mainly familiar music was associated with reported strong experiences, from classical through jazz and folk to old and new pop music, and experiences lasted for varying time periods from seconds to hours. Unexpected musical or non-musical events were sometimes associated with strong experiences. None of the accounts could be characterized by a single route to happiness: in addition to hedonism, engagement and meaning (particularly in terms of identity) were present in every description, and the findings thus emphasize the power of music to evoke a state of authentic happiness. The importance of taking account of the music, the listener, and the situation in order to fully understand these experiences is underlined.

Emotion, engagement and meaning in strong experiences of music performance

This paper explores the emotions connected with music performance. Performing music provides the potential to attain wellbeing via the hedonic and eudaimonic routes, appealing to pleasure, engagement and meaning (Seligman, 2002). To date, most research exploring emotions amongst performers has focused on these components separately, exploring positive or negative affect, flow, or the development of performer identity. In the current study, 35 university students (mean age 20.6 years) gave free reports of their strongest, most intense experiences of performing music. Accounts were content analyzed using the Strong Experiences of Music Descriptive System (Gabrielsson & Lindström Wik, 2003), and also analyzed for the components of wellbeing using an idiographic approach. Four basic types of response were characterized, emphasizing: (1) negative and positive emotions and personal engagement; (2) negative and positive emotions, engagement and meaning; (3) positive emotion and meaning; or (4) positive emotions, engagement, and meaning. The emphasis on the eudaimonic route to wellbeing (through engagement and meaning) shows that young musicians do have valuable and rewarding experiences with the potential to sustain long-term motivation to engage with practical music-making. The value of the positive psychology framework is also demonstrated by its applicability to descriptions of strong experiences of performing music.

Mapping Music Education Research in the UK

Over the past 25 years there has been an increasing and worldwide research interest in music education, embracing a range of disciplines and perspectives. As well as particular research foci on the nature of curricula, musical behaviour and development, new research literatures have been developed that link music education with ethnomusicology, psychology (including neuropsychobiology, cognitive and developmental psychology), history, sociology and philosophy, as well as with mainstream studies in pedagogy. This review creates a ‘map’ of these various and related literatures in order to (i) provide a summative overview of the current breadth and depth of available research knowledge for actual and potential users, and (ii) create a research development agenda that embraces indicators of possible research priorities for the immediate future. The review is also a celebration of the major UK impact on these research literatures. An introduction (Swanwick) leads into a series of linked overviews, focusing first on research concerned with individual musical development (Hallam and Lamont), then on the potential impact to musical learning of social group membership (O’Neill and Green) and schooling (Cox and Hennessy) and concluding with an ethnomusicological perspective (Farrell) and coda (Welch).

The beat goes on: music education, identity and lifelong learning

Do you think of yourself as a musician? In a recent online survey, I found that of 530 amateur adult music-makers (aged 21 83 years) from around the world, nearly 20% had a relatively negative musical identity despite the fact that they were actively involved in making music (see Figure 1). Closer analysis of these ratings shows that they are not explained in terms of level of professionalism or years of experience with music. The answer to this relatively simple question, then, seems to tell us something about the musical identity of adults (cf. Hargreaves, Miell, and MacDonald 2002). This parallels my earlier findings that all children do not consider themselves to be musically active. Within a context of National Curriculum music being delivered in all schools, all the children who took part in my doctoral research were musically active in listening, performing and composing at the time; however, around a third of them felt that they did not play a musical instrument (see Lamont 2002). The answers to these simple questions must then reflect something about people’s self-concepts that is not explicable in terms of activities or professional roles, but has more to do with hidden attitudes, beliefs and values as well as perhaps perceived competence. From my adult data, amateur singers tended to have more negative responses than instrumentalists, which also parallels our findings that children define ‘a musician’ as someone who plays an instrument (and not necessarily a singer) (Lamont 2011; Lamont et al. submitted). To address this question of musical identity, which is central to my argument, the research I mainly draw on takes the form of qualitative, in-depth interviews with people about how music fits into their everyday lives and musical biographies. In this I adopt a largely biographical and social constructionist perspective, asking people to reflect on important experiences in their musical lives. As Rosenwald and Ochberg (1992, 2) have argued:

Music, Education, and the Development of Pitch Perception: The Role of Context, Age and Musical Experience

This paper presents the results of an investigation into childrens music listening capabilities with respect to musical pitch, focusing on the effects of types of materials presented in a short-term listening situation using the probe-note methodology. Results from a listening task administered to children of different levels of musical experience aged between 6 and 16 illustrate that childrens capabilities exceeded those typically ascribed to them by music educators and psychologists. In particular, children appeared more sensitive to higher-order musical features such as interval content than to more surface features such as contour, and these sensitivities increased with age and experience. Furthermore, the distinction between musicians and non-musicians typically drawn in music- psychological research was found to be insufficient in characterising the range of childrens perceptual behaviours. Evidence was also found to support the reliability of responses given in short-term listening situations.

Music and emotion Themes and development

This special issue draws on a selection of papers presented at the inaugural International Conference on Music and Emotion in Durham in 2009, focusing on the scientific approach to understanding music and emotions. In this editorial we consider the current state of research into music and emotion, drawing comparisons with the earlier special issue of this journal published ten years ago and between the two edited collections which mark progress in this period. We consider issues of theory and methodology in relation to the wider field of psychology of music as illustrated by the papers in this volume and other recently published research, considering some of the barriers towards progress and some of the areas where new insights have been gained.

Exploring Musical Preferences: An In-Depth Qualitative Study of Adults' Liking for Music in Their Personal Collections

A wide range of psychological approaches have been used to explore musical preferences, yet few studies have focused on peoples own preferred music. This article reports the results of a qualitative study into the breadth, content, and rationale of musical preferences. In-depth interviews were conducted with adults (age range 18–73 years) at home with their music collections, which acted as an aide memoire to their preferred styles. Results show that people typically prefer a wide range of styles, providing support for the increasing trend towards omnivorous musical tastes; that there are considerable differences in the extent to which musical characteristics (e.g., lyrics, instrumentation) and responses to music (e.g., cognitive, affective) shape preferences; and that musical preferences play a key role in shaping self-identity. Findings highlight the merit of using qualitative interviewing, with its emphasis on subjective perceptions, interpretations, and evaluations for exploring musical likes and dislikes, and have implications for future studies in the field. In particular, the research underlines the need for a shift away from approaches that explore musical preferences by presenting listeners with a list of predetermined style categories, as these are likely to be interpreted in different ways.

Exploring children's singing development: do experiences in early schooling help or hinder?

This paper outlines a novel approach to studying childrens singing that enables a more accurate and global picture to be drawn of childrens actual level of singing achievement across a range of tasks. It enables predictions to be made about their potential singing development in a formal school setting. It draws on a two-year longitudinal field study of children aged 4 to 8 years. The results highlight considerable diversity in actual singing achievement in different tasks and different test contexts. Childrens singing development is both varied and multifaceted, and this has considerable implications for teaching and assessing singing as well as other forms of music-making that depend on singing in the first few years of school.