David Baxter PhD
Late Founder
Music in Everyday Life
by Alinka Greasley
PhD student, School of Psychology, Keele University
Our research has explored people?s musical preferences and listening behaviours in everyday life, studying music?s role in the lives of over 300 adults. Our main questions have been to establish how important music is to people and explore their breadth of preferences; to examine and identify the complexities of meaning involved in people?s personal choices of music in everyday life; to map similarities/differences in people?s musical behaviour; and to explore real-life music listening experiences in the contexts in which they naturally occur.
Building music collections
In this study, people were interviewed at home with their music collections in order to explore preferences across the lifespan. Their accounts emphasised the ephemeral nature of musical likes and dislikes (i.e. they reported their preferences were constantly changing, both on a day-to-day basis, and over time), and they described a wide range of factors they felt contributed to these changes. These included social influences (the role of family, partners, friends); geographical location; social identities (the extent to which they associate with particular artists and styles); and personal values (e.g. beliefs, self-concept).
Adopting a ?life-stage? approach, the results show that childhood is a period in which people are strongly influenced by others and listen to whatever music was around, rather than making deliberate choices themselves. In the school years, many reported aligning their preferences to match those of their friendship groups; however some people also reported liking music that was ?different? to their peers? preferences at this age. Early adulthood was emphasised by many as a critical period in their lifespan during which they had acquired, purchased and listened to more music; made different choices about which styles they preferred and made decisions about what to buy in the future. This major transition was attributed to an increase in social interaction (i.e. the more people you meet, the more styles of music you get exposed to and thus potentially like) and changes in lifestyle (e.g. becoming a university student). People also reported that at this stage, they had begun to acknowledge that other people have unique patterns of musical preferences, and that there is no ?bad? or ?good? taste ? everyone is different.
Overall, our research shows that people?s music collections grow steadily throughout the lifespan, flowing through phases of preference for different styles, and acquiring more musical preferences along the way.
Everyday music listening habits
We have also focused on people?s everyday listening behaviours and uses of music - what people report ?doing? with their preferred music. We have uncovered a great deal of variation in people?s listening practices. Some of this variation can be explained in terms of a spectrum of listener types: for instance, some people like to have high degrees of choice over the music they hear, will try to listen to as much as possible, and always listen to music attentively, while others are less concerned about choice or quantity and predominantly use music as a backdrop to other activities.
However, one of our key findings is that there is also variation within individuals, which is influenced partly by the listening context, partly by the music itself, and partly by the personal associations that have been developed with particular music by individuals. For example, many people told us that specific tracks on albums served specific functions (rather than the album as a whole). The most common use of music in everyday settings was for mood regulation (for example, ?floating away? a negative mood, or relaxation). People also value music?s ability to hold memories, and see their music collections as a form of personal autobiography which shifts in response to continued listening across the lifespan.
Further work is exploring a wide range of everyday listening contexts captured in real time in a sample of young adults, and results will be available shortly.
by Alinka Greasley
PhD student, School of Psychology, Keele University
Our research has explored people?s musical preferences and listening behaviours in everyday life, studying music?s role in the lives of over 300 adults. Our main questions have been to establish how important music is to people and explore their breadth of preferences; to examine and identify the complexities of meaning involved in people?s personal choices of music in everyday life; to map similarities/differences in people?s musical behaviour; and to explore real-life music listening experiences in the contexts in which they naturally occur.
Building music collections
In this study, people were interviewed at home with their music collections in order to explore preferences across the lifespan. Their accounts emphasised the ephemeral nature of musical likes and dislikes (i.e. they reported their preferences were constantly changing, both on a day-to-day basis, and over time), and they described a wide range of factors they felt contributed to these changes. These included social influences (the role of family, partners, friends); geographical location; social identities (the extent to which they associate with particular artists and styles); and personal values (e.g. beliefs, self-concept).
Adopting a ?life-stage? approach, the results show that childhood is a period in which people are strongly influenced by others and listen to whatever music was around, rather than making deliberate choices themselves. In the school years, many reported aligning their preferences to match those of their friendship groups; however some people also reported liking music that was ?different? to their peers? preferences at this age. Early adulthood was emphasised by many as a critical period in their lifespan during which they had acquired, purchased and listened to more music; made different choices about which styles they preferred and made decisions about what to buy in the future. This major transition was attributed to an increase in social interaction (i.e. the more people you meet, the more styles of music you get exposed to and thus potentially like) and changes in lifestyle (e.g. becoming a university student). People also reported that at this stage, they had begun to acknowledge that other people have unique patterns of musical preferences, and that there is no ?bad? or ?good? taste ? everyone is different.
Overall, our research shows that people?s music collections grow steadily throughout the lifespan, flowing through phases of preference for different styles, and acquiring more musical preferences along the way.
Everyday music listening habits
We have also focused on people?s everyday listening behaviours and uses of music - what people report ?doing? with their preferred music. We have uncovered a great deal of variation in people?s listening practices. Some of this variation can be explained in terms of a spectrum of listener types: for instance, some people like to have high degrees of choice over the music they hear, will try to listen to as much as possible, and always listen to music attentively, while others are less concerned about choice or quantity and predominantly use music as a backdrop to other activities.
However, one of our key findings is that there is also variation within individuals, which is influenced partly by the listening context, partly by the music itself, and partly by the personal associations that have been developed with particular music by individuals. For example, many people told us that specific tracks on albums served specific functions (rather than the album as a whole). The most common use of music in everyday settings was for mood regulation (for example, ?floating away? a negative mood, or relaxation). People also value music?s ability to hold memories, and see their music collections as a form of personal autobiography which shifts in response to continued listening across the lifespan.
Further work is exploring a wide range of everyday listening contexts captured in real time in a sample of young adults, and results will be available shortly.
