Due to technological developments including MP3 format and portable music players, people are now easily able to listen to music to accompany almost every everyday life situation, and music listening is particularly common while travelling (North, Hargreaves and Hargreaves, 2004). The current research explores several related aspects of listening to music while travelling in order to uncover more about why people choose to listen to music in relatively short and purposeful travelling situations. It explores mobile listeners — people who choose to listen to music while travelling. A Mobile Flyer Survey was conducted with 428 mobile listeners on and around a university campus (mean age 20.5 years) at the point of music listening, asking about the music they had chosen and their listening experience. Follow-up interviews were conducted with eight mobile listeners to explore their views on music and travelling in more depth. Results show that listeners create an “auditory bubble” in public places while travelling, although paradoxically this also enhances their awareness of their surroundings and is partly permeable. Music while travelling primarily fulfils the functions of enjoyment, passing time and enhancing emotional states. Mobile listeners also consciously choose their music depending on their current goals and desires, which may link to their journey's destination. The findings thus shed light on how technological gadgets like MP3 players are used to control listeners' needs and desires outside the home.

The profession of orchestral musician is often linked to musculoskeletal problems, hearing disorders, and struggles with stage fright. However, data on the prevalence of physical problems are very divergent because of different research methods and sampling procedures. It is to be expected that physical problems generally increase with age, but the literature on medical issues that affect musicians contains very few studies on this aspect. In light of this, the data produced by a cross-sectional study of 2,536 musicians from 133 professional symphony orchestras in Germany were analyzed with regard to a number of health aspects. The data from 894 female (36%) and 1,607 male (64%) professional orchestral musicians aged between 20 and 69 (M ¼ 45.5, SD ¼ 9.52) were used to study physical problems, their duration and intensity, and psychological difficulties (such as pressure to perform in the orchestra and stage fright) in conjunction with variables such as age, gender, instrument family, position in the orchestra, and category of orchestra. The various health problems were also examined in relation to health behaviors, including preventative actions taken (nutrition, sleep, etc.). The results showed that more than one in two (55%) of the orchestral musicians who took part in the survey were suffering at the time from physical problems that affected their playing. The prevalence increased significantly with advancing age, and string players and harpists had an above-average frequency of experiencing physical problems. Interestingly, there was no significant correlation between the severity of problems and different health behaviors (including preventative action). Around half (49%) of the orchestral musicians said they felt the pressure to perform was intensifying, something that they partly attributed to an increase in artistic demands. The findings are discussed with reference to existing empirical results, potential methods of prevention and treatment, social aspects, and health-care policies.

The use of the lifespan perspective as a reference point for analysing and researching the musical and artistic development of professional musicians has only recently begun to attract more attention amongst music researchers and educators and amongst musicians themselves. The knowledge about the processes of aging and their influences on making music is especially scarce. This study presents the results of a representative questionnaire on the issue of growing older in a symphony orchestra. A total of 2,536 professional musicians aged between 20 and 69 from 133 German Kulturorchester took part in the survey. The orchestral musicians were asked about a range of issues, including their own perception of their age, how the perks of being a musician change over time and how they manage declining performance caused by aging. The results show how the years between 40 and 50 are a time of change. During this period, musicians feel they leave their youth behind and join the older age group. This is also the time when they feel they have left behind their period of peak musical performance and are now on a downward slope. The majority of musicians notice that their performance is declining due to a range of age-related factors that can be divided into four categories: physical problems, cognitive problems, sensory organ problems and psychological problems. These findings confirm the inverted J-curve that was described in previous studies on the topic of peak musical performance.

The present study examines the prevalence, localization, frequency, and intensity of playing-related pain (PRP) in a sample of high-performing young musicians. We also address coping behavior and communication about PRP between young musicians, teachers, parents, and other people, such as friends. The aim is to provide information on PRP among high-performing musicians in childhood and adolescence, which can serve as a basis for music education, practice, and prevention in the context of instrumental teaching and musicians’ health. The study is part of a large-scale study (N = 1,143) with highly musically gifted participants (age 9–24 years; M = 15.1; SD = 2.14, female = 62%) at the national level of the “Jugend musiziert” (youth making music) contest. For data analyses, we used descriptive statistics, correlations, Chi2-tests, principal component analysis, Kruskal–Wallis H tests, and multivariate regression. About three-quarters (76%) of the surveyed participants stated that they had experienced pain during or after playing their instrument. Female musicians were significantly more frequently affected (79%) than male musicians (71%). With increasing age, the prevalence of PRP rises from 71 percent (9–13 years) to 85 percent (18–24 years). Regarding localization of pain, results are in line with many other studies with musculoskeletal problems the most common. Furthermore, data show a clear relationship between the duration of practice and the prevalence of PRP. Our study found averages of 7:18 h/week, whereas mean values of the duration of practice vary considerably between different instruments. The variance in practice duration is very large within the different instruments. Thus, when researching PRP, it is necessary to consider both the differences between different groups of instruments in the average duration of practice as well as the very large inter-individual variation in the duration of practice within a given instrument group. While just over half of the young musicians (56%) felt they had been taken seriously, 32 percent felt that their complaints were not completely taken seriously, and 12 percent did not feel taken seriously at all. Therefore, it is necessary to improve communication and information about PRP to prevent PRP and counteract existing complaints.

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