Autobiographical Significance of Meaningful Musical Experiences: Reflections on Youth and Identity

Abstract

Meaningful musical experiences during youth can leave a lasting impression on an individual by shaping their identity and place in the world. This study examines such experiences in relation to autobiography and self-identity. An online questionnaire ( N = 50) was distributed to establish how individuals understood musical experiences from their youth as important to their past and present self-identities. Following the online study, 10 questionnaire participants were selected to be interviewed to further examine the meanings created within their nominated experiences, and how these meanings had been autobiographically contextualised against the backdrop of the memory of these experiences. Questionnaire data was analysed using Thematic Analysis to establish shared autobiographical- and identity-related concepts. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis served as the methodological framework for analysing the participant interviews to support a more individualised interpretation of each participant’s experience. Data from the online questionnaire were analysed to reveal a network of identity- and autobiography-relevant themes, which were organised under three wider thematic categories: the self, the social, and the musical. Analysis of the interviews, guided by Identity Theory, revealed individual differences in participants’ processes of identity formation, relationships with music, and attitudes towards their past selves. In both sets of data, prominent themes emerged around ideas of personal transformation and pivoting to a new path in life. These findings frame autobiographically significant musical experiences as powerful in their potential to contribute to identity formation, although their impact varies for each individual. We assessed this autobiographical significance through the enduring salience over time of the identity the experience affected, enabled by our respondents’ reflections on both their past and their present self-identities. Our results illustrate that music can support a wide range of self-identity-relevant meanings, and fundamentally transform our sense of who we are.

AI composer bias: Listeners like music less when they think it was composed by an AI.

“…That is, our work suggests that individuals may be less likely to accept creative works ostensibly produced by AIs because they like them less than creative works produced by humans. Musical preferences, tastes, and choices are highly individual and often a central part of a person’s identity (Lamont & Loveday, 2020; Lonsdale & North, 2017; Peck & Grealey, 2020). It may be that connection to the personal that makes the bias against AIs so important.…”

“…That is, if an artwork both fits with one’s prior schemas and is seen as self-relevant, this will result in positive aesthetic judgments of the work (Pelowski et al, 2017). Perhaps some of the aversion around AI-created music is that people have strong emotional responses to music and find music particularly central to their identities and sense of self (Lamont & Loveday, 2020; Lonsdale & North, 2017; Peck & Grealey, 2020). While seemingly obvious, prior research indicates that the primary reason people listen to music is because they enjoy it (Sanfilippo et al, 2020).…”

Music and Autobiographical Memory

“…The qualitative coding carried out by Lamont and Loveday (2020) and Peck & Grealey (2020) also both revealed that musical qualities are a key contributor toward a piece of music's autobiographical relevance. For instance, Lamont and Loveday (2020) reported instances of participants relating to the lyrics of a song: that is, some may elicit memories because the lyrics describe similar events or sentiments to a listener's own past experiences.…”

On the role of familiarity and developmental exposure in music-evoked autobiographical memories

“…Similarly, recall of these memories might be improved by consistent resampling of these memories as older adults continue to listen to music from this time period across the lifespan (Janssen et al, 2007). Because music is associated with identity formation in adolescence (North & Hargreaves, 1999;North, Hargreaves, & O'Neill, 2000), memories and experiences associated with this music also likely play an important role in how adolescents define themselves throughout their life (Conway, 2005;Peck & Grealey, 2020).…”