Musical Identities

Music plays an important role in all our lives, and is a channel through which we can express emotions, thoughts, political statements, and social relationships. However, just as music can be a channel through which we express ourselves, it can also have a profound influence on our own developing sense of identity. This is the first book to explore the powerful effect that music can have as we develop our sense of identity, from adolescence through to adulthood. Bringing together leading experts from psychology and music, it will be a valuable addition to the music psychology literature, and essential for music psychologists, social and developmental psychologists, and educational psychologists.

Raymond MacDonald is Professor of Music Psychology and Improvisation and Head of The School of Music at University of Edinburgh. He runs music workshops and lectures internationally and has published over 70 peer reviewed papers and book chapters. He has co-edited four texts, Musical Identities (2002), Musical Communication (2005), Musical Imaginations (2012) and Music Health et Wellbeing (2012) and was editor of the journal Psychology of Music between 2006 and 2012. His on-going research focuses on issues relating to improvisation, musical communication, music health and wellbeing, music education and musical identities. As a saxophonist and composer he is a founding member of The Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra and has released over 60 CDs. Collaborating with musicians such as David Byrne, George Lewis, Evan Parker, Jim O'Rourke and Marilyn Crispell he has toured and broadcast worldwide and has written music for film, television, theatre, radio and art installations.

Postnational Musical Identities gathers interdisciplinary essays that explore how music audiences and markets are imagined in a globalized scenario, how music reflects and reflects upon new understandings of citizenship beyond the nation-state, and how music works as a site of resistance against globalization. 'Hybridity,' 'postnationalism,' 'transnationalism,' 'globalization,' 'diaspora,' and similar buzzwords have not only informed scholarly discourse and analysis of music but also shaped the way musical productions have been marketed worldwide in recent times. While the construction of identities occupies a central position in this context, there are discrepancies between the conceptualization of music as an extremely fluid phenomenon and the traditionally monovalent notion of identity to which it has historically been incorporated. As such, music has always been linked to the construction of regional and national identities. The essays in this collection seek to explore the role of music, networks of music distribution, music markets, music consumption, music production, and music scholarship in the articulation of postnational sites of identification.

Cutting across countries, genres, and time periods, this volume explores topics ranging from hip hop’s influence on Maasai identity in current day Tanzania to jazz in Bulawayo during the interwar years, using music to tell a larger story about the cultures and societies of Africa.

Jewish Identities mounts a formidable challenge to prevailing essentialist assumptions about "Jewish music," which maintain that ethnic groups, nations, or religious communities possess an essence that must manifest itself in art created by members of that group. Klára Móricz scrutinizes concepts of Jewish identity and reorders ideas about twentieth-century "Jewish music" in three case studies: first, Russian Jewish composers of the first two decades of the twentieth century; second, the Swiss American Ernest Bloch; and third, Arnold Schoenberg. Examining these composers in the context of emerging Jewish nationalism, widespread racial theories, and utopian tendencies in modernist art and twentieth-century politics, Móricz describes a trajectory from paradigmatic nationalist techniques, through assumptions about the unintended presence of racial essences, to an abstract notion of Judaism.

Music is a tremendously powerful channel through which people develop their personal and social identities. Music is used to communicate emotions, thoughts, political statements, social relationships, and physical expressions. But, just as language can mediate the construction and negotiation of developing identities, so music can also be a means of communication through which aspects of people's identities are constructed. Music can have a profound influence on our developing sense of identity, our values, and our beliefs, whether from rock music, classical music, or jazz. Different research studies in social and developmental psychology are beginning to chart the various ways in which these processes occur, and this is the first book to examine the relationship between music and identity. The first section focuses on Developing Musical Identities, and deals with the ways in which individuals involved in musical participation develop personal identities that are intrinsically musical. Chapters include: 'The self identity of young musicians', 'Musical identities and the school environment' and 'Personal identity and music: a family perspective'. The second section deals with Developing Identities Through Music and contains chapters on 'Gender identity and music', 'National identity and music' and 'Music as a catalyst for changing personal identity'. This is the first book to deal with musical identity from a psychological perspective, and will be fascinating and important reading for postgraduate and research psychologists in social, developmental, and music psychology. The book will also appeal to those within the applied fields of health and educational psychology, music education, and music therapy.

Music is a powerful process and resource that can shape and support who we are and wish to be. The interaction between musical identities and learning music highlights school music education’s potential contributions and responsibilities, especially in supporting young people’s mental health and well-being. Through the distinctive stories and drawings of Aaron, Blake, Conor, Elijah, Michael, and Tyler, this book reveals the musical identities of teenage boys in their final year of study at an Australian boys’ school. This text serves as an interface between music, education, and psychology using narrative inquiry. Previous research in music education often seeks to generalise boys, whereas this study recognises and celebrates the diverse individual voices of students where music plays a significant role in their lives. Adolescent boys’ musical identities are examined using the theories of identity work and possible selves, and their underlying music values and uses are considered important guiding principles and motivating goals in their identity construction. A teaching and learning framework to shape and support multiple musical identities in senior secondary class music is presented. The relatable and personal stories in this book will appeal to a broad readership, including music teachers, teacher educators, researchers, and readers interested in the role of music in our lives. Creative and arts-based research methods, including narrative inquiry and innovative draw and tell interviews, will be particularly relevant for research method courses and postgraduate research students.

Small Musical Worlds in the Mediterranean is a pioneering book-length study of the complex topics of identity, ethnicity and global processes in children’s musical lives in the Republic of Cyprus - a Mediterranean country during its post-colonial era. What is it about this country’s musical enculturation that made musical identity such a potent element in Greek Cypriot children’s worlds? How is history, tradition, modernity, ethnic fluidity, syncretism and diversification in the Mediterranean negotiated in the construction of musical ’self’ and ’other’ in children’s daily lives? This book, through a journey of ’fieldwork at home’, discusses how children select, reject, reproduce and transform meanings and create new ones at the micro-level of their lives through which individuals and groups define themselves and others. Towards this exploration, musical identity in childhood is discussed in terms of cultural production and reproduction, human expression, inter-relating and learning. Ethnographic vignettes of children’s musical practices and direct words add depth and humour to the flow of the book. This study is a synthesis of ethnomusicology, musical anthropology, education and folklore in which the author effectively weaves together theories of musical enculturation and identity, sociocultural learning and human agency. The book will be invaluable to scholars interested in musical enculturation, musical identities, children’s contextual musical practices, ethnicity, globalization studies, music education and Mediterranean studies.