Behind Closed Doors: A Study of Solitary Music Making.
Bennett, Ryland.
2015
-
Abstract: Automusication, the act of performing music by and for oneself, is an extraordinarily widespread musical phenomenon, yet it has never been given rigorous scholarly attention. The weight given to performance within the ethnomusicological community has created a bias toward the social and communal aspects of music at the expense of private or personal musical behaviors. Studies in every ... read moreday musical experiences have begun to broach hitherto under-researched musical activities, but rarely has solitary music making been addressed in a scholarly forum. The primary intent of my research is to begin to construct an ethnography of solitary musical practitioners, specifically focusing on those I have classified as "automusicants." This research is situated alongside studies of listening habits and practicing as well as interdisciplinary literature pertaining to music cognition, perception, trance, solitude, and play. Three primary phases underpin this study: 1. A macroscopic view of automusication as a widespread practice, constructed through the assembly of large-scale data by way of web-based surveys. 2. A mid-level view of the role of automusication in the lives of numerous self-identified solitary music-makers. 3. A microscopic view analyzing the automusication of several informants through close dialectic feedback interviews and recording analysis By blending a nuanced, in-depth look at informants' musical lives with large-scale survey data I assemble a basic conceptual framework for the analysis and discussion of automusication. The relationship between one's public and private musical lives is examined in depth, situating the practice of automusication within the broader context of one's musical identity.
Thesis (M.A.)--Tufts University, 2015.
Submitted to the Dept. of Music.
Advisor: Richard Jankowsky.
Committee: Robert Labaree, and Jeffrey Summit.
Keyword: Music.read less - ID:
- rr172895w
- Component ID:
- tufts:21361
- To Cite:
- TARC Citation Guide EndNote
