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Musicae Scientiae

Editor's Choice Collection: Music in Everyday Life

Introduction

This collection of articles highlights the pervasive role of music in everyday life. The compilation of papers covers a time span of about 15 years, which demonstrates that the functions of music outside the traditional concert hall have been of continuous interest for music cognition research. The collection also shows that music might also be regarded as “social cement” which brings people together. This compilation represents my personal view, it is not an exaggeration to say that all selected papers are characterised by innovative research ideas and have been cited or downloaded many times. The study by Sloboda, O’Neill and Ivaldi (2001) is a classic in the social psychology of music. It was the first study that utilized the experience sampling method in the investigation of our everyday use of music. In the paper by Cassidy and MacDonald (2009) the authors studied the influence of music on performance in a driving game which simulated the widely distributed use of music as an accompaniment to other everyday activities. Heye and Lamont (2010) continued this line of research by focusing on music listening by means of mobile devices. In their on-campus survey, the authors explored the “auditory bubble” and the central motive of mood regulation for mobile music listening. Plazak and Huron (2011) extended previous research on the perception of very short musical excerpts (“Plinks”) and identified duration thresholds for the above-chance perception of various musical parameters. In a field study, Haake (2011) investigated the use of music at work as a tool for shaping the personal well-being and mood management, and for escaping from unpleasant work. Ballantyne, Ballantyne and Packer (2014) asked about the motivation of popular music festival visitors and found that all subjectively perceived benefits (e.g., well-being, interpersonal relations) increased with the number of days attended, which means that a festival offers much more than a music experience. In their innovative cross-cultural approach, Brabant and Toiviainen (2015) investigated the possible influences of the time of day on perceived emotions in Hindustani and Western music and observed preliminary evidence for chronobiological effects. Today, many public locations use background music but only little is known about its effects on the staff. Silverman and Hallberg (2015) could show through the example of live music presented in the waiting area of a medical clinic that live presentation is evaluated positively. Finally, Platz, Kopiez, Hasselhorn and Wolf (2015) had a look at the relationship between our accumulated life-long listening biography and autobiographical memory. They could show that the everyday exposure to music via mass media contributes to our construction of identity. This repository of music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) could become relevant in the therapy of dementia patients.

This collection might be suitable as a reader for teaching seminars, but it should also whet our appetite for a closer look at the content of Musicæ Scientiæ. The easiest way to stay up to date with the most recently released articles of Musicæ Scientiæ is to go to the journal’s website and subscribe to the RSS feed (http://msx.sagepub.com/rss/). I wish you interesting reading!

– Reinhard Kopiez, Editor-in-Chief, Musicae Scientiae

To view an article, click on the title or the Full Text link below it.

Functions of music in everyday life: An exploratory study using the experience sampling method

John A. Sloboda, Susan A. O'Neill and Antonia Ivaldi (2001) Volume 5, Issue 1.

| Abstract | Full Text (PDF) | References |

The effects of music choice on task performance: A study of the impact of self-selected and experimenter-selected music on driving game performance and experience

Gianna Cassidy and Raymond MacDonald (2009) Volume 13, Issue 2.

| Abstract | Full Text (PDF) | References |

Mobile listening situations in everyday life: The use of MP3 players while travelling

Andreas Heye and Alexandra Lamont (2010) Volume 14, Issue 1.

| Abstract | Full Text (PDF) | References |

The first three seconds: Listener knowledge gained from brief musical excerpts