Music and Health Promotion - In the Life of Music Therapy and Music Psychology Researchers: A Pilot Study

Abstract

In August 2013, the Centre for Music and Health published its first anthology in English - ‘Musical Life Stories’. In the Anthology, 17 authors from 6 countries present their research on the influence of music in a lifelong health perspective. A unique feature of the book is a collection of “personal narratives” by the authors. 13 of the authors wrote a short, free-form narrative about the influence of music on their own identity and health from a life span perspective.

This article describes a thematic analysis of the 13 narratives. I investigated the question “Do these music therapy/music psychology researchers use music for their own health in different ways than lay people?” The themes identified are related to the international research literature on music and identity, as well as being considered in relation to the author’s study of health themes in the musical autobiographies of music therapy students at Aalborg University (DK). The analysis reveals that the researchers’ appreciation and appropriation of music’s affordances are basically the same as those reported by music therapy students and lay people.