A Holistic Approach to the Mechanisms of Music Engagement

Abstract

Meaning is encoded in the production and decoded by the audience during the consumption, which is why it is a process of constant feedback. Each person experiences meaningful connotations in relation to their favourite music, hence music occupies a particular position in each one’s life and within the cultural life of particular individuals and groups.

Music meaning and emotion has been studied by David Carr (2004), who wonders if emotion is intrinsic in music, or if it is a symbolic representation – or rather if emotions are projected from the listener onto the music. Like Akio Morita (the co-founder of Sony, and the person behind Sony Walkman), Jean Baudrillard argues that meaning does not reside in an object but in how that object is used (Du Gay et al. 1997, 90). Is there a relation between what music means to an individual and his/her preference for a particular genre?

The methodological approach is mainly qualitative. I have analysed 215 responses to an online questionnaire, and followed this with an analysis of 8 semi-structured in-depth interviews. I seek to comprehend the space that music occupies in the net of relationships that constitute culture, and to discover the mechanisms of taste configuration in relation to music-meaning within a holistic approach, encompassing the circuit of culture as a theoretical framework.