In dialogue: Two music psychology scholars discuss listening practices

Krause, Amanda;Brown, Steven

Abstract

Here we present a dialogue between ourselves – Dr Amanda Krause and Dr Steven Brown, two music psychology researchers, with expertise in people’s everyday music listening behaviours. Through conversation, we reflect on and compare our personal music listening practices. In particular, our dialogue focuses on the impact the digital revolution had on our use of emerging digital listening technologies (specifically mobile devices, playlists, and shuffle), how our practices have developed over time, and how these practices have been negotiated due to our research studies and findings. For instance, Dr Krause recounts how she became driven to listen to her entire, vast digital music library by using the shuffle feature on an mp3 player and Dr Brown shares how his affinity for music subscription services has resulted in spending more time listening to playlists than albums. Both of us discuss how creating playlists and other digital interactions with music are forms of music-making, expanding upon the traditional definition of music-making and musicianship. Our reflection situates our own experiences against the landscape of relevant research findings, including those concerning playlist creation, agency and control over listening, and what psychological theories, like Uses and Gratifications theory, offer in terms of understanding listening behaviours. We also hypothesize about listening practices in the future, considering changing technologies, the impact of COVID-19, and health and well-being implications, given that musical preferences now have as much to do with the mediums used to listen to music - and the functions that they serve - than the actual music selected.

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2513-8537

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Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research

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