Music Education Research

Vol. 7, No. 3, November 2005, pp. 289 304

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KEYNOTE

Music and informal learning in

everyday life
Kari Batt-Rawden* and Tia DeNora
University of Exeter, UK

Music sociology*perspective and theoretical focus

/

In this paper, we focus on informal learning as it is situated in and derived from

everyday life experience (Lave, 1988; Lave and Wenger, 1991). Our concern is with
informal musical learning and its link to health, well-being and the care of self,1 an
area that has already received some attention from research in music therapy,
especially the new and growing area of community music therapy (Stige, 2002;
Pavlicevic & Ansdell, 2004). In what follows, we deal with two interrelated themes.
In Part I we focus on the broad area of music in everyday life and in Part II we focus
on music and informal learning. These themes are then drawn together to focus on
musical learning and its role in healing and health promotion.
Theme 1*musicking (Small, 1998)*is an often-overlooked but extremely
/ /

powerful medium of world making. Through musicking, social worlds, identities,

bodies and situations are constructed. This is a theme initially broached in
philosophy*e.g. Plato’s statement that in music, ‘the guardians will build their
/

guardhouse’. It is also a theme that lends itself to empirical investigation, to the

extent that musical world-making practices and their consequences can be tracked
and documented.
Theme 2*learning or being taught how to musick*includes learning and being
/ /

taught the complex skill of how to use music*what music does, what it can do and
/

how it can be tapped for social purposes. This kind of learning involves encultura-
tion; it is the accumulation of social competences. Simultaneously, it is learning how
to use culture to ‘make’ the social world, through the making of possible scenarios
and affordances for human being.

Part I: Music in action

To set the scene, we present brief examples from an earlier study of music in daily life
(DeNora, 2000). Our aim here is to highlight the creative and resourceful ways

*Corresponding author.
ISSN 1461-3808 (print)/ISSN 1469-9893 (online)/05/030289-16
# 2005 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14613800500324507
290 K. Batt-Rawden and T. DeNora

people use music and, to varying degrees, how people use music as to construct
themselves in situated and imaginatively situated relation to others.
For example, music is a device for self-management and self-regulation and people
often ‘know what they need’, musically speaking:
Like with my R&B, most of the time I listen to it when I’m, you know, trying to relax.
I’m gonna sleep, sometimes I’ll throw on a few tracks to wake me up, nice ‘n slow and
then I’ll throw on something else. And then, sometimes, you know, if I’m not really, not
in that relaxed mood, I’m like, you know, ‘I don’t wanna listen to that’ and I’ll throw
something fast on, or something fast is playing and I’m like, ‘That’s too chaotic for me
right now, I have to put something slow on’. (Latoya, aged 19, USA)

In these processes, music is drawn together with other material practices to frame
music and thereby heighten its effectiveness. This musical framing occurs when
music’s properties are somehow projected or mapped on to something else, when
music’s properties are applied to and come to organize something outside
themselves. For example:
Having a bath, yeah, I listen to ambient-folk, new age, Enya [which she first heard in a
floatation tank]; it’s really nice and peaceful . . . it’s so peaceful and relaxing. Because
quite often you can’t hear the words so it’s quite nice to not have to concentrate on it,
but you can just let it wash over you if you are trying to relax. (Monica, aged 21, UK)

Or here, where music is a tool for accomplishing ‘emotional work’, for recalibrating
self and energy levels to perform a task one might not otherwise feel ‘in the mood
for’:
Becky: If I was feeling particularly like I wasn’t really looking forward to where I was
going, then I would have to put something really lively on to try and get me in the mood.

Q. Where might you be going that you weren’t really looking forward to?

Becky: Family gatherings [laughs]. Or some sort of meeting to do with the scouts, I tend
to really not look forward to that. (Interview with Becky, aged 26, UK)

Music is also used to structure social events, to provide a ground or soundtrack that
serves as a cue to a ‘type’ of event, situation, and scene or occasion (which repertoire
to invoke for this scene?). It may also enhance possibilities for coordination and
physical entrainment:
I would have the music on before [the houseguests] come because I like to create an
atmosphere . . . If it were a very elegant little cocktail party then I would probably be
going to put on some kind of classical or something like that, although I might make it a
little more*/what I would think of as informal classical like classical guitar, for example
. . . If we’re doing a Friday night dinner, kind of informal with friends, I might put on
folk music or light jazz, something like that . . . If I want things to be very lively and a
little boisterous, you know, then I am going to play loud or fast-paced music obviously if
I want people to dance . . . I think people, they need to know what’s happening to them,
we all respond to the emotional tone of music. (Elaine, aged 55, USA)
 Music and informal learning in everyday life 291

Butterton (2004) believes that music may serve as a reference map or orientational
device, helping to highlight those things that are important, deep and true in intimate
relationships. Through a kind of aural mirroring we configure or map intimate
authenticity*identity, relationship, values*and also ‘set the tone’ for styles of
/ /

interrelationship. A great deal of this activity is tacit, revealed to us only when things
go wrong. For example:
. . . last night, it was really funny, it was like mood setting in a way, ‘cause he had Enya
on, and as people call that ‘chick music’ . . . he was trying to produce a relaxed
atmosphere and I think in a way it does promote physical, or just intimacy in general
because it’s just like certain music’s more calming and I remember . . . I think Stigma or
Hyper came on and we were like, ‘No no no, we don’t want that!’ and we tried to get this
piece, like I had him play the First Knight soundtrack, which I love, and there’s like, a
love song, I, there, that’s so beautiful, but everything else is like, ‘bu bu de bah’ [triplet
followed by a whole note] and I’m like, ‘No, no, this is not good’ but I do, I think it was
just very, it’s very calming, very intimacy. (Melinda, aged 20, USA)

Music may also ‘get into’ the body, serving as a prosthetic device that modifies and
extends body capacity*for example, it may make us stronger, give us more
/

endurance, enhance our coordination skills. So, aligned with and entrained by the
physical patterns of music profiles, bodies not only feel empowered, they may be
empowered in the sense of gaining a capacity:
Let’s say I’m doing the warm-up. You want quite catchy music because some of [the
class] are just not in the mood and if you’ve just got the drumming noise then you think,
‘oh, what the hell’s going on?’ But I do it to motivate people . . . Let’s say I’ve had a load
of people who aren’t really up for it and I’ve chosen a tape that’s like OK, you find them
just lolling around . . . [whereas] when they’re doing sit ups . . . you need a lot of teaching
points [instructions] and you. . .need [music] for a beat not to motivate them . . . (Sarah,
aerobics instructor, UK)

One of the key findings from the work on aerobics was that that processes that we
take to be bodily ‘givens’ (strength, for example) are perhaps better understood as
culturally and situationally configured. Studies of the musical composition of the
body therefore complement on-going discussion and debate in the sociology of
health and illness as it had addressed so-called ‘mind/body’ issue (Freund et al.,
2003).

Part II: Music and informal learning

In the interview transcripts just presented, musical agents can be seen to act as
lay-therapists*musickers*working with themselves and others in the course
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of mundane activities and for constructive, expressive, transformative, social

ends. Music provided for these respondents, a basis for ontological security or
grounding (Antonovsky, 1987), it provided a diversion and a bodily galvanizer, a
cue about scenic specificity (that was something alluded to by Elaine, the respondent
who used background music at social gatherings because, in her view, people,
292 K. Batt-Rawden and T. DeNora

‘need to know what’s happening to them, we all respond to the emotional tone of
music’).
Because mundane musicking is typically part of the folk-methods of getting by and
making do in real time and rapidly shifting circumstances, the skills and knowledge of
that use may never surface as consciousness. We musick in other words, but we may
not reflect on our musicking and so the craft and ‘lay-expertise’ that may characterize
this musicking may be impossible for us to describe and difficult to teach, except by
actual practical examples, from one sub-conscious embodied actor to another*in /

other words, it may not be formal teaching, it may be learning from models and
exemplars (perhaps even unintended ones). This musicking often consists of sub-
conscious, oblique and real-time situated (hence fleeting) learning situations. To
employ the vocabulary of activity theory (Vygotsky, 1978; Leontiev, 1981;
Engeström, 1987; Bannon & Bødker, 1991; Bødker, 1991), mundane musical and
‘lay’ therapeutic practice is often not oriented to specific and consciously adopted
goals, e.g. it is not action, but it is rather subsumed by other goals or tasks and
deployed in response to the fluctuating, the actual and the local; in other words, it is
‘operational’.
A key question, then, for those of us who want to know how to use music in
‘useful’ ways, is how to tap that knowledge and document it, to raise it from
operation to activity. To advance this thought, we now turn to ongoing research that
deals with the question of learning how to use music as part of the care of self can be
developed as a method of health promotion that is relatively easy to encourage, that
taps existing skill and experience, and that is relatively inexpensive (K. B. Batt-
Rawden2).
The research took inspiration from two sources*first, Aron Antonovsky’s (1987,
/

1996) notion of salutogenetics, or factors that heighten health*auto-immunity and

/

well-being through their enhancement of individuals’ senses of coherence and

continuity. Second, even Ruud’s notion that music may be used as a ‘technology of
health’ and ‘cultural immunogen’ (Ruud, 2002) to reconfigure body/mind in ways
that distance it from the physical trappings and symptoms of dis-ease and/or provide
tools for transfiguring the meaning of illness, e.g. the ‘sick’ role and illness-as-
identity.
Apart from the realm of music therapy and with some very notable exceptions
elsewhere*e.g. Penelope Gouk’s collection (2000), and Ruud’s earlier work (Ruud,
/

1997)*music has received little discussion in health promotion (Stige, 2003; Batt-
/

Rawden & Tellnes, 2005), health sociology (Blaxter, 1990, 1993; Radley, 1993;
Williams, 2003; Williams et al., 2003) and music in medicine (Maranto, 1993;
Horden, 2000), despite the fact that it may be seen as part of what contributes to the
‘whole’ patient, thus mitigating the totalizing effects of serious illness, and despite the
fact that, when viewed in context of most other health-promoting and medical
interventions, music is non-invasive, painless, and has few contraindications or side-
effects.3
 Music and informal learning in everyday life 293

A brief presentation of the ‘Music and Health Promotion project’

The project began by locating a strategic sample: 22 Norwegian participants aged
3465 years old: nine men and 13 women, of different socio-economic statuses. All
the respondents suffered from some form of chronic illness (muscular disease,
neurological disease, cancer, anxiety or depression, chronic fatigue) and all had
previous experience of active music making (though some had to curtail this
involvement due to illness). Ten had played an instrument or sung, and the
remaining 12 expressed strong interest in music through folk clubs, choir member-
ships, music listening at home and regular concert attendance.4 Each participant was
interviewed eight times over the course of 1 year, this was a total of 176 in-depth
interviews, and each one lasted between 1 and 2 hours.
The study pursued its aim*to explore the links between musicking, well-being
/

and health*through a procedure of musical exchange and through interviews that

/

encouraged participants to tell their life stories, and stories of being well and being ill
through musical narratives and metaphors (Batt-Rawden’s design). Music CDs were
conceived as an interactive and dialectical tool, a prompt for further narratives, a
means for sharing experience, and a medium for representing participants’ past and
present states of health/well-being.
During the year, each participant received, at bi-monthly intervals, four double
CDs and two single CDs. These served multiple purposes, methodologically: they
were intended as gifts*a way of saying thank you to participants for their time*i.e.
/ /

as ‘keepsakes’ of the project, and as a means of instigating participants’ narratives

and eliciting talk about how music could be used for health, so as to convert
participants musicking from operation to activity, to encourage them to become
reflective about how to use music for self-care. A few words about the CDs.
The project began with the presentation of CD 1: ‘Keepsakes and Memories’. This
was a CD compiled by the researcher and combined eight tracks representing one of
four typical musical tastes in Norway (folk/country, pop songs, classical music, jazz
and blues) all of special significance to the researcher herself (e.g. reflecting
childhood memories, and ‘happy moments’ of music performing and music listening.
Choosing pieces significant to the researcher, as to ‘show’ how musical narratives
were part of the researchers’ own ‘care of self’, CD 1 was intended to provide
potential sympathetic entry points for discussions with the participants. The first CD
‘broke the ice’ and facilitated narrative accounting, which provided a pretext for
further talk, and started to unfold participants’ interests, opinions and values at a
very early stage. Having a practical task to weave narratives around created a
comfortable situation and the first CD did seem to act as a device that motivated
participants for further involvement:
I have listened to the CD 1 a lot and I have tried to sense my mood in each melody and
tried to think what kind of emotions and associations I got when I listened. I have also
played the CD when I have done housework and I have visited another musical friend
and then I have played ‘If tomorrow never comes’ . . . I have been very active musically
294 K. Batt-Rawden and T. DeNora

since last time you were here. (He learned the song from the CD, aged 48, long-term
certified sick for about a year, returned to work during fieldwork).

From this point on and starting with interview number two, every other interview
would involve the distribution of a new CD. With the exception of the final CD (a
‘farewell’ gift from the Researcher at project’s end) these CDs featured tracks chosen
by each participant (in other words, all participants were equally active in designing
the content of these CDs, and came to know of each others’ existence through each
others’ musical choices as ‘shared’ virtually with the group). Each CD was oriented
to a particular ‘theme’. Themes 26 were:
. CD 2 (double): Music, its significance for me and why*Music selected by /

participants for inclusion that had some special significance for them. They were
asked to explain that significance and the reasons for their choice.
. CD 3 (double): My Mood*Participants were asked, ‘would you be able to
/

describe your mood when you chose which piece of music to go on the CD 3?
Why? Is it possible to connect your current life situation with your choice of
music? If so, why? How? Are there any events since last time we met that might
relate to the chosen piece of music?’
. CD 4 (double): Feeling at Your Best*Participants were asked, ‘When you have
/

been feeling at your best these last few weeks, could you tell me what piece of
music you have been using? How? Then select a favourite. Why? What is it about
the piece of music you have been using?
. CD 5 (double): All Time Best*’Which piece of music makes you feel better or
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creates an increased sense of well-being?’ ‘How or in what way is this experienced

and why?’
. CD 6 (single): Parting Gift (chosen by the Researcher).

Music helps reconnect with ‘self ’ or ‘others’ prior images of agency.

From stage to stage, as the CDs were distributed and discussed, the participants were
encouraged to think about and describe musicking and its uses for health promotion.
The various stages in this process highlight how participants’ came to produce for
themselves modes of conscious awareness of music’s ‘powers’, and skills of musical
use over the course of the year-long project phase. Music helps reconnect with ‘self’
and prior images of agency. With ‘new’ music (from CD 1: ‘Keepsakes and
Memories’) in the participant’s house, it was possible to observe new musical habits,
likes and dislikes unfolding, particularly when participants were engaged in creating a
comfortable listening position as part of the musical ritual, seeking ways of
presenting to themselves and the researcher a ‘best self’ or even a ‘better self’ which
could then serve as a reminder and affirmer of positive modes of being:
I have listened to all of it several times. I have listened to it when I had a bath, when I
was plugged in to my earphones, well, then I used to jump over the classical bits. I also
liked it, because it was a good deal of old stuff there, lovely tunes from days gone by and
 Music and informal learning in everyday life 295

it made me remember those times. I can actually use the whole CD when I sit there or
walk around in my house and do small enjoyable, cosy things, like being on my own, that
is what I like best when I listen to music. (Woman, aged 52, disability pension, muscular
disease, referring to CD 1)

The increased self-consciousness fostered by participation in the study led one male
participant to reclaim his ‘private music room’, which he has missed. Reclaiming this
room was, for him, part of a survival strategy; it emphasized the importance of music
to sustain energy, joy and quality of life:
I am much more conscious as to how I use music to reinforce my health and quality of
life. By the way, I was also certified sick the whole of January, feeling awful, and then I
thought I had to lay down and listen to music, so I put on Schubert, Mozart and Brahms
and then I noticed I managed to get in touch with some hurtful emotions and I felt that
my humour improved. I think it has to do with viewing things in perspective . . . so,
through this project I have been gradually much more aware of how much I miss music
(referring to his bachelor life when he used to spend hours listening to music), so now I
want to create my own private room where I can do my music, I know it can be a bit
hard economically, since I have to throw out my lodger, but, it has to do with the
importance of getting in touch with the energy, joy and quality of life . . . (age, 50,
recovered from a burn-out)

Music became, for respondents, an important medium of social practice. While

discussing the outcome of participation, a male participant highlighted musicking as
a means for connecting to other people, describing the effect of musicking as an
‘encounter of love’:
What I have gained through this project is to reinforce my belief that the strongest effect
I gain from music is through playing and singing with other people, this synergy effect is
like an encounter of love, it is so mysterious, just like somebody connects you to heaven,
it is so strong this playing together, you know . . . (Male, aged 53, recovered from
depression)

Since participants have been introduced to new music through other participants’
choices, new music could replace or be added to the list of music that ‘makes them
feel good’. Effective music was often defined as music that ‘hits them’, goes ‘straight
through or ‘pierces their mind, body and soul’. For example, the next respondent
described how music reduced feelings of isolation through being pleased to
contribute a lot, and in this discussion, she was simultaneously making known to
herself her current resources for healing. Once she had created that self-knowledge,
she then set about acting upon it by initiating contact with a folk-music group in her
community. The knowledge that interacting with music afforded led in turn to the
generation of social capital which in turn led to a sense of control and well-being, the
bedrock of salutogenetic practice according to Antonovsky (1987, 1996).
The situation of being isolated from the work situation is not very pleasant. Through this
project I have been able to contribute a lot and that means a lot to me. It has been very
inspiring and also a huge contrast to being ‘unable to work’. It has been very important
to me that I have been able to focus on my resources and the kind of resources I have
296 K. Batt-Rawden and T. DeNora

through music . . . huge contrast to my feelings of weariness and tiredness. This project
has actually made me make contact with a folk-music group in my community and now
I am feeling so good. I have regained control and well-being in my life. It is great . . .
(Female, aged 52, recovered from depression and severe back-pain 2 months before
final round of fieldwork)

A learning process*through musicking

/

It is vital to note that music did by no means work as a stimulus or ‘magic pill’. By
contrast, participants were encouraged to tell ‘analytical stories’ that in turn helped
fix music’s properties ‘over them’. This is to say that music’s affordances are
constituted through the ways music is framed or prepared for use. Turning to
different types of music and the meaningful parts that reflect and register self-identity
and which provide a template for self-knowledge, individuals choose music that
affords self-images that are tenable, that seem do-able, habitable. All of this is part of
the typically tacit (Storr, 1992) set of practices whereby music is activated as a life-
enhancing part of our day to-day existence. The next quote illustrates how the CDs
were first used as a background medium to develop an active ‘learninglistening’
mode of behaviour, one in which participants tried to gain control over their
emotional reactions, and thereby develop growing musical consciousness and skill as
‘musical healers’ in relation to self. One can see clearly here how the musical
‘homework’ engaged participants and stimulated their musical curiosity:
When I first got them (CD 1 and 2), I just played them through once just to listen,
because I was so curious, for example the first CD, I was very curious about that, as well
. . . is it something I know from before? I wonder what the others (participants) have
chosen, but the second time I put them on, I sat down to actively listen to that, and then
tried to get hold of why I reacted or responded in one way or another, it is not simple
and I think it is a great challenge, but it is very useful. (Woman, aged 60, breast cancer,
post-treatment*/on CD 2: ‘Music, its significance for me and why’)
The next quote illustrates how the CDs have created a ritual that itself may promote
health; finding time, sitting down, relax, reflect, reconsider and enjoy the ‘new’
musical learning situation while doing their ‘homework’ on listening to the CDs.
When I get these CDs, I don’t sit down right away, I wait till I have a quiet time in the
evening and then I sit down in that chair (points at an armchair in the corner of her
sitting-room) with that woolen blanket, and then I ‘really enjoy myself, and I am very
curious and the reason why I sit down and really enjoy it is because I have to think and
reflect around why this music is or have been of significance to me or why I like it and so
on. (Female, divorced, on rehabilitation from anxiety and depression, aged 52)

The chosen piece of music could also represent major changes in the participants’ life
situations. For example, this male participant recovered half-way through the project
and has returned to work, described how the project acted as a learning process,
increasing his conscious awareness of how and what to listen to, linking it up to his
musical biography in a natural way. By focusing on music and its significance, his
recovery has been facilitated, via a kind of ‘faith healing’:
 Music and informal learning in everyday life 297

This project has acted as learning process. It has been very exciting, because when I
started the project last year I was very ill, but then I have gradually recovered and I think
this project has been of significance, because I have told you before how important
music is in my life, and this project has been focusing on music and its significance for
me and I have become much more conscious of how and what I listen to, for example
what type of music that nurtured me when I was ill, so this has contributed to my
recovery . . . and all the new music, a great variety on those CDs . . . (Aged 48, recovered
from a chronic fatigue)

Typical quotations from the majority of the participants illustrate the informal
learning process through focusing on music, even for those who have not used music
as consciously before: ‘This project has increased my consciousness towards using
music as self-therapy, which is very good’ or ‘I have just used music the same way
really, so this project has actually made me think about it, I can see it’s a useful thing
socially, to get it documented, it’s something I think is very underrated’ or ‘I think,
when I play music I am very fond of, one can achieve a better quality of life . . .
because one goes through a lot of emotions that are related to your life’.
A woman suffering from muscular disease narrated how the project gave her an
opportunity to focus on music and health in-depth, helping her to become more
aware of how to use her voice as a way to develop a deeper consciousness:
I think music opens up for something that ‘s not always easy to grasp, I mean singing
and using my voice in this way is connected to a development of a deep consciousness
and self-awareness and this project has given me an opportunity to focus on music and
health more in-depth, and I think it is important to grasp the potentialities that
encompasses music. (Female, aged 48, single, muscular disease, disability pension)

Another female suffering form neurological disease tells about a musical event
related to her choice on CD2, and how important it is to detect such valuable
moments through listening to music that gives her a release and brings her comfort:
I was standing by my window, feeling really awful and depressed, and then I just put on
Bob Marley’s ‘Three little birds’ (her choice to go on CD 2) and then something
happened to me . . . I felt joy, a sort of release, a comfort, and for me right now it has
been so important to detect these valuable, precious moments that really makes life
worth living for. (Female, neurological disease, aged 52, single)

Aldridge (1996) has described how stories have a metaphorical shape and form,
which recreate a pattern of being, and how symptoms described represent as a
metaphorical, albeit restricted reality. Such stories provide grids and templates
through which to understand our lives as patterned. They are a way of perceiving,
feeling, relating and existing. Following this thought, it is possible to consider stories
as able to shift pain, to enable transcendence:
I fall in with the music [Streif: Brudesang fra Solør ], so then I heal myself musically, I
robe myself with music, enter another place, sometimes I feel that emotional pain gets
physical and music is there to give me a relief. I think there is a very strong connection
between the mental and the physical, more than we think. I have started to see what
music does much clearer now, I have started to think about myself, what does music do
298 K. Batt-Rawden and T. DeNora

for me or for you, what opens up, what shuts, what is pain or grief, what is longing?
(Woman, aged 50, fatigue syndrome, now recovering*/on CD 5: ‘All time best’)

Teaching others to musick

At the end of the project, participants were asked if or how they could draw anything
from their own experience or practice, that they could ‘teach’ others about; e.g. what
have they learned about how music may be linked to health and quality of life?
Through emphasizing the ‘possibility to learn musical skills’, telling ‘others’ the
beneficial effects of musicking, the enjoyment and satisfaction one can derive from it,
this knowledge could be tapped and ‘transported’ into ‘informal teaching settings’ as
part of health musicking in local communities:
‘I mean, one important aspect of life is that you actually can learn something new . . . and
it is through this new learning one can bring oneself further . . . and then again if you
listen to new music, you can learn something that you have not learned before and also
one can detect that one actually can like certain type of music . . . one should aim at trying
to cope with an instrument and enjoy it, in particularly together with other people . . . and
if you can master the music, then you master a way to communicate . . . I think this is an
important aspect of it, at least it is vital for me in my life . . . (Male, aged 50, long-term
certified sick for two years due to burn-out. Recovered before fieldwork started)

This participant echoes Aldridge (2002), who has described how our bodies are
engaged in a continuing communicative process, albeit outside the range of
conscious awareness: ‘mind and body are united within a rhythmic context of
communication which enables healing to take place’ (2002, p. 52). Expressing choral
singing as a practice that enriches his life, and as a ‘healthy’ way to get in touch with
his feelings, he emphasizes how it is ‘never too late’ to learn how to musick for care of
self (see also Holt, 1978).
I would also say that it is never too late to start to learn something, but if they don’t want
to learn an instrument, then sing in a choir or a folk group . . . its is so enjoyable to
experience this togetherness, so this choral singing has a fantastic effect on me, it
enriches me, and I think if people don’t manage to get in touch with their emotional life,
then they will become depressed and then I think it is important to express those feelings
through songs . . . (Male, aged 48, recovered from chronic fatigue during fieldwork)

Green (2002) has suggested that musicians who acquire their skills and knowledge
through informal learning practices, as opposed to formal education, may be more
likely to continue playing music alone or with others for enjoyment in later life.
Several of the participants in this study describe themselves as ‘self-taught
musicians’, i.e. musical skills and knowledge have been gained through informal
learning practices, in musical sessions, with friends and families or on their own
doing, ‘purposive’ listening (Green, 2002) or through observing others. A male
participant developed his musical skills through an informal way of learning by
doing: being in close contact with his musical friends. He describes how he has
gained confidence through his musicking:
 Music and informal learning in everyday life 299

I used to be nervous playing the guitar in front of people, but then somebody said that it
is no good thinking about the mistakes you make, you got think ahead all the time and
then you don’t get nervous, ‘cause if you make a mistake, you got to just forget it, and I
just don’t get nervous anymore, and you don’t have to be sort of well educated to be able
to sing and it is nothing better than to have a funny song people have not heard before
. . . and the funny thing is when you got to speak in front of people, it does not worry me
at all now . . .

Discussion
Music*part of a process of ‘faith healing’?
/

The participants loved being in this study. They considered themselves to have
gained autonomy, directly proportionate to their newly found skills as ‘musickers’.
By looking forward to the next instalment, the participants lodged themselves into
collective, social time, i.e. they could see themselves as within a schedule, one that is
cyclical, and through this they gained further security from knowing where they are
and what these ‘rituals’ consist of, e.g. listening, choosing, responding, anticipating.
This empowerment is not, it bears repeating, caused directly by music (there would
be no need for musical learning then, since music would be a bald stimulus). Rather,
it is created in and through musicking (musical listening, musical reflection, musical
narrative) and its healing powers are directly proportionate to the connections (to
others, to sensuous and meaningful materials) forged by this musicking and the belief
that one is control, that the music will work. To put this bluntly, music is here part of
a process of ‘faith healing’*participants identify what works, learn how to invoke
/

and empower that musical ‘charm’ (and themselves in relation to it) and*it works. /

In a very real sense, in other words, quality of life, even at times, ‘being ill’ or ‘being
well’ (which of course is linked to the subjective sense of ‘feeling ill’ or ‘feeling well’),
takes shape in relation to the resources for self-construction and one can learn how to
create and access these resources in constructive ways*this is the learning process.
/

The fact that music is both a symbolic medium and a physical medium, like the body,
with pulse, rhythm and degrees of tension (such as pitch), is a bonus, since music,
unlike literature or plastic arts, may speak directly to and so entrain bodily processes.

Musical healing*how to find the ‘right’ musicking for health-promotion purposes

/

At its inception, this project was linked to health promotion, focused on the idea that
musicking could be developed as a health promotion procedure, that required an
‘education component’. However, this component was by no means taught in a ‘few-
to-many’ format with a priori prescriptions of what would ‘improve’ well-being. The
following quote illustrates how, for one participant, increased consciousness has
entailed awareness of how he uses music to regulate his mood, humour and his state
of mind:
I have started to think more consciously on how I use music, for example, what do I
want to listen to today, and then I choose something that corresponds with my mood,
300 K. Batt-Rawden and T. DeNora

humour, emotions or spirituality. I have throughout this year reconfirmed what I have
told you through my own musical experiences, for example, highlights in relation to
music and how it moves me. I have thought about the different topics we have been
discussing last year, and I think it is amazing what music can do . . . there are so many
things I really haven’t thought about before and, I think, one should give people a task,
which is learning to reflect consciously through such a project . . . ( Male, aged 50, long-
term certified sick for two years due to a burnt out. Recovered before fieldwork started)

In this respect, the method differs greatly from, for example, the Mozart Effect†
where music is administered, after a diagnosis, in a manner akin to pharmacology
and through the discourse strand (speech style) of science, here seen in relation to
using music for learning-promotion. Indeed, a good deal of this type of ‘expert-
musical prescription’ may be deconstructed. The musical values associated with the
Mozart Effect† may be more about taste and social status (Bourdieu, 1984)
affiliation than about ‘pure’ cognitive science, and here, in this snippet we see this
point being expressed by a parent, writing in a web-based journal: ‘ . . . hey, I’m not
against Mozart. My kids love Mozart, as well as Bach and Beethoven. But we [her
family] also love jazz, swing, reggae, and hip hop . . . ’ (Bauchner, 2004).

Participatory CD design
By contrast, the novel participatory CD design was built upon principles associated
with Participatory Design (Suchman, 1987; Ehn, 1993; Jordan & Henderson, 1995;
Tudhope et al., 2000; Reason & Bradbury, 2001). These principles include
respecting a technology’s ‘users’ regardless of their status and recognizing their
lay-expertise (indeed learning from users), understanding their skill in its own terms,
from the point of view of their situated values and aims, and seeking to improve
users’ ability to use a ‘technology’, e.g. music as a ‘technology of health’ (Ruud,
2002) through consultative dialogue. It’s important to emphasize yet again that it is
not the music per se that is ‘doing’ the work of achieving its social effects (though nor
is music neutral), but rather, music is the catalyst for self-help and self-extension.
Participants could, by ‘telling’ about music’s meaning and uses in their lives, create
for themselves (and for fellow participants) pointers and tips on how to use music so
as to promote health and well-being, connection to others (specific and generalized)
and self-empowerment, i.e. the ability to determine self-conditions, and also how to
activate music such that it might ‘work’ in health-promoting or otherwise beneficial
ways.
The growing awareness that music matters in relation to their health, inspired one
participant to make her own CD compilation from all the CDs and divided this into
two topics: (i) the music she likes, but ‘does not move her emotionally’ and (ii) the
‘music that really does her good’. Sometimes she feels imprisoned in her own body
and experience that this Health Music gives, is a contrast to hopelessness and
resignation. She explains she ‘needs’ this beneficial music collected, often lacking
energy and motivation to search out music that makes her feel good, especially when
she senses an immediate need for it:
 Music and informal learning in everyday life 301

I have made a compilation of all the tracks that really make me feel good, because when I
need music that really makes me feel good, I can’t have one here and one there, you
know, I need to have them all in order, because very often I don’t have motivation or
energy to go out and buy new music, so I have made a list and compilation of the music I
like and the music that really does something for me emotionally, for example open the
door to my imprisoned self and body, it is very rare I am so ill that I can’t listen to music,
so this health music fills me, it becomes a contrast to hopelessness and resignation . . .
(Aged 52, neurological disease)

As John Cage once said, ‘Most people mistakenly think that when they hear a piece
of music that they’re not doing anything but that something’s being done to them.
This is not true and we must arrange our music, we must arrange our art, everything,
I believe, so that people realize that they themselves are doing it and not that
something is being done to them’ (Cage in Nyman, 1974, p. 21). The following
quote illustrates how a female participant reflects on how the project has helped her
to ‘detect’ that she has a musical biography, reflect on her cultural identity and how
her ‘new’ knowledge has given her inspiration to spend more time on music,
preferably with musical friends, in the future. Here, the importance of how a
participatory design is a way of achieving a musicking in which actors themselves ‘do
it’, as Cage puts it, e.g. weave their music together with their memories, associations,
images, material practices so as to make their world, their situations of healing and
coping. For example:
Wow, I have a musical biography, I have never thought about that before, I have a
history, my upbringing, my youth, what type of socio-economic background, I have and
so on . . . my culture, and when I meet new people now, it means much more to me if
they really love music, than it did before. I am much more conscious as to how I choose
musical friends now. I know I want to spend much more time on music in the future. I
wouldn’t have thought about that if it hadn’t been for this (project). (Aged 52, on
rehabilitation from anxiety and depression)

The heightened awareness includes feelings of a ‘new self’, a ‘new lifestyle’ or new
directions aiming to enhance well-being or ‘wellness’. Aldridge (1996, 2002) has
suggested that when we study health, we have to take into account biological,
psychological and social factors. Health itself is a state, subject to social and
individual definition. What counts as healthy is dependant upon cultural norms.
Health and disease are not fixed entities but concepts used to characterize a process
of adaptation to meet the changing demands of life, and the changing meanings given
to living. He further explains that an expression of health is something that could
better be sung or played than spoken.
At the level of daily life, music has power. It is implicated in every dimension of
social agency (DeNora, 2000, 2003). Music may influence how people compose
their bodies, how they feel*in terms of energy and emotion*about themselves,
/ /

about others, and about situations. Music may imply and, in some cases, elicit modes
of conduct. To be in control of the soundtrack of social action is to provide a
framework for the organization of social agency, a framework for how people perceive
(consciously or subconsciously) potential avenues of conduct and thus potential for
302 K. Batt-Rawden and T. DeNora

learning self-care, health and well-being, e.g. how to use music*what music does,
/

what it can do and how it can be tapped for social purposes. Perhaps this
participatory CD design, then, is one way in which to create informal ‘health
promoting’ cultures of learning, increasing practical (active) musicking involvement
for the majority of local communities.

Notes
1. For more arts-sociology research that conceptualizes arts as formative of social relations and
social experience, see: http://www.projects.ex.ac.uk/socarts (site under construction, May
2005).
2. Ph.D. research in progress on ‘Music and Health Promotion’, University of Exeter.
3. Even when produced live, in hospital settings, music’s economic cost is a mere fraction of
most medical interventions and procedures (see Susan Trythall, Ph.D. research in progress,
‘Music in hospitals: an ethnographic study’).
4. The sample was recruited through four organizations and institutions: the Nature-Culture
and Health Centre (NaCuHeal) in Asker; the Akershus University Hospital, Department of
Health Promotion; an Art Society in the county of Akershus and a folk Club in Oslo. Two
informants were recruited through other participants, i.e. snow-ball effect. During this
project, there have been several individuals who wanted to join, but were declined due to the
not-unlimited capacity of the research project.

Notes on contributors
Kari Batt-Rawden is Associate Professor, Department of Nursing, Akershus
University College, and PhD student at the University of Exeter, England.
She is a sociologist with a salutogenetic approach to health and illness issues.
Her main interests are music, health promotion, well-being, nature, culture,
social network, lay perspective and qualitative methods. For many years she
worked with preventive medicine and health promotion in a government agency
in Norway, conducting research and evaluation programmes on different
populations in relation to health behaviour change, physical activity and social
class. In addition, she has developed postgraduate studies in environmental
health and gender and health. She also teaches students (nurses) methods and
strategies on how to initiate, motivate and coordinate nature and cultural
activities in local communities and institutions, with specific emphasis on music
and musicking.
Tia DeNora is a Professor at the University of Exeter, England. She is a music
sociologist with interests in music and social order. She started her academic
career in music (her major instrument was flute). She also has interests in
culture and communication, technology, the body, emotion, lay expertise and
knowledge-based controversy, and tacit cultural practice. Her interests intersect
cultural theory, social psychology, history and qualitative methods. She is
interested in working with PhD research students in the areas of arts sociology,
socio-musical studies and, depending on the topic, cultural sociology more
 Music and informal learning in everyday life 303

broadly. Her current research projects deal with the craft of music therapy and
with interactions between music and science in Beethoven’s Vienna.

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