Musical Identities

Music is a tremendously powerful channel through which people develop their personal and social identities. Music is used to communicate emotions, thoughts, political statements, social relationships, and physical expressions. But, just as language can mediate the construction and negotiation of developing identities, music can also be a means of communication through which aspects of people's identities are constructed. Music can have a profound influence on our developing sense of identity, our values, and our beliefs, whether from rock music, classical music, or jazz. Different research studies in social and developmental psychology are beginning to chart the various ways in which these processes occur. This is the first book to examine the extraordinary relationship between music and identity from a psychological perspective.

Raymond MacDonald has been lecturing and researching in the psychology of music for a number of years, currently at Glasgow Caledonian University. He has also been Artistic Director for a music production company, Sounds of Progress, working with individuals with special needs, and is an experienced jazz saxophonist. David Hargreaves is Professor of child Development at the University of Surrey Roehampton and Visiting Professor of Research in Music Education at the University of Gothenburg Sweden. His publications which have been translated into 13 languages, include 'Musical Development and Learning: The International Perspective'. Dorothy Miell, Department of Psychology at the Open University has research interests in the study of close personal relationships, with recent work in two areas - the discursive analysis of accounts of identity development through relationships, and studies of the effects of relationshihp level and communication patterns on the nature of children's collaborative working, especially in creative tasks such as music making.