Musically Motivated Autobiographical Memories and the Lifetime Soundtrack Author Istvandity, Lauren Published 2014 Thesis Type Thesis (PhD Doctorate) School School of Humanities DOI https://doi.org/10.25904/1912/2091 Copyright Statement The author owns the copyright in this thesis, unless stated otherwise. Downloaded from http://hdl.handle.net/10072/366752 Griffith Research Online https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au MUSICALLY MOTIVATED AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORIES AND THE LIFETIME SOUNDTRACK Lauren Istvandity Bachelor of Music Studies Bachelor of Popular Music with Honours School of Humanities Arts, Education & Law Griffith University Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy April 2014 Musically Motivated Autobiographical Memories and the Lifetime Soundtrack ii Abstract Creating and reflecting upon autobiographical memory is an everyday practice that is typical within the human experience. When music becomes integrated into personal memories, an invitation to remember is provided through both purposeful listening activities and incidental engagement with music in the everyday. Connections between memory and music are reinforced over time, such that salient music becomes a part of who we are: a component of self-identity. This thesis investigates musically motivated autobiographical memories in order to provide further understanding of their occurrence, content, and function. The thesis also examines the role that emotion may play in the processes of memory creation and reminiscence. In a qualitative approach to a topic that has been neglected in both psychological and sociological studies of memory, this research prioritises the subjective experience of the individual as the key to understanding the interaction between music and memory in everyday life. This study brings together psychological insights and sociological theory for an interdisciplinary discussion of music, emotion and autobiographical memory, producing an innovative and original discourse. The research presented in this thesis is based on 28 one-on-one interviews conducted with Australians aged between 18 and 82 years. The interviews were carried out in South East Queensland, between March and May, 2012. Through an informal, yet in-depth approach, the interview process allowed research participants to provide personal and emotionally nuanced accounts of memories that involved music in some way. Interview participants were invited to describe their experiences with music in the context of their life story, enabling a chronology of musical memories to emerge. Thematic coding and analysis of participants’ narratives revealed that musically triggered memories play a significant role in creating meaning for an individual through self-reflection and identity consolidation. To facilitate the discussion of musical memories, I have devised the concept of the “lifetime soundtrack” to describe the metaphorical canon of music that accompanies life experiences. As a central tenet of this thesis, this concept acts as a comprehensive iii Musically Motivated Autobiographical Memories and the Lifetime Soundtrack term for the result of the interaction between memory and music, and additionally functions as a framework for the discussion of research findings. The analysis of memory narratives demonstrates that the lifetime soundtrack is established through mediated listening experiences in childhood, where transmission of cultural values from parent to child acts as a partial determinant for an adults’ engagement with music over a lifetime. Participants’ narratives are shown to possess nuanced emotionality, expanding upon the representations of this concept within previous literature. This thesis suggests that the effectiveness of music as an archive for memory is due to elements inherent to and impacting upon musical experience acting as reservoirs for the details of memory. The analysis also considers the ways in which a deeper understanding of music can influence the interface between music and memory for individuals who identify as musicians. As a whole, this thesis offers a renewed sociocultural perspective on musically motivated autobiographical memory. The significance of the research findings suggests that the concept of memory offers much to the expansion of music sociology, where it has been prominently neglected. Not only do the insights into musically motivated memory presented here provide a major contribution to memory studies and music sociology, but the development of new concepts, terminology, and methodological approaches can be seen as influential to many fields that involve memory in implicit and explicit ways. iv Statement of Originality and Ethical Clearance This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. The research for this thesis was authorized by the Griffith University Ethics Committee under the protocol number HUM/16/11/HREC. (Signed) __________________________ Lauren Istvandity v Musically Motivated Autobiographical Memories and the Lifetime Soundtrack vi Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Statement of Originality and Ethical Clearance .............................................................................. v Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... vii Table of Figures .................................................................................................................... xi Table of Tables .................................................................................................................... xii Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... xiii 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1 Studying Autobiographical Memory: Renewed Perspectives ......................................................... 2 Music and Memory: Absent in the Literature? ............................................................................... 4 Research Framework and Central Questions .................................................................................. 5 The use of the term “music” in this study ............................................................................ 8 Methods .......................................................................................................................................... 8 Chapter Outlines ............................................................................................................................. 9 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 11 2. Autobiographical Memory: An Overview ......................................................................................... 13 What is Autobiographical Memory? ............................................................................................. 13 Lifetime periods and the development of autobiographical memory ............................... 15 Manifestations of Autobiographical Memory ............................................................................... 21 Recollection of Memories ............................................................................................................. 28 Defining Collective Memory .......................................................................................................... 29 Functions of Autobiographical Memory ....................................................................................... 31 Narrating Memory......................................................................................................................... 32 Recall issues in autobiographical memory .......................................................................... 33 Collective remembering and memory reconstruction ....................................................... 34 Perspectives on Autobiographical Memory .................................................................................. 36 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................................... 37 vii Musically Motivated Autobiographical Memories and the Lifetime Soundtrack 3. Between Music, Memory and Emotion ............................................................................................ 39 Music as a Trigger for Memory: Quantitative Studies .................................................................. 40 How Important is the Individual? Qualitative and Theoretical Studies ........................................ 49 Outside Memory Studies ............................................................................................................... 54 The lifetime soundtrack in the literature ............................................................................ 57 Nostalgia and memory ........................................................................................................ 59 Music