Att lyssna på musik

Från lyssnartypologier till intervjuer med verkliga människor

Abstract

This article deals with music listening and is based on the research project Music in People’s Lives that was carried out in Gothenburg, Sweden, between 2007 and 2009 by musicologists Thomas Bossius and Lars Lilliestam. Deep interviews were made with 42 people aged 20 to 95 about their use of music. The first part of the article deals with previous research on music listening, focussing especially on theories of listener typologies and listener strategies. After a general presentation of the research project, these theories are compared with what the informants themselves say about how they listen to music. A picture emerges that is in many ways quite different from simple listener typologies and strategies – and much more complex. Dichotomies like active vs. passive and concentrated vs. unconcentrated or background listening are questioned, and alternative concepts like parallel listening, repeat listening and ecological listening are discussed. Finally, the article proposes that future research on music listening should be multidisciplinary, combining phenomenological, psychological and neurological methods.