Istvandity/The Lifetime Soundtrack, 5. Effects of Music-Making on Musical Memories and the Lifetime Soundtrack

Chapter Five will concentrate on the experience of research participants who identified as being musically trained. Musical memories narrated by musicians possessed characteristics that were distinct from non-musicians narratives, which raises questions about the processes of association and reflection utilized by this group. This chapter will explore the ways in which musicians’ and non musicians’ memories were divergent, focusing on the perceptions of these recollections by interview participants. Concepts such as emotion, ageing, and embodiment are covered in this chapter with special emphasis on how these aspects are enacted for musicians in both performative and listening contexts. The chapter also draws on musicians’ experience of music-making as “work”, which can result in more negative emotional associations with music than provided by non-musicians. It offers suggestions as to why and how musicians might experience music differently, potentially enacting different practices of memorialisation.