López-Íñiguez, G, Burland, K orcid.org/0000-0003-0066-0132 and Bennett, D (2022) Understanding the musical identity and career thinking of postgraduate classical music performance students. Musicae Scientiae, 26 (4). ARTN 10298649221089869. pp. 746-760. ISSN 1029-8649
Abstract
The classical music sector faces an urgent challenge as increasing numbers of performance graduates struggle to establish themselves as full-time professional musicians. In part, this situation relates to narrow higher music education curricula that do not sufficiently prepare musicians for the precarious and nonlinear careers that characterize music work. The study reported here employed Version 1 of the Musical Identity Measure (MIMv1) together with three open-ended questions to explore student musicians’ motivations to engage in music and their career-related meaning-making. A lexicometry analysis based on Bayesian statistics was applied to six psychological and environmental areas identified in MIMv1: (1) resilience and adaptability, (2) approach to learning, (3) emotional attachment, (4) social factors, (5) music and self, and (6) career calling. Results indicate that postgraduate classical music performance students have a strong musical calling and emotional attachment to music. They also recognize the importance of identifying themselves as learners to thrive in the profession, and they accept that the development of social capital, resilience, and adaptability needs attention both during their studies and during their professional life. The article presents recommendations for higher music education and identifies potential risks related to strong identification with music.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
Keywords: | adaptability, emotional attachment, higher music education, music careers, relatedness, resilience, selfconfidence, self-efficacy, social cognitive career theory |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Music (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 22 Feb 2023 14:51 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 23:09 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/10298649221089869 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:193482 |