Choosing to hear music: motivation, process, and effect

This chapter provides an overview of research on self-chosen music listening experiences, both recorded and live. The material is organized into the functional niches that music is chosen to be part of travel, brain work, body work, emotional work, and attendance at live events as an audience member. Four different recurring functions of self-chosen music use are identified: distraction, energizing, entrainment, and meaning enhancement. The chapter highlights the diversity of research being undertaken in areas such as travel, housework, pain relief, study, exercise, mood management, reminiscence, and music in autobiographical narrative. Music is shown to interact and intertwine with the contexts in which it is chosen and is not always listened to reverently, and the importance of agency is highlighted throughout.