Abstract
In the late 1980s, researchers in the Music in Daily Life Project at the State University of New York at Buffalo set out to interview people about music in their lives.1 No prescriptions were put on who could be interviewed, and the interview format was open-ended, beginning simply with the question, “What is music about for you?” Among the 150 people who participated was a cross section of the population of Buffalo: children and elders; men and women; students, artists, at-home parents, and blue- and white-collar workers; and Whites and people of color. On the whole, it was one of the first studies of its kind in the United States, providing a wide snapshot of American music—not as an historical genre to be learned, or as a professional lifestyle to ogle, but as a diverse and changing set of practices in people’s everyday lives squeezed between, and often given meaning by, family obligations, life crises, work deadlines, and school chores.
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Cavicchi, D. (2009). My Music, Their Music, and the Irrelevance of Music Education. In: Regelski, T., Gates, J. (eds) Music Education for Changing Times. Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2700-9_8
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