Music as Water: The Functions of Music from a Utilitarian Perspective

Abstract

The rapid increase of technologically enhanced listening platforms gives listeners access to music with ever-increasing ease and ubiquity, giving rise to the suggestion that we should now conceptualize music as a resource similar to water; something that is utilized to achieve everyday goals. This paper proposes that music is a utilitarian resource employed by listeners to augment cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and physiological aspects of the self. To better explore these notions this paper examines the potential role of the "functions of music," first espoused by Alan P. Merriam in 1964. Merriam suggested music has a situational use and an underlying function (music's ability to alter the self through listening).The research presented here asserts that listeners interact with specific musical materials to achieve or orientate themselves towards contextually-rooted goals. Reinforcing Tia DeNora's suggestion that music is a "technology of the self" this research presents the results of a 41 publication meta-analysis exploring the possible functions of music. The resultant Aggregate Thematic Functions Framework (ATF framework) identifies 45 possible utilitarian functions of music, spread across five domains of action. The framework also proposes a meta-domain and an emotional sub-domain.

Access-Awareness-Agency (AAA) Model of Music-Based Social-Emotional Competence (MuSEC)

“…Factors such as Musical Seeking, Emotion Evocation, Mood Regulation, Social Reward, and Sensory-Motor rewards (Mas-Herrero, Marco-Pallares, Lporenzo-Seva, & Rodriquez-Fornells, 2013) have been defined to describe the musical reward experience. Others have variously described music as having psychological functions that can be grouped into Arousal and mood regulation, Self-awareness, Social Relatedness (Schäfer et al, 2013); Interpersonal relationships, Identity, Agency, and Emotions (Laiho, 2004); Affective, Social, Cognitive, Eudaimonic, Goal Attainment, Everyday Listening, Music-focused Listening, Sleep-aid, and Creating a Personal Space (Groarke & Hogan, 2016); Intellectual Stimulation, Mindwondering and emotional Involvement, Motor synchronization and enhanced wellbeing, Updating one’s musical knowledge, Killing time and overcoming loneliness functions (Greb, Schlotz, & Steffens, 2017), or Cognitive, Physiological, Social Group, Social Individual, Emotional, and Specific Regulatory Strategies functions (Maloney, 2017).…”

Emotions of music listening in Finland and in India: Comparison of an individualistic and a collectivistic culture

“…Music psychology has been addressing a range of factors explaining the music-evoked emotions, including various musical parameters such as mode or tempo (Eerola, Friberg, & Bresin, 2013;Gabrielsson & Lindström, 2010;Juslin & Laukka, 2004), listener traits such as personality (e.g., Vuoskoski & Eerola, 2011), and contextual factors such as the listening location and related activities (Randall & Rickard, 2017;Randall, Rickard, & Vella-Brodrick, 2014). Music-evoked emotions are also intertwined with the psychological functions that music serves in people's daily lives (Clayton, 2009;Maloney, 2017;Schäfer, Sedlmeier, Städtler, & Huron, 2013), with relaxation evoking different emotions than mental contemplation (Baltazar & Saarikallio, 2017;Saarikallio, Maksimainen, & Randall, 2018). Overall, research is only beginning to explore the interrelations of the complex set of different factors influencing musical emotions (Eerola & Vuoskoski, 2013).…”

Mass Perception about Music during Lockdown in Nepal

“…"Carefully selected music can reduce the stress, enhance a sense of comfort and relaxation, offer distraction from pain, and enhance clinical performance" (Danhauer, 2005). Study stated that music as resource rather than a commodity (Maloney, 2017). According to him everybody need this kind of resource for livelihood.…”