I and thou: a holistic investigation of college music performance majors' relationships with their instruments

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between musician and instrument among musicians who are undergraduate students at a high-performing university school of music and who have experienced some degree of success on their instruments. In the context of semi-structured interviews, five freshman and sophomore music performance students explored issues relating to their relationships with their instruments and constructed a narrative of their musical life. Themes across participants included thinking of the instrument as more of a person than an object, being dynamic and changing over time, as well as having a personality and limitations. The musician-instrument relationship also appeared to be related to the development of an instrument-specific identity (e.g. “violinist”) and factored into how the musicians perceived connection with the audience during performance.