Music listeners and their family
The multiplicity of the musical experience that music listeners may have is real and, sometimes, different parts of that experience may enter into conflict. Music listening is not a monolithic experience and, talking with music listeners, one question arises: how do the relationships with music change in the life of an individual and between generations? There is no single answer. It depends on musical skill acquisition, intergenerational learning or communication within families: these criteria help to distinguish what and who influences the acquisition of music values. Also, music production is constantly renewed.
How do families talk about music? How do they construct a discourse which contains values and judgments on music? And above all, what type of music is played, in the house or in the car? What music are children allowed to listen to? These are not idle questions. In fact, not all styles of music are allowed in all families and even today, it may happen that some people, within families, take decisions related to music and not only in families where both parents are musicians, or one of them. It is a way for parents to suggest specific forms of music socialization and to transfer their tastes.
In their house, parents provide the first musical exposure to their children, choosing what children will listen to, for how long, how often and when. That attitude shapes the first music listening experiences of their children: parents give them music listenership guidelines, pieces of advice that are not rigid rules, drawing a musical landscape where passive and active music exposures may combine.
The music listening of children is active because they interact with music to which they listen: music may tell them something about themselves and also about their family.
The music of one's parents
Studies show that people may feel nostalgia for the music they discovered with their parents: it seems that early music memories, which are generally rooted in families, are often kept by people in their musical baggage. They are part of their musical taste, which may be defined as an individual’s conscious, general and self-determined tendency to love certain pieces of music and reject other ones.
Musical taste is more or less developed in individuals, depending on their background, but also their own attitude towards music when they are grown up. That taste is a combination of various musical selves. It is an ensemble of preferences that have stood the test of time. Home being the place where, generally, relationships have stood the test of time, it is somehow natural that music heard at home continues to be appreciated by children when they have left home: that music is part of what sociologists call ‘family scripts’ or family mythologies.