The Effect of Music Tours on Continued Involvement in Music

Abstract

This qualitative study investigated the role of music tours on the lifelong music involvement of six adults as well as the role of music tours on their continued involvement in their high school music program. Each of the six students was enrolled in the researcher's band classes for a minimum of two years and participated in a minimum of two music tours. Data for this study were obtained from two interviews with each participant. The first was sixty to ninety minutes, and the second was thirty to forty-five minutes. A standardized open-ended interview was used along with elements of an informal conversational interview. In the former the exact wording and sequence of the questions were determined in advance. All interviewees were asked the same questions in the same order in the first interview. The informal conversational interview allowed probing questions to be asked. Questions for the second interview were generated from the data of the first interview and were different for each participant. The results indicated that these six former students would have taken music in high school if there had been no music tours. Music tours, however, did contribute significantly to the enjoyment of their music involvement in high school. Music tours provided opportunities to make meaningful connections with each other, making going to band class seem less like school and more like a group of friends working toward a common goal. Music tours provided positive and memorable new experiences such as performing for new audiences in new places. They provided opportunities to experience a degree of independence and autonomy as travelling musicians. The results also indicated that music tours did contribute to the participants' music involvement as adults. The good memories of music tours provided them with a desire to experience the exhilaration of performing and listening, a desire to make meaningful connections in their music involvement, and to embrace new experiences in their music involvement.