This study evaluated the Use of Music Inventory (UMI) in three national samples from Slovakia ( N = 1,097), Serbia ( N = 700), and Croatia ( N = 473). Confirmatory factor analyses did not support the original item set in any country. Alternative models yielded improved fit and internal consistency while retaining the three intended dimensions (Emotional, Cognitive, Background). Item-level analyses revealed recurrent instabilities for Items 2 and 8 in Slovakia and Serbia, with additional problems for Items 4 and 12 in Croatia, indicating that nostalgia-laden, affect-specific, and genre-evaluative wordings are vulnerable to cultural/developmental variation. Convergent validity patterns were observed across countries: women scored higher on Emotional and Background use, men scored higher on Cognitive use, and respondents with formal music education scored higher on Cognitive use. Cross-country comparisons showed higher Cognitive use in Slovakia and higher Background use in Serbia. Overall, results support cautious cross-cultural use of the UMI and motivate targeted item revision (e.g., rewording or replacing retrospective and genre-specific statements) and routine tests of measurement invariance by country, gender, and education. Findings also highlight the value of complementing attitudinal UMI scales with behavioural indices of music regulation in future research.
This research investigated the cognitive processes involved in classifying the cultural origin of music and how various musical features influence these processes. One hundred White-European (Western) listeners from the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand, and Australia listened to 48 ten-second music excerpts, comprising Western classical and Chinese traditional bowed-string music conveying happiness, sadness, calmness, and agitation. Western listeners classified each music excerpt as either Western or Chinese in a forced-choice task and rated their familiarity with the music. Measures of accuracy, sensitivity, response bias, and response time were obtained, while musical features were extracted for subsequent regression analyses. Listeners were more accurate in classifying Western music than Chinese music but responded more quickly when attempting to classify Chinese music than Western music. Listeners also demonstrated high sensitivity in distinguishing between Western and Chinese music, but with a liberal response bias to classify music as Western. Listeners exhibited reduced ability to distinguish between Western and Chinese music (low sensitivity) that was happy or agitated, with a strong response bias to classify such excerpts as Western. Musical features and culture-specific factors significantly predicted classification accuracy and response time for both Western and Chinese music. We discuss the roles of decision-making processes in the cultural classification of music, proposing that both heuristic (automatic) and reflective processes are involved. We also discuss potential mechanisms through which the emotional connotations of music impact upon its perceived cultural origins.
Understanding the key determinants of lifelong music learning intentions (LMLI) is critical for promoting sustainable music education and long-term learner engagement. Grounded in the theory of planned behavior (TPB) and extended with additional psychosocial constructs, this study examined the effects of past behavior and parenting styles (authoritative and authoritarian) on students’ intentions to pursue lifelong music learning, mediated by cognitive factors including attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. A cross-sectional survey was conducted between October 2024 and January 2025 among 617 university students from three government-funded universities located in Fujian Province, China. The sample was selected using convenience sampling. Data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. According to the results, total effects analyses indicated that past behavior had the largest effect on LMLI, primarily through its influence on cognitive mediators. Next are subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and attitude. Although neither authoritative nor authoritarian parenting styles had a direct effect on willingness, both showed significant indirect effects through cognitive factors. These findings provide empirical support for the expanded TPB model and highlight the importance of early musical experiences and family socialization processes in shaping college students’ long-term engagement in music learning. The results provide practical insights for educators and policymakers seeking to develop targeted interventions, such as music programs that foster early engagement and family-based support structures, to enhance students’ lifelong engagement in music education.
Research examining participation in community choirs suggests that group singing provides choir members with benefits including emotion-regulation, increased positive affect, and reduced stress, as well as social benefits like feelings of support, trust, safety, and connection. During the COVID-19 pandemic community choirs were forced to discontinue in-person rehearsals to avoid spread of the virus. The current study focuses on one such community choir in London, UK, which moved from an in-person format to an online format during the pandemic. Interviews were conducted with ten members of the choir, five of whom continued participating in online rehearsals and five of whom did not. Interviews were analyzed using Thematic Analysis to explore the aspects of in-person choir participation that were most missed as well as the aspects that could not be satisfactorily replicated online. Participants explicitly mentioned that they missed being able to blend their voices with others and reported that singing in the physical presence of the rest of the choir had more emotional impact than what they experienced online. While some participants continued with these online rehearsals, others did not because they missed in-person elements of the choir enough that they lost motivation to take part online. The results of this study highlight the psychological, emotional, and social benefits of choir rehearsals taking place in person and suggest that there are fundamental aspects of group singing that cannot be reproduced in an online context.
When live music paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, people looked for other opportunities to engage with music. The present case study explored a group of cycling enthusiasts who engaged in a collaborative playlist-making activity during COVID-19, called "Song of the Day." Our two research questions asked: (1) What does the group's collaborative playlisting process entail? and (2) What were the outcomes of engaging in collaborative playlist-making during the COVID-19 pandemic? Using an exploratory, qualitative approach, we conducted semi-structured interviews with group members (N = 4 Australian residents; M-age = 63). Five overarching themes were identified via Thematic Analysis: inspiration and ongoing participation, promoting emotional well-being, bonding, shared and expanded musical engagement, and song selection. Although initially motivated by a simple premise of sharing one song a day to lighten the mood and keep in touch during lockdowns, the playlisting activity guidelines evolved over time. A shift to selecting songs that met stated thematic parameters made the activity challenging and elicited competitiveness and conversation, which fostered continued participation and deepened existing friendships. Engaging in this form of collaborative playlisting sparked enjoyment and nostalgia, fostered group conversation, created opportunities for bonding, and prompted the exploration and discovery of new music and artists. As lockdowns ended, the activity continued, and group members also began attending live, in-person music events together. The group's use of multiple technologies to share, listen, and discuss extend previous research on collaborative playlist-making and further our understanding of how creative music engagement promotes social connection and well-being.
