Desire for Family Connections: Family History and Cultural Context

In this chapter, Garrido and Davidson discuss in depth how an individual’s music choices are influenced by both family and culture. The context of the family provides one’s earliest experiences with music and enhances familial relationships. Thus autobiographical memories become closely entwined with concepts of family and heritage. The chapter considers how life circumstances work so as to enhance or diminish one’s sense of attachment to the traditions of one’s heritage. The discontinuity experienced by many people in the modern world of globalization and large-scale displacement can increase the importance of connecting with the music of one’s roots.