1st Edition

The Routledge Companion to Music, Autoethnography, and Reflexivity

Edited By Peter Gouzouasis, Christopher Wiley Copyright 2025
406 Pages 67 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

406 Pages 67 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

406 Pages 67 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

The Routledge Companion to Music, Autoethnography, and Reflexivity represents a substantial contribution to the field of writing reflexively about an individual’s practice within music studies. In seven sections, 22 original chapters by a diverse set of contributors consider writing about personal activities from the points of view of performance, composition, musicology, and pedagogy, drawing... Read more

INTRODUCTION

 

1.     Music, autoethnography, and reflexivity: An introductory conversation
Peter Gouzouasis and Christopher Wiley

 

PART 1: INSTRUMENTAL PERFORMANCE

 

2.     Experiencing the Karnatic Violin: Knowing in the hands
Alice Barron

 

3.     Performing intercultural music for flute and electronics: Reflections on heterotopian (s)p(l)ace
Jean Penny

 

4.     A conductor’s autoethnography of interpretive process
Bede Williams

 

PART II: VOCAL PERFORMANCE

 

5.     An autoethnographic approach to understanding early vocal recordings and late nineteenth-century singing treatises
Barbara Gentili

 

6.     An autoethnography of performance in the vocal booth
Rod Davies

 

7.     Semi-staging Written On Skin: An experiment in the “doubleness” of lived experience and unfolding performative invention
Benjamin Davis

 

8.     A cautionary tale of the health and well-being of college music students
Matthew Yanko

 

PART III: COMPOSITION AND CREATIVE PRACTICE

 

9.     Notes to self: How composers write about their music
Christopher Leedham and Martin Scheuregger

 

10.  The “self” particle: A time traveller’s account of how one doctorate in music composition would have benefitted from a better awareness of autoethnography
Bartosz Szafranski

 

11.  A performative autoethnography of the oratorios I Believe and Nostos: Composing music, words, and worlds

Zane Zalis

 

PART IV: PEDAGOGY

 

12.  How did we learn to create this performance? A tutor models student reflective practice
Monica Esslin-Peard

 

13.  An autoethnography of designing an undergraduate music module on Adele’s 25 album
Christopher Wiley

 

14.  “Mind the gaps”: Exploring models for positioning the researcher in doctorates in music performance
Sarah Callis and Neil Heyde

 

15.  A piano mismatch: Passion, dreams, and being a “good boy”

David Lines

 

PART V: CULTURAL AND CONTEXTUAL MUSIC STUDIES

 

16.  Jammin’ “under one groove”: An autoethnographic steelband love story
Charissa Granger

 

17.  An autoethnographic approach to linking performance, practice research, and historical research
Verica Grmuša

 

18.  Thumbprints on the paintwork: On autoethnography and fandom in the music of Mark E. Smith and The Fall
Iain Findlay-Walsh

 

19.  1000 days project: An a/r/tographic inquiry of hospital music-making
Rosalind Hawley

 

 

 

PART VI: ART AS AUTOETHNOGRAPHY

 

20.  Advocating a folkloristic disposition in the context of music pedagogy
Simon E. Poole

 

21.  Twilight

Benjamin Bolden

 

PART VII: CODA: FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS

 

22.  Autoethnography: A reflexive research process
Peter Gouzouasis

 

Biography

Peter Gouzouasis is a Professor of Music Education in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at The University of British Columbia, Canada.

Christopher Wiley is a Senior Lecturer in Music and Head of Music and Media at the University of Surrey, UK.