Music News

Why Do Music Makers Do It For Life?

A significant percentage of people who create their own music have a tendency to continue doing that throughout their lives. This, according to Swedish research (and who doesn’t trust Swedish research?).

Theorell and his colleagues examined detailed data compiled on 3,820 people—all twins who were born between 1959 and 1985, and who sang or played an instrument as a child. These participants in the Swedish Twin Survey answered a wide range of questions about their musical training, their early exposure to culture, and whether they remained active musicians.

Almost exactly half of them reported they continued playing into adulthood, and nearly two-thirds of those who did were still doing so at the time of the survey. “Among those who continued playing as adults, there was an over-representation of men, and of participants with a high level of education,” the researchers report.

This group also contained “a higher proportion of participants who had more than five persons who sang or played in their social environment when they grew up; who attended concerts and other cultural activities more than once per year; and who estimated that there were more than 100 recordings of music in their home when they grew up.”

“The strongest predictor of continued playing was total amount of music practice,” the researchers add. The researchers strongly suspect those committed players were highly motivated as kids, and their love of music keeps them going as adults. (Taking music lessons more than once a week was also a strong predictor.)

You can read all the details here.

Larry Lootsteen

Music is life and I love to write about all things music. Independent music blogger. Writer in general. I am a big fan of alternative and indie music but there's no genre I haven't found something to like.

Larry Lootsteen has 630 posts and counting. See all posts by Larry Lootsteen

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