FORMATIVE MUSICAL EXPERIENCES OF OLDER ADULT SEXUAL MINORITY WOMEN FROM RURAL AREAS

People often have strong emotional connections between music and memories, which can affect a person’s identity and self-concept. The deep meaning that individuals find within music that is important to them helps music therapists to make connections to clients and to work with clients to understand their experiences through the lens of music. The purpose of this project was to examine in depth the musical experiences of sexual minority women aged 65 and older from rural areas, and to see how musical experiences may have impacted their identity. In this adapted case study, I conducted in-depth one-on-one interviews and constructed musical autobiographies. The research questions were “How do individual sexual minority over the age of 65 describe impactful musical experiences including types of music and musical environments?”, “How do musical experiences affect identity formation and self-concept for individual sexual minority women over the age of 65?” and “How do individual sexual minority women over the age of 65 perceive the process of creating a unique musical autobiography?” Using Reflexive Thematic Analysis, I identified the following themes: 1) Music influences emotions, 2) Music connects people to their community, 3) Music creates associations with people’s loved ones. The results of this study help to inform future music therapy practice in the value of using the musical autobiography intervention and the importance of learning about people’s musical experiences in a deep and thorough way.