Cross-genre musicking in individual and collaborative group contexts: lived experience and musical identity

What is it like for a performer to encounter and engage with an unfamiliar network of influences, whilst simultaneously being located within their own habitus of music performance? How does cultural background and training shape an individual's sense of musical identity? This chapter explores the lived experiences of specialist musicians aged 19–33 working inside and outside their primary musical tradition and in cross-cultural scenarios where musical traditions intersect. Reference to two case study settings functions as a prelude to a broader consideration of the impact of sociocultural background upon experiential modes shaping the acquisition of musical skills and subjective sense of musical identity. The first case study centres on the individual engagement of undergraduate improvising musicians from western classical, north Indian classical and jazz backgrounds with unfamiliar musics across a period of three weeks as part of a pilot project at a UK conservatoire, designed to afford an immersive exploration of unfamiliar musics. The second centres on subjective experiences of a cross-genre collaboration between Arabic music specialists, classical string players and a jazz quintet. Phenomenological characteristics of experiences are considered with relation to an ecological framework.