1
Candidate Number 203808
Methods of Social Research - Quantitative Analysis – Assignment 1 – 11/12/09
P:
Okay so that should be it (short pause) um, okay, so basically we’re just part of…we’re sort of tacking onto a project that one of our professors has already been doing about um musical taste and musical consumption, um… so I’m just going to ask you some questions about your musical taste and musical consumption
M:
(overlapping) Okay
P:
(overlapping)Is that okay?
M:
Yeah.
P:
Alright great, and just so you know it’s completely confidential and your name won’t be on anything I hand in
M:
(overlapping)Yeah…yeah…yeah, sure.
P:
Okay great, um so what did you think about the uh, the Holywell event?
M:
Well you uh you didn’t go to it did you, did you?
P:
No I went to the one the week before, but not…
M:
I I thought it was great because uh….I wanted to go particularly because I love, um, the fore uh aprés [inaudible], and uh, so I wanted to go to the Japanese…the young Japanese cellist was playing that.
P:
Mmhmm
M:
And there’s uh a young pianist, and uh…uhh it was great, absolutely fabulous.
P:
Good, good
M:
Fabulous.
P:
Great…um, So, uh, where were you born?
M:
Where?
P:
Yes.
M:
I was born in the Northeast of England.
P:
And um, how long did you live there?
M:
Umm…well I was born in 1941.
P:
Okay.
M:
And I don’t know if you know England but it’s near Durham.
P:
Okay.
M:
Do you know that part of the world?
P:
A, a little bit
M:
And ummm… lived in that area until I went to university so, ummm, so from [inaudible] to eighteen really
P:
Oh Great. And where did you go to university?
M:
Leeds.
P:
Very nice.
M:
Mmhmm.
P:
Umm, so do you, would you say that you identify with any particular cultural group besides…British?
M:
Um… well I spent a lot of my life in France.
P:
Okay.
M:
So I…I think France would certainly be the second, um if I was to say that I have a s…a uh my first identity would be British rather than English specifically, and also umm…French.
P:
So British rather than English specifically?
M:
Well in the sense that I am of umm…my father’s Irish, my mother’s Scottish…
P:
Oh. Very nice.
M:
…So that makes me (short pause) British rather than…
P:
Right
M:
English if you wanted to be…sort of quibble over definitions
P:
Right, Right.
M:
Yeah
P:
Okay. Great. So speaking of your parents, um, what did they…what did they do? What did your father and mother do?
M:
Oh…. I never knew my father
P:
Okay.
M:
Because I was born in, in 1941.
P:
Uhuh
M:
And there’s war going on and it split up families…um, but he was ummmm he was in charge of the guns with the ummmm with battery Sergeant major for the royal artillery, and in civilian life, he uh, was um, he was umm I gather, but as I said I never knew him, he was a property surveyer and lived in Oxford.
P:
Oh, wow.
M:
Died in Oxford.
P:
And and then you ended up coming back here?
M:
(overlapping) I never knew him…hmm?
P:
And then you ended up coming back here?
M:
That’s a bit weird isn’t it, yeah, yeah…
P:
Umm , and…
M:
(overlapping)
And my mother, my mother was, um, again I never knew my mother because she had to go away, I’m a twin, you know, so she had to go away and earn some money, you know?
P:
Mmhmm
M:
So uh, that uh that’s war, you young people can’t really…
P:
Yeah.
M:
…get your heads around what, you know, not saying [?] everything was thrown up in the air
P:
Yeah.
M:
So she ended up um, as uh a senior nursing sister in a mental health , uh in mental hospital, that’s what they would call it in the old days
P:
Okay.
M:
A mental hospital, yeah.
P:
And um, so do you remember any music in your childhood, either your mother playing music or learning to play an instrument yourself?
M:
Well no we weren’t brought up by my parents.
P:
Oh okay
M:
But umm yes, I mean music, we we we um…my mother was determined that we should play the piano. Well I’m a twin, so um we started as soon as our little fingers could uh, get on the keyboard we were playing.
P:
Did you like it? Did you stick with it?
M:
Oh yes, yeah I play the piano now.
P:
(overlapping)Oh yeah? That’s great.
M:
(overlapping)Yeah…I’ve played for um I’m, I’m doing the pantomime where I am living at the moment.
P:
Oh nice.
M:
(overlapping)I’m playing the music
P:
(overlapping) That’s great.
M:
And I play for [inaudible]… Christmas dinners and things.
P:
Have you performed your whole life?
M:
No. no… Umm…uh, we went to the um, Methodist chapel, sort of brought up Methodist if you know what that is.
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
And so music was always there in the background, the hymns, the singing of the hymns.
P:
Right
M:
…and that sort of thing’s always there, ummm...there was…when we went with my mother when we were eleven, um she had a very fine, untrained soprano voice and she just, she used to sing, ummm snippets from light opera.
P:
(Overlapping)That’s nice
M:
(overlapping) Yeah
P:
So do you still listen to Opera now?
M:
I’m…Opera’s not my thing…I I I…I love um…Die Zauberflote, The Magic Flute.
P:
Uhuh.
M:
Mozart, absolutely love it. Um, but uhh, opera’s not really my favorite sort of music
P:
Okay…umm, and hymns? Do you still…do you, do you feel that that’s part of your life still, or that..
M:
Well If I had to, if I had to umm I’ve often fantasized about being on a program called Desert Island Disks, have you heard of it?
P:
No...I haven’t.
M:
Oh it’s a wonderful program?
P:
What is it?
M:
(overlapping)It’s been going on for years and years. Well it start off by somebody called Roy Plumbney, and its uhhh its like your marooned to a desert island and what would be your choice of eight discs to take with you on the desert island.
P:
And what would be your choices?
M:
Well the first choice would be umm to to me the interest of what desert island, somebody called Chirsty Young does it now.
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
Previously, I can’t remember who did it…another interesting media figure did it. Some of them, some of the people they interview obviously they’ve got to be famous otherwise they wouldn’t be on the program, but to me the interesting pro…the interesting, um, ones are people who actually relate the music to throughout their lives.
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
And as I say I often fantasize about it, but the first one definitely would be umm it was my old uncle, we were very poor and he uh he used to work down the pit, uh you know, the the the Durham was all coal…
P:
Uhuh
M:
And the pit men would go down and come back black and uh to…because there wasn’t much money, he used to cobble shoes…
P:
Mmhmm
M:
…for the family, and uh, we used, he had a a [inaudible] on the table and a hammer, and he used to put the um nails in his mouth and splice the layers into the…into the…heels and the tips of the toes so that you didn’t have to buy new shoes, we could afford new shoes
P:
Right, right.
M:
And he used to sing a hymn called Old Rugged Cross. Absolutely…I don’t know whether you know it
P:
No…
M:
Oh its wonderful, and I’ve got the wonderful memory of him sort of doing that. I was about six maybe.
P:
That’s great…so that would be your top choice?
M:
That would be number one choice, yeah.
P:
Great great, um okay, so so then now umm, you said you live just outside of Oxford? Or…
M:
I’ve been living in France.
P:
Okay.
M:
But now I’m living uh, in a village outside of Oxford called Blewbury.
P:
Okay, and how long were you living in France for?
M:
This last time, I’ve been I’ve been back and forth back and forth most of my adult life, umm this time I’ve been across for five years.
P:
Nice, umm…and where in France?
M:
In the South.
P:
That’s beautiful.
M:
It’s called Langue d’Arc? Near the um, the uh, the region’s called Langue d’Arc [inaudible]…you can see the “Pier Renier Occidental” from my window, but I didn’t like it.
P:
Umm…
M:
I felt very alienated. Certainly musically alienated as well.
P:
That’s interesting, and so, so what do you mean by musically alienated?
M:
Well, ehhh, that’s um, that’s a difficult thing to t to verbalize really. Umm the um, I well I felt alienated all together.
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
And musically alienated too because I think my musical tastes are probably quite sophisticated.
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
And uh certainly where I was was a very very unsophisticated area with sort of um street carnivals, and um street music. If you like that sort of thing, which I didn’t particularly like…
P:
So what what genres of music was it that they were in these street carnivals?
M:
I don’t know if it would be called the genre, it was more like sort of, because the area is so close to the Spanish border…
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
You get a lot of people coming from Spain, also to have it frank, they were coming to escape uh up into into France. You get the in the… in the, in the um Southern area of France, they call it Langue d’Arc, Langue d’Arc is the language of Arc, and that is what they spoke.
P:
Okay.
M:
It’s a land of the um troubadours, and uh, romantic songs.
P:
Okay.
M:
If you like that sort of thing.
P:
Right.
M:
My taste is ehhh… witness the fact that you find me here, is chamber music.
P:
Right.
M:
So the the songs of the troubadours and um, is a long way from chamber music, which is uh what I love.
P:
Right, right.
M:
Yeah.
P:
Umm so what kind of people did you find did…did listen to the uh, the troubadour type music?
M:
What kind of music?
P:
What, what kind of people? It was just, just the local people? Or?
M:
Well I mean the whole area is inundated with expats.
P:
Okay.
M:
So I mean lot’s of people come there because they wanted wall to wall sunshine and and uh, and that sort of…um uh sort of light opera if you like if you’re talking musically again
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
That sort of, because I have musical..certain..certain knowledge of music and because of my own personal taste, it wasn’t my taste.
P:
Right.
M:
So I can’t speak for the people who like that sort of music.
P:
Right right.. So you feel more comfortable then at someplace like the Holywell Room?
M:
I feel I’ve come home.
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
To me...to go to the Holywell music room is uh a large part of coming back where I belong, and I feel that by umm, my identity is uh, here.
P:
Right.
M:
Yeah.
P:
Umm so when you went the other week, do you, or in general, do you go...do you usually go by yourself or…
M:
(overlapping)No
P:
(overlapping)..well how often do you go there?
M:
Re…not very…not enough. First of all I’ve been living abroad
P:
Right
M:
And secondly I uhh, am out in the countryside. So I’ve stayed the night with a friend who lives close by, we just made this sort of um, next day went off. I would love to come more often.
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
I’ve got um, uh, a fr…a young man who I I’ve I’ve been doing, myself been doing music therapy for want of a better word for people with learning difficulties and there’s a particular young men I’d love to bring to the concerts but, I...uh, maybe I will in the future, but he’s got um… uh Gromaire Epileptic fits, and he he needs, he needs somebody with him, it needs to be carefully organized. I’d love…he’s name is Jacob, he’s very musical, and uh he would love to go there, I’d love to take him in the future, I’d love to go more often than I do. So the answer to your questions is not as much as I’d like to.
P:
(Laughs) okay umm and then… so… you’ve been in Oxford, you said your husband was a professor in Oxford?
M:
Yeah.
P:
And what did he teach?
M:
Modern history.
P:
Very interesting. Umm, so did you…you lived in Oxford then for a while too?
M:
Lived outside Oxford, in a village called Wolvercote…
P:
(overlapping) Okay.
M:
…for nineteen years.
P:
And um, what other what other venues have you been to here before..be besides the Holywell music room?
M:
I’ve been to the Sheldonian.
P:
The Sheldonian, did you like that too?
M:
Last time I went was a few years ago it was a Gershwin concert.
P:
Oh really?
M:
Absolutely stunning. I mean, uh, (laughs) Oxford audience tend to be sort of, I mean Gershwin to me is just that syncopated rhythm is just great and to listen to sort of Gershwin in the, in the Sheldonian is a bit of a bit of a stiff experience for these uh listeners. Similarly at uh, Jack Gibbons, I’d love…I haven’t heard him but uh do uh have you heard of Jack Gibbons?
P:
No
M:
Well he’s a well-known exponent of Gershwin.
P:
Okay.
M:
He plays there.
P:
Oh okay.
M:
At the uh Holywell music room. Um no I mean I have I don’t go to many concerts unfortunately.
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
I go to Christmas, I go to uh Christ church…
P:
Right, right.
M:
…Christmas occasionally.
P:
Yeah that’s beautiful.
M:
(Overlapping) otherwise not.
P:
Umm.. and so do you usually, if you do go to concerts is it usually a social thing or by yourself…
M:
No I don’t I don’t go by myself.
P:
No.
M:
(overlapping) I think I’ve answered that.
P:
Oh, sorry.
M:
Yeah
P:
Umm, and so what about other um media for listening to music? Have you…do you listen to the radio?
M:
Umm. No. I listen to radio for… I know there’s a classical, um, radio program, and uh radio’s free isn’t it? Used to be. Um, but if I’m driving in my car, which I spent, seem to spend a lot of time these days doing, uh I tune into radio 4. I think at the end of the day my musical tastes are pretty limited really.
P:
Mmhmm Okay. Umm so, so there’s a lot of stations that you would just turn off if they came, if they were on.
M:
I wouldn’t put them on in the first place.
P:
(laughs)
M:
I certainly wouldn’t listen to um, pop… pr...music.
P:
Right, Right.
M:
I mean I’m not, uh uh you know, saying anything, but it’s not for me.
P:
Right. And what about, you know, background music when you’re, when you’re out and you uh…
M:
(overlapping)Like I don’t like wall paper music.
P:
Yeah. Like elevator music.
M:
It irritates me.
(Both laugh)
M:
I’d rather not. I mean I love jazz.
P:
Mmhmm
M:
Absolutely love jazz
P:
Is there anywhere…
M:
(overlapping)Without being in anyway knowledgeable about it.
P:
Is there anywhere here that is a good jazz venue that you know of?
M:
I’ve only ever listened to jazz as I said at the Sheldonian which is quite unlikely.
P:
Right.
M:
But I imagine…I don’t know! Would you know that?
P:
No I don’t I…I’m sure there are, uh
M:
(overlapping) I’d imagine there would be. I mean generally I’ve listened to jazz in um pubs
P:
Yeah. Okay.
M:
The Rose Revived near Witney did fantastic jazz. Not..not anymore, somebody complained about the noise.
P:
Oh that’s too bad.
M:
Mmm, too bad, yeah absolutely.
P:
And have you um purchased any music lately?
M:
(pause) um…(pause) what do you mean by lately?
P:
Ummm (pause) you know what let me just…I’m not sure if this is going to…
M:
Is that running out?
P:
No no. I’m just not sure if the…I’m just going (laughs) I’m going to sit a little closer actually in case the background noise…
M:
Yes I did actually I did I’m just thinking about it… I did, um…I went to um, Blackwells, three weeks ago. I’m trying to think of what I got. It was certainly chamber music. I think it was, uh it might have been the Chubert Octet, I’m not sure. It was certainly chamber music, yeah.
P:
Um, so then do you listen to music, um you said in the car in your car would be the radio, but around your house? Would you listen to a different type of music? Or…different media?
M:
Well, I mean I’ve got CDs.
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
A small..a small selection of CDs which I’d like to, uh, you know augment. But my CDs have really boiled down to a stack of jazz, and two stacks of chamber music, so I that’s why I say to you, I’ve…my my musical tastes are not catholic.
P:
Right
M:
Occasionally I like opera.
P:
Right.
M:
But generally it it, when I like at my the music I’ve got, it’s either chamber music or jazz. I play, my musical playing is eclectic.
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
I mean I, I’ve just said I’m playing the piano for pantomime…
P:
Right, right.
M:
[inaudible] and stuff like that, but I do like to play um, classical music and also uh popular music like Andrew Lloyd Webber…
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
…people like that, yeah
P:
So do you, you don’t listen to that so much though? You mostly just play it?
M:
If I was listening I’d be listening, like I said, either to jazz or… or chamber music, yeah.
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
Or, I’ve got if, specifically at um Easter I love, uh I forgot to mention that I go to, at Easter I go the um, university church where they perform St Matthew’s passion.
P:
Oh okay.
M:
Which of course is wonderful. So, and I love Handel.
P:
Mmhmm.
M:
And the Messiah, and you know.
P:
I do too.
M:
Yeah. I mean. The greats. The great ones, I mean the great ones for me have got to be Mozart, who I absolutely adore. And Beethoven. Um, Hayden, and umm who Mozart called papa, he called him papa Hayden. And, um, did I say Beethoven.
P:
Uhh I’m not sure, but (laughs)
M:
(overlapping)Beethoven of course yes. Umm, these are the great ones, yeah. Handel, umm yeah, the the these for me are, are great, and I’ve got them on a pedestal. But I wouldn’t ever want to put, what I would not want to do is buy a compendium of extracts from, say…
P:
Right.
M:
…The Magic Flute…
P:
Okay.
M:
…and say, right I’m going to listen to that. Because if I want to listen to the Magic Flute, I would put time aside to listen to the Magic Flute alone.
P:
Right.
M:
Alone. Those are the occasions when I want to be alone to listen to music if I was, had the time, the space, and so on, to be to to listen because I don’t see the point of putting on a late Beethoven quartet and start talking about what would you like for supper.
P:
Right.
M:
It doesn’t make any sense to me.
P:
Right, and so if, if you were talking about what you wanted to have for supper what, then what would you put on?
M:
I see you’re getting back to radio again aren’t you?
P:
No no, um it could be a CD, I’m just wondering, uh you know what types of music you think are appropriate for different types of activities?