Daughters of Rock and Moms Who Rock: Rock Music as a Medium for Family Relationships in Portugal

Rita Grácio

doi:10.4000/rccs.6229

Abstract

This article discusses the role of rock musicking as a medium for family relationships. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with women who self-identify as rock music lovers, it analyses intergenerational rock musicking processes and informal learning. Music, together with other activities, aesthetic materials, technologies and narratives, is an essential element in family relationships and part of the parenting cultural toolkit, both for fathers, as the daughters remember and describe them, and for the mothers themselves. For women rock fans who become mothers, rock music articulates more empowering versions of maternal subjectivities, and specific settings – such as car journeys – can constitute “music asylums”. Taking two dyadic family relationships (father-daughter; mother-children), I argue that family and domestic spaces are relevant when analyzing everyday rock musicking.

Highlights

The family is a key site for children’s musical worlds, as several studies in the fields of music education, infant psychology, ethnomusicology, sociology and anthropology have shown (Campbell, 2011; Reeves, 2015; Sloboda, 2005; Young, 2012).This article addresses the role of rock musicking (Small, 1998) in family relationships, from the perspective of women rockers, via their roles as daughters and mothers
Based on research conducted in Portugal and drawing on in-depth interviews with women, this paper explores the role of rock musicking in two dyadic family relationships
This paper focuses initially on the interviewees5 who link their interest in rock to their fathers’ tastes, as detailed in Table 1: TABLE 1 – List of interviewees who stated they had inherited their interest in rock music from their fathers

Summary

Introduction

This article addresses the role of rock musicking (Small, 1998) in family relationships, from the perspective of women rockers, via their roles as daughters and mothers (whether they overlap or not). Based on research conducted in Portugal and drawing on in-depth interviews with women, this paper explores the role of rock musicking in two dyadic family relationships (father-daughter; mother-children). Self-identifying as rock music fans and/or musicians and DJs, their interest in rock music was acquired from their fathers, through everyday musicking practices. As these women grow older, a whole set of musical items – songs, records, guitars – is appropriated as part of the family legacy. Music is used to perform nostalgia and “memory work”, as well as to strengthen intergenerational ties in adult years

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