Identity and Musical Development in People with Severe or Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties

Abstract

What can we learn about someone’s identity from their capacity to engage with music? In this chapter we examine the relationship between identity and musical engagement on the part of children and young people with either severe learning difficulties (SLD) or profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD). We consider identity as it relates to a sense of self, we look at the concept of a ‘musical identity’, and we draw some distinctions that are applied to six children engaging in a range of musical activities. In a previous paper, Ockelford and Welch (2012) made reference to Gallagher’s (2000) suggestion that philosophical conceptions of the self can be divided into two groups, according to whether they tend towards either a ‘minimal’ or a ‘narrative’ self. We will return to this distinction and draw attention to a number of questions that arise in relation to conceptions of the self, and how these are manifested in musical engagement. In section 2 we introduce the Sounds of Intent project, and in section 3 we show how the music-developmental framework that it sets out is related to various stages in the evolution of the sense of self, illustrating our argument with evidence from six case studies.