The construction of personal and social identity through the music

This article uses an approach grounded in music to examine how the sciences and various disciplines can contribute to the construction of identity. After describing the multifaceted nature of our social reality the article then goes into detail on a number of issues: the dualities in the equations ‘individual–society’ and ‘us–the other’; the component parts of identity as these are understood in psychology and sociology; the elements that characterize music concerts as rituals; the relationship between culture, identity and discourse; and prevailing paradigms on the subject of identity as these are addressed in research. In all these areas, the author attempts to avoid the more well-trodden paths of music theory and instead invites the readers to create ties of their own between the theory of music and their own personal knowledge and experience of it.