Mobile Safe Spaces and Preset Emotions: Making Music with Apps as a Digital Technology of the Self

ABSTRACT

Apps for making music on smartphones and tablets are widely used by professional and amateur musicians alike. Based on a qualitative study, this article describes how making music with apps affects users’ sense of self and emotion regulation in everyday life. It demonstrates that music apps are used in “technologies of the self,” that they shape musicians’ self-constitution and allow a complex interplay between music, place, and the self. It argues that music production with apps can promote practices of self-government, but also serve as a tool of self-empowerment and critique.

KEYWORDS:

• digital music technology
• emotion regulation
• everyday life
• mobile music
• music apps
• technologies of the self

Acknowledgments

The research presented in this article was conducted as part of the research project MuBiTec-LEA (2018-2021), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Further research was funded by the Gisela and Peter W. Schatt Foundation. I am grateful to the participants of my study, and to the MuBiTec-LEA team for fruitful discussions: Christian Rolle (University of Cologne), Marc Godau (University of Education Karlsruhe), Matthias Haenisch (University of Erfurt), and Matthias Krebs (Mozarteum University Salzburg).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. For a discussion of beliefs of spirit possession and mental health in Islam, see Dein and Illaiee. The fact that the surahs are not read but listened to points to the significance of auditory elements in Muslim religious practices (see Hirschkind), and underlines the aesthetic character of this digital religious practice.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the Gisela and Peter W. Schatt Foundation

Notes on contributors

Linus Eusterbrock

Linus Eusterbrock is a research assistant at the Department of Arts and Music at University of Cologne, Germany. He studied musicology and philosophy at the University of Cologne and Paris-Sorbonne. After working as a program editor at the Philharmonie Luxembourg and as a music and philosophy teacher in secondary schools, he obtained a PhD from the University of Cologne. His research interests include digital music production, music education and technology, and music in the context of the climate crisis.