Does Death and Suicide Sound Like the Music You Hear?
In: Can I Play with Madness? Metal, Dissonance, Madness and AlienationSearch for other papers by Abílio Oliveira in
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We have addressed some aspects related to music, its meanings, roles and effects, as well as its closeness with emotions, during adolescence. Mood swings are typical at this stage of life. In which music is essential; just as much as the questioning of life and death, in a creative process involving parents, colleagues, friends, idols and all of those that help in gaining autonomy, values and identity. A celebrity such as Kurt Cobain could represent any desperate adolescent, facing unbearable pain and pressure, who finds in music a reason for living and trying to be accepted. Our empirical research, developed in two phases (an extensive exploratory research and a set of three experiments), was framed on the theory of social representations (SR). SR facilitates the analysis of the complex subjectivities that involve the imaginary relation with death, suicide and some practices (where music occupies a central place). We verified, on a (total) population of 1226 adolescents (comprehending both phases) that musical preferences articulate with the thoughts, feelings, beliefs and symbolic imaginary associated with life, death and suicide, with suicide ideation, the will to die or to live, suicidal and parasuicidal behaviour. Girls tend to prefer soft sounds and music to dance, and boys rather prefer ‘harder’ music, such as grunge, rock or metal. The younger (15-16 years old) listen to harder music that the older (17-18 years old). Musical preferences can also be associated to risk-taking and self-harm behaviours.