Music: a strategy to promote health in rehabilitation? An evaluation of participation in a 'music and health promotion project'

This study illuminates the role and significance of music listening in everyday life for the long-term ill. Twenty-two participants, aged 34-65 from Oslo and Akershus in Norway, were recruited as a strategic sample and took part in eight in-depth interviews over a 1-year period, from 2004 to 2005. Four double CD compilations from different genres, part of the project, were used as devices to discover whether participants could learn to use music as a 'technology' for self-help, with regard to health, healing and recovery, through exposure to and exchange of new musical materials and practices. A novel Participatory CD design was developed, and the beneficial experiences of taking part in the project resulted in an increase in self-awareness and self-consciousness. Listening to and discussing music was considered to be an important tool in the process of change, sense of agency and self-development, through enhancing well-being and 'wellness', a vital factor in the process of recovery and sustaining quality of life, despite of illness.