Abstract: | The language people use to talk about something can constrain as well as facilitate understanding. This essay explores the lessons learned through a study of how people talked about music to examine what it can mean for museums and museum experiences. The study itself had people talk about their interest, background, and ways of engaging with music, then listen to random cuts of preselected music to talk about what they were hearing. Several themes emerged from the study, suggesting there are clusters to ways in which people frame their experiences of music, which extend to how people might understand the museum experience and what museums might do to make that experience more relevant. |