The Music of Narrative Inquiry: Characterizing, Representing, and Learning from Experiences of Experiences

This chapter begins with a story before the story: the practical need to create a presentation on publishable research and ends with the lessons that engaging in this autobiographical narrative inquiry taught. In-between came the main story, having to do with the influence my music background has had on how I characterize and represent experiences of experiences in my narrative inquiry research. To set my backdrop, I introduce the concepts of experience, narrative, and music. I also sketch narrative inquiry as the method I initially used to gather, analyze, and transition field texts produced by multiple research participants to research texts in my studies. I then divulge the inquiry decisions I made so my narrative prose would be more evocative and flow more smoothly. Three pieces of scholarship published in different SSCI journals became my narrative exemplars. Through this process, I illuminate how my music background closely informs how my narrative scholarship takes shape. I conclude with the story after the story: that is, the big ideas that this “music of narrative inquiry” reveals.