Soundtrack to Solitude: Performing the Sonic Self Through Musical Narrative Inquiry

This chapter reflects on the unique benefits of applying narrative methodologies to artistic practice-based research, exploring how musical performance itself may tell, reinforce, or challenge identity through creative processes. It delves into relationships between performers, collaborators, and musical materials to contemplate ways narratives of identity may exist in the creative processes of musical performance and asks: How may performance and musical works address the “unspeakable”? What can we understand of musical and personal experiences by focusing on narrative dimensions of performing? How may musical materials and objects tell stories of identity? These themes are explored through an artistic research project in which I asked, “Who am I? What do I sound like?” and “Does who I am matter for what I sound like?” Rather than viewing musical performance as a static object, I argue for it as a narrative experience, addressing these questions through the processes of commissioning, recording, and performing Soundtrack to Solitude for solo guitar, composed by Helen Svoboda. Situated at the intersection of narrative inquiry and artistic research, I propose musical narrative inquiry as a methodology uniquely suited for exploring identity and the sonic self in and through creative practice.