TABLE 1 HERE
Face-to-face interviews took place in the UK between January and April 2007.
Lasting between sixty and ninety minutes each, the interviews were transcribed and a
thematic analysis was undertaken using the approach known as empirical
phenomenology, following the guidelines laid out by Cooper and Macintyre (1993).
Transcripts were read in sample batches of ten, and themes relating to the research
questions were identified. These themes were grounded in the text, and translated
into coding categories drawn directly from the text itself. As each new sample of
transcripts was read the coding scheme was tested and revised. The process was
repeated until all text had been examined in relation to the coding scheme, and points
of difference and similarity amongst texts had been identified. NVivo software
(Bazeley, 2007) facilitated the coding process and organisation of the qualitative data.
Coding reports were generated by NVivo and exported into SPSS (Field, 2000) in
order to facilitate a comparison of the prominence assigned to various themes in the
musicians’ accounts.
Although interview studies are limited in that they can only ever offer insights related
to what participants choose to report, they have the potential to allow insight into the
issue at hand through the voice of those whose experiences we are interested in.
Recognizing that “we can never identify and measure the full context of anyone’s life,
even in the present, and interpretation of data can only be as well informed as
possible” (Freeman, 2000, p. 236), the analysis reported here was intended to probe
the issue of transition in order that these findings may be converged with findings
across different methodologies.