ABSTRACT
This chapter explores understanding of the ways in which familiarity with music shapes musical preferences and listening behaviour. Most studies have based on people's responses to experimenter-chosen music in laboratory conditions over short timeframes, and this explanation is too simplistic. They employs open-ended methods to explore engagement with music over time have shown that the process through which music becomes familiar and through which liking/disliking for certain styles of music develops, and the effect that familiarity has on listening behaviour, all vary from person to person and in response to the specific music a person is listening to. The chapter identifies the key factors shaping the relationship between familiarity with music and subsequent uses of and responses to music. It draws a range of music-psychological approaches to address the following questions: How does music become familiar; how do listeners understand the concept of familiar and 'favourite' music; how do listeners behave in order to maintain and protect familiarity in music.
