A leap of trust: qualitative research in a musical community of practice

This article explores the process of determining an approach to the analysis of qualitative data collected as part of a case study research project involving children and teenagers from a community of musical practice an all ages community based fiddle group in central Scotland. The researcher's overarching goal is to find ways to increase ongoing participation in playing a musical instrument by people of all ages. The article does not present the findings of the study, but instead explores the notion of the reciprocal leap of trust that occurs between researcher and case study group, and the effects the arising mutual obligations and responsibilities have on research decisions regarding data analysis. The author describes her experience of data collection in the field and suggests that decisions regarding data analysis are influenced equally by the research participants and herself, as researcher. Theirs is a shared narrative. The research itself a reciprocal leap of trust.