Metaphoric Music Listening inside and outside music therapy

1. Metaphoric Music Listeninginside and outside music therapy The Ear in Music Norwegian Academy of Music May 11-12th Lars Ole Bonde Dept. Of Communication/Music Therapy , Aalborg University Center for Music and Heath, Norwegian Academy of Music

2. Overview • PART 1: • OUTSIDE THERAPY / INSIDE EVERYDAY LIFE • Ways of listening • Theoretical models • PART 2: • INSIDE THERAPY /OUTSIDE EVERYDAY LIFE? • Ways of listening • Metaphorical listening – practice and theory • Conclusions

3. Ways of listening: Howard’s End • From E. M. Forster: Howard’s End, Chapter 5: • It will be generally admitted that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has ever penetrated into the ear of man. All sorts and conditions are satisfied by it. Whether you are like Mrs. Munt, and tap surreptitiously when the tunes come - of course, not so as to disturb the others - or like Helen, who can see heroes and shipwrecks in the music's flood; or like Margaret, who can only see the music; or like Tibby, who is profoundly versed in counterpoint, and holds the full score open on his knee; or like their cousin, Fraulein Mosebach, who remembers all the time that Beethoven is echt Deutsch; or like Fraulein Mosebach's young man, who can remember nothing but Fraulein Mosebach: in any case, the passion of your life becomes more vivid, and you are bound to admit that such a noise is cheap at two shillings. • Mrs. Munt: Automatic kinaesthetic responses Helen: Multi-modal Imagery Margaret: Musical Imagery?; Tibby: Visual Analysis Fraulein Mosebach: Non-musical associations Young man: Emotional associations

4. Layers of meaning (Frede V. Nielsen)

5. The Info-processing model Cultural Aesthetics Mental Cognition Physical/M Psychoacoustics Physical Acoustics Alternative model: ”Resonance is not passive: it is a perceiving organism’s active, exploratory engagement with its environment.” (Clarke p. 19) Affordances and appropriations: ”I mean simply what things furnish, for good or ill. What they afford the observer, after all, depend on their properties.” (Gibson 1966). However, affordances are not determined by the object and its properties, but ”through an interaction between people, interpretations and decisions and the use of materials. Affordances are the products of practices of appropriation, achieved in and through practical action and how to locate affordances may have to be learned.” (DeNora 2007) E. Clarke: An ecological model(Ways of Listening, 2005)

6. Intensive listening to the musical timespace (Erik Christensen)

7. Body listening(Bonny) ”Of course listening to music with the body is nothing new. Spontaneous movement to music is the genesis of dance. However, at some point in time we have forgotten the educational functions of the body – what we could call body improvisation. Basically it is about feeling the music in the body and then let the body express the emotion in movement.” (Helen Bonny 1993) Fireside listening (Bastian) ”When we listen to contemporary music it is probably irrelevant to expect a Shakespearean plot. In the moment we may not be able to grasp the melody, the rhythm or the harmonic progression – we don’t recognize the ’characters’. In this case the best listening mode is what I call fireside listening. We decide not to make presumptions or judgements about what may come from the inside or the outside. Instead we concentrate on how the music is reflected in mind and body. What actually happens is what counts.” (Peter Bastian 1987, s. 149) Other ways of listening

8. Theory • Imagery as a representational mode (Horowitz) • Music as metaphor and analogy (based on Lakoff & Johnson and Paul Ricouer)

9. Theory: Imagery as one ofThree modes of representationA theoretical model by Mardi J. Horowitz (1983) • Enactive representation: includes innate and learned response mechanisms. • This is bodily 'thinking through enactions' • Image representation: allows information processing (often spontaneous) after perceptual events in several subsystems or -modalities: kinesthetic, olfactory, gustatory, visual, auditive, emotions. • This is (metaphorical) thinking "as if…” • Lexical representation: intimately connected to language. • This is traditional ’thinking in words and concepts' • Metaphor: The metaphoric language is a special language enabling verbal representation of imaginal and enactive experiences.

10. Metaphor theory – Lakoff & Johnson Meaning in natural language begins in figurative, multivalent patterns. These patterns and their connections are embodied and cannot be reduced to a set of literal concepts and propositions. The body-based patterns of meaning are condensed in image schemata. Image schemata are the basis of metaphors. Metaphors are cross-domain mappings in the conceptual system. Certain image schemata lend themselves readily to the description of music experiences, e.g. PATH, FORCE, BALANCE

11. Ricoeur on metaphor and narrativeThe rule of the metaphor(1977) Time and narrative(1984) Metaphor is a SEMANTIC EVENT made possible by 3 KINDS OF TENSION: • Tension within the statement • Tension between literal and metaphorical interpretation • Tension between identity and difference in the interplay of resemblance • ”Musik in ihrer schönsten Form ist die Sprache der Liebe, die Alles heilen kann.” (Richard Wagner) • ”Jede Krankheit ist ein musikalisches Problem - die Heilung eine musikalische Lösung” (Novalis)

12. PART II: Music therapy • Receptive music therapy methods: • The Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music (BMGIM) – individual format • Music-Centered Guided Imagery and Music (MCGIM) – individual format • Music and Imagery – group or individual format

13. The BMGIM session BMGIM was developed by Helen L. Bonny in the 1970s in USA. Definition: ”A modality of therapy involving spontaneous imaging, expanded states of consciousness, pre-designed classical music programs, ongoing dialogues during the music-imaging, and non-directive guiding techniques” (Bruscia 2002) Session duration: 90-120 minutes 1. Prelude (15’-25’) Identifying a focus 2. Induction/relaxation (5’-10’) 3. Music imaging (”Travel” to a ’program’) (25’-50’) with ongoing dialogue 4. Transition w. drawing (5-10) 5. Postlude (20’-30’) Making meaning of the experience Prelude and Postlude: Sitting up Transition Induction and ’Music travel’: On the couch

14. BMGIM/Drift dive: Changing music is the strong current that pushes the individual into new territory for active and open exploring MCGIM/Manta dive: No current. Repeated music makes the individual stay in one place for a receptive, focused contemplation of a singular experience Summer: A double metaphor

15. 3 levels of metaphoric thinking • Three levels or types of metaphoric thinking in GIM has been identified in the GIM literature (Bonde 2000, 2005): • (I) The narrative episode, configured around a core metaphor (e.g.a crossroad in life -> an exploration of a new path) • (II) The narrative configuration of the self (e.g. ’the jester’ as a self metaphor, exposed to a situation) • (III) The full narrative (including emplotment) (e.g. a story of the jester being first praised and then rejected and abandoned by the king – and maybe supported by the queen…)

16. What is configuration? • Configuration is the specific construction or arrangement of elements in a given context • In a narrative context Configuration is the distribution of elements in the ’image’, ’scene’ or ’narrative’: • what is foreground/middle ground/background? • who is the protagonist/antagonist(s)? • who is the helper (a person, an animal, a force or artefact)? • In therapy a C can be changed = reconfiguration • This demands a change of the ’plot’: the dynamic web of causes and effects (the ”who dunnit” question) • In BMGIM and M&I there is a spontaneous configuration of images/metaphors, and in a dynamic process there may be a reconfiguration -> ”A New Story” may begin.

17. Music and Imagery Examples • Exercise: Listen to a piece of music with focus on: • Bodily reactions • Emotional reactions • Imagery • Sound properties • Structural observations • …. • Or follow the contour of the following slide

18. Tveitt: O be ye most heartily welcome

19. Hevner’s Mood Wheel

20. Aksnes & Ruud (2008) ”In the analysis the well-balanced and "floating" character of the music was understood in terms of amodal, body-based schemata that are operative within music cognition.(Furthermore, the slightly darker turn towards the end of the piece is also reflected in several of the narratives). In the comparison with the reported travels, it was concluded that the schemata evoked by the music afforded a sensation of being held and carried by the music. ” A psych. Patient (HL f 54) In the beginning a positive mood and beautiful nature imagery. However, the darkness and tension in the middle section spoiled the good mood, and even if she could hear the mood of the beginning return in the end, she could’nt reenter this mood. She accepted the suggested interpretation - that the music experience repeated one of her ’scripts’: the music didn’t hold its promise, and she couldn’t get out of the negative response this evoked in her. Tveitt #1 Soundscapes

21. Group Music and Imagery with psychiatric outpatients • Groups of up to four psychiatric outpatients with a score of 51 or above on the Global Assessment of Function (GAF) Scale. • Diagnoses: Paranoid schizophrenia, Anxiety disorders, Personality disorders, PTSD, OCD….. • 90 minutes session: Long prelude (up to 60’) – Induction (3-5) – music listening (4-10) – mandala (5) – prelude (10-20). • Music with a mixed supportive-challenging profile used in most cases

22. Tveitt #1 Patient assessments (1)

23. Tveitt #1 Patient assessments (2)

24. Some clinically based conclusions • This piece of music – with a mixed profile – has proven an excellent in/exclusion tool, independent of diagnosis. • Patients react to the music in a variety of modalities, and their readiness to report is easily assessed. • Patients seem to have stronger sensibility and reactions to the ’darker’ sections of the music, and their reactions show if they are able to work with the metaphoric imagery in a constructive way. • Differences from the imagery reported in Aksnes/Ruud study may also be related to the different setting.

25. Perspectives in/outside therapy: Music Imaging as ’health musicking’ • Music imaging is a natural phenomenon • It is used in therapy (e.g. BMGIM), but also in everyday life as ’a technology of the self’ (DeNora) • Affordance & appropriation (Gibson): Music affords imaging and music imaging can be appropriated in multiple ways: listening self-care, musical self-medication (regulation of physical, psychological and spiritual wellbeing) (Ruud 2008) • Music imaging is both a mode of thinking (introjection) and a mode of expression (projection). • Sharing music images can be powerful group process – also outside therapy

26. Theoretical perspectives • Music can be categorized by intensity profiles and applied in receptive music therapy at different levels: • Supportive: Trust building and encouraging aims. Music must provide a catalyst for immediate positive interpersonal interaction. (Small containers) • Reeducative: Change through insight in conscious conflict material. Music provides experiences leading to greater self-awareness and –understanding. (Small to medium containers) • Reconstructive: Change and transformation through insight also in unconscious conflict material. (Medium to large containers) • (Summer 2002, referring to Wolberg 1967)

27. Intensity profiles: Graphic representations of experiential intensity (almost) No tension, even intensity Some tension (in the middle), ABA intensity Rich in tension, high intensity, unpredictable

28. A grounded theory: the contribution of the musical elements Helen Bonny developed the ‘affective contour’ model to represent the changing levels of intensity in a GIM music program in a graphic form. The ‘intensity profile’ presented here is used to give an easily understood graphic representation of the course of experienced intensity in one music selection. It is obvious that supportive, mixed and challenging music have very different profiles. The build-up and release of tension in challenging and mixed music, or the absence of tension-building in supporting music, is the main feature of a profile. The intensity of a given music selection influences the imagery in many ways, and increasing or decreasing intensity of the music is immediately reflected in the imagery. The music parameters with the greatest influence on intensity, and thus on the imagery, are mood, form, intensity(profile) and melodic conciseness.

29. The end: A cancer survivor’s imagery

30. Analysis of Music: 3 Categories