Abstract
My initial response to the title of this book were questions such as ‘how will I relate to this book as a music therapist?’ and ‘where is music therapy in this?’ These questions might resonate with some of the splits and tensions within our profession related to psychodynamic or music-centred practice which I experience in my own practice and encounter in some of the music therapy literature I read.
I was also reminded of the powerful opening of James Hillman’s (1991) essay ‘Peaks and vales’: ‘Our anthropology, our idea of human nature devolved from tripartite cosmos of spirit, body (or matter) and soul to the dualism of spirit and body (or matter)’ (p. 54). Considering the tripartite of Music – Psychoanalysis – Musicology offered an opportunity to reflect on the dyad (or dualism) of music making and psychoanalysis, which are central to my clinical practise. My day-to-day clinical practise has never included analysis of music created during clinical sessions. As I reflected on this, I became aware of the potential loss the absence of musical analysis could possibly entail – a loss of an additional approach to understand what is taking place within the therapy room.
Overall, my response to the book was that of emerging questions, a sense of potential for dialogue and ‘bumping’ of ideas. I became aware of shifts in my understanding and a broadening of my perspective created by viewing psychoanalytic ideas through the lens of musicology (to borrow a concept from chapter 4). I found some chapters easier to relate to than others, and parts of the psychoanalytic theory, at times, felt quite detached or theoretical to me, and further removed from my experience of music making with another person in music therapy.
The book is divided into two parts: Part 1 – psychoanalysis, musical analysis and method, Part 2 – situating music and psychoanalysis. Eight of the nine contributors are lecturers in music, musicologists or professors of music across institutions in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. There is one contribution from a Music Therapist, Rachel Darnley-Smith. Perhaps an opportunity was lost to have a broader range of contributors including psychotherapists/psychoanalysts and perhaps more music therapists? The hard back version of the book is of a high-quality print in terms of illustrations and musical examples.
In the introduction, Samuel Wilson sets the context for the book.
This introduction outlines some trends, issues and opportunities in connections between music, psychoanalysis, and musicology past and present. It aims, first to provide the reader a critical survey of some significant and sometimes problematic themes that have emerged in psychoanalytic discourse on music. (p. 1)
Wilson’s introduction suggests that music can only be viewed through a psychoanalytic lens of its time and that our cultural values form our capacity to relate to, and make sense of, both music and psychoanalysis. Wilson gives examples of previously acceptable ideas that would no longer seem acceptable today such as psychoanalysts writing about the ‘primitive’ aspects of music (and societies) or psychoanalytic concepts based on gender stereotypes.
Wilson also describes the relationship between music and psychoanalysis, and how ideas from each have been integrated into the other and mutually influenced Western culture of which both are part. This caused me to consider the increased appreciation of multiculturalism and diversity in Western culture, and wonder how music therapists are adapting their practice to become more aware of their own culture and musical culture, and being sensitive to differences of experience when working with clients. In our small profession, do we have the sense that our practice can influence wider culture? Perhaps expressions of culture in music and psychoanalysis might be doubly manifested or amplified in music therapy – due to both psychoanalysis and music being available to manifest different aspects of culture at the same time.
In chapter 1, David Bard-Schwarz explores the way that the voice has been discussed in music and psychoanalysis by critiquing essays (mostly 20th century): While exploring the voice in readings, I will locate each approach within its disciplinary and critical context, suggesting to the reader various paths of inquiry that can lead to a deeper understanding of the writings cited, and their cultural contexts. (p. 25)
Bard-Schwarz explores what the voice can communicate and can connect us to, both with and without language. I will focus on two concepts. Bard-Schwarz starts with an exploration of Kristeva’s concept of genotext and phenotext which Barthes developed into genosong and phenosong. In genosong, the body is fully present in the performance and in phenosong, only the breath and voice are heard. Of interest here was the link with Kristeva’s concept of genotext – expression related to the body and prior to the acquisition of language – and phenotext – expression with the acquisition of language. ‘[Kristeva] views the genotext as articulation of threshold precisely at the fissure that will give way to psychic split’ (p. 26). This was a helpful reminder of the role of the body during expression in music therapy. The body can offer a connection to the pre-symbolic level and serve as a reminder of the ongoing boundary between pre-symbolic and symbolic through the presence of our bodies in the sounds of our voices.
Later on in the chapter, Bard-Schwarz explores ‘the object voice as the “acoustic embodiment of [Lacan’s] objet petit a”’ (p. 33) in relation to cycles of repeating musical phrases in Schubert’s ‘Der Doppelganger’. Here I was struck by the link with repetition in clinical improvisation – or perseverative playing – and those moments where there is a change and suddenly something else is possible for a moment.
In chapter 2, Alexander Carpenter offers an interesting academic exploration of the historical, theoretical and cultural parallels between Schoenberg and Freud – including the time and place of their respective works, and similarities in their work ethic and approaches to professional relationships.
In chapter 3, Kenneth M Smith explores desire and libidinal drives in music through analysing and understanding harmonic relationships using neo-Riemannian theory. In addition, Smith focuses on Lacanian theory to further illuminate how the listener might experience the psychological state of desire through harmony: desire can be discharged through harmonic resolution (cycles of subdominant-dominant-tonic) or be reworked and remain unresolved through moving within the same octatonic. Smith illustrates these ideas through a harmonic analysis of Wagner’s Prelude to Tristan and Isolde.
This chapter was not only one of the most challenging for me in terms of musical analysis but also one of the most rewarding. I found the focus on the relationship between the harmonic events and how this could be thought about in psychological terms through Lacanian theory to be very interesting and surprisingly relevant to clinical work. It made me consider how to be more aware of the potential psychological experience that musical connections and musical relationships can offer. I was also interested in his point that the tonic and dominant need each other to function harmonically – this relational aspect was fascinating to me as a music therapist who is particularly interested in relational psychoanalysis.
In chapter 4, Christopher Tarrant explores Schubert, music theory and Lacanian theories of fantasy and desire. This chapter starts by positioning the author’s analysis within the context of the tradition of musicologists contrasting Schubert’s treatment of sonata form with Beethoven’s. Tarrant uses Lacanian theories to analyse the function and impact of Schubert’s use of tonality in his Quartet in G major, D.887. The parts of this chapter that interested me most was the exploration of the ways our experience, understanding and relationship to a piece of music can be altered by the ways we engage with it – the ‘lens’ (p. 95) through which we view the music. These strike me as profoundly interesting questions as a Music Therapist.
Alexi Vellianitis (chapter 5) got me listening to Taylor Swift! This was an interesting chapter about culture, violence, marketization and capitalism. Vellianitis cites Zizek to explore the difference between ‘. . . “Subjective” violence – acts of “crime and terror, civil unrest international conflict” and “objective” violence, “a violence that sustains our very efforts to fight violence and promote tolerance”’ (p. 100) within pop music and popular culture. Vellianitis uses Swift’s song ‘I knew you were trouble’ to illustrate how the social and musical norms of pop culture can be ‘ruptured’ by the introduction of a musical device (dubstep drop), and that this device can be viewed as both subjective and objective violence within the context of the song.
This poses interesting questions for the Music Therapists about the interdependence between subjective and objective violence, and also mainstream and underground music, and the way that marketisation or capitalism can bring together acts of violence and violent resistance within a seemingly simple pop song.
Part 1 demonstrates the prevalence of Lacan’s theories in musicology and musical analysis in contract to the music therapy literature. Perhaps this links to Lacan’s focus on language and semiotics.
In the first chapter in part 2 (chapter 6), Samuel Wilson discusses ‘Does the psychoanalysis of music have a “subject”?’ (p. 119). This was one of the richest chapters for me. Samuel Wilson asks, and then goes on to discuss in detail, ‘Who or what is the subject of analysis or – more broadly – of interpretation, when psychoanalysis and music are brought together?’ (p. 119). Wilson explores in detail possible ways to discuss psychoanalysis and music: ‘I suggest that one may identify, broadly conceived, three treatments of “subject” in psychoanalytically inclined discourses about music, which I tentatively label tangible, fictional and fictive’ (p. 120). Wilson explores the possible ‘subjects’ available including the composer, characters in the composition, performer(s), the listener(s) and ‘absolute music’ (p. 120). I found this fascinating and felt that it offered a thought-provoking discussion which would be of interest for all Music Therapists, challenging me to broaden my views about the relationship between psychoanalysis and music.
I was struck by the quotation Mesonyi celebrated melody as music’s most individualistic and developed feature. As he put it, melody is ‘the only musical form of individual discharge, since rhythm is motoric, premusical and harmony beyond the individual’. Melody here provided an articulation of the ego and gave shape to the self . . . (p. 125)
This caused me to think about the unique status of melody in a music therapy session and consider a client’s creation of melody in a new way. Perhaps there is something about the possibility of a person gaining a sense of ownership and identity through melodic musical expression that I had not fully considered.
I was drawn to Wilson’s discussion of the unconscious, or unconscious processes, being worked through within works of art. While Wilson highlights that the psychoanalytic level is just one of multiple ways to engage with a work of art, this chapter also explores ways that musical works of art can fulfil a psychological need and/or represent a psychological need. This resonated with my experience of the ways music making can provide opportunities to represent (express) and/or work through thoughts, feelings or psychological states (including pre- and non-verbal) in clinical work.
Wilson observes how music can at once have shared or public meanings (external) and also individual or private (internal) meanings – ‘music’s mediation between public and private spheres’ (p. 128). Wilson describes ‘The creation of art and music as an externalisation that enables a nuanced concretisation of something felt . . .’ (p. 129). Wilson then goes on to cite Brooks, ‘productive psychoanalytic criticism enables us to appreciate that meaning is not either “in the text” or in its readers: it is “in the dialogic struggle and collaboration of the two”’ (p. 130). I interpreted this as conveying that meaning in a work or art is not solely located in the music or the listener but is co-created in a dialogue between the two.
My main response to Rachel Darnley-Smith’s chapter (7) on Jung and transcendent function was to question why this psychoanalytic concept – which seems so well suited and applicable to music therapy – is not more widely employed in music therapy theory and practice. ‘The psychological “transcendent function” referred to the way in which conscious and unconscious tendencies could be mediated and engaged with simultaneously’ (p. 137). Jung suggested that engaging in painting or drawing or free play could be a way to gain access to the unconscious and that there was a healing function of free play.
Darnley-Smith also gives an example of how learning to play an instrument or tune within music therapy can be thought about within ‘transcendent function’. ‘For other clients in music therapy the learning of a tune could be conceptualized as the conscious form of the therapeutic work, while the unconscious content may be immersed within the experience of music-making’ (p. 145). The ‘transcendent function’ allows for learning to play an instrument or playing pre-composed music to be viewed as, and importantly worked with, a central part of the work. This theoretical approach feels inclusive, valuing and has the potential to hold some of the conflicts that I experience daily as a Music Therapist.
Darnley-Smith draws attention to Jung’s comments that the arts and science (psychology) can only be explained (known?) in the language of the other and in limited ways. Therefore, discussing music through psychological language has its limits. Within the context of this music focused book, I found that Jung’s view resonated deeply with an experience that I, and probably many Music Therapists, am familiar with. Part of the chapter discusses the initial close connection between music therapy and professional musicians as the profession emerged and developed in the 1950s and 1960s. I found the link between ‘free music-making that might emerge during a clinical session’ (p. 140) and the contemporary avant-garde musical culture (which included graphic scores and free improvisation) to be fascinating. The contemporary musical culture offered musical devices that could be a ‘partner’ to free association and psychoanalysis as music therapy emerged and formed as a profession. I was not previously aware of the strength and interdependence of this connection and had an ‘aha’ moment as I gained a deeper understanding of the musical roots of music therapy and the formation of the clinical practice within the context of contemporary musical and psychoanalytic cultures.
In chapter 8, Jun Zubillaga-Pow discusses symbolic listening and compares three academic approaches to how we experience music as we listen. The three academic approaches break down and sequence how we listen into different processes based on social/ecological and biological approaches. These provided interesting and useful ‘theory’ for the Music Therapist. Zubillaga-Pow also draws on Lacan’s reflexive act to explore the capacity for the subject to be aware (to experience themselves as a subject) before they act and their capacity for resistance – to remain unaware and not engage in a reflexive act. Zubillaga-Pow uses Lacan’s reflexive act to explore enjoyment, resistance and ways of thinking about the function of affects as we listen. I found the introduction of Lacan’s reflexive act interesting but discussion on enjoyment/resistance for me was quite abstract and (perhaps somewhat defensively!) I was reluctant to think about this in terms of enjoyment in clinical sessions.
In chapter 9, Stephen Downes compares the similarities of masochism and sentimentalism through a discussion of ‘Barthes’s Schumann and Schumann’s Chopin’ (p. 165). This chapter was very interesting but stimulated fewer questions or considerations about how these interpretations of psychoanalytic theories related to my practice as a Music Therapist. This posed an interesting question as a Music Therapist reading the book – why did the use of psychoanalytic theory at times seem to be less meaningful and did not resonate or connect with the ways I experience and make use of psychoanalysis as a Music Therapist? While other times, the use of psychoanalytic theory stimulated a sense of the great potential for dialogue and collaboration between musicologists and music therapists using psychoanalysis as a shared approach to explore the many roles and functions of music in culture, society and human relationships.
Chapters 8 and 9 also brought more sharply into focus another question that had been present for me throughout the book: What is different, or can be different, about the role or function of psychoanalytic theory when applied to musical works of art rather than therapeutic music making (including pre-composed music) in music therapy? What is different when psychoanalysis is applied to an artefact (something that has gone through the process of creation with the view to being shared with unknown others outside of the boundaries, and intimacy, of an established and/or mutual relationship) rather than when used to gain an understanding of interpersonal and intrapsychic processes in therapeutic work? Again these questions, and the corresponding differences and overlaps, strike me as areas where musicologists and music therapists could work together to explore these complex ideas in collaboration which would be of benefit to both.
Overall, this is a dense and theoretical book, and not always an easy read – I will have to revisit some chapters! However, reading this book has been an enriching experience. I have been challenged to think more deeply about the music in music therapy and reflected on questions that might be of interest to other music therapists such as, is there a music therapy echo chamber which affirms a particular view of the ways music can be used therapeutically? Or does the music therapy profession privilege the music therapist’s understanding of psychoanalysis and music? This book has reminded me that there are many ways that psychoanalysis can be used as an approach to think about culture, human experiences and creativity, and has brought me into contact with other views, possibilities and ways of relating to and through music as an expressive art form.