The opening images of Seamus Heaney’s (1969) poem At the Wellhead are of someone singing with eyes closed, the songs curving back in time like a well-known road. High hedges create boundaries for the road, providing both a sense of familiarity and safety, even if it can be a little lonely at times. Heaney implores his singer to keep on singing and to draw from the deep well from where the singing comes.
As music therapists we witness and support people of all ages drawing from these deep reservoirs of inspiration and this deep source from where the singing comes. And this occurs whether people are actually singing, improvising or listening. Whilst improvising with groups of people living with cancer, for example, time and time again people re-connect with their love of music, discovering or re-discovering aspects of their own inherent creativity. Some of our recent research has highlighted these deep connections and links between music and identity and furthering of a sense of meaning (Daykin, McClean & Bunt, 2007). Some clients in Guided Imagery and Music have no need to speak during the listening part of sessions but whilst both attending the listening and the ensuing verbal feedback it is clearly apparent that deep and very active connections are made to the music, drawing much from this deep well. After listening to a compilation of Bach recently one client noted that since she felt Bach was in touch with the Source then she was also drawing from that as well whilst she was listening.
All of this will not be new to readers: we know that music reaches to these depths and can take us there; we also know that music has the clear boundaries of form and pattern. Like Heaney’s reference to the road music stretches back from the present moment through many pathways and different roads, some very well-known and some needing further exploration. As music therapists we are also aware of the importance of boundaries and working within the therapeutic frame. We need boundaries to be in place so that all involved in a therapeutic encounter can construct or discover their own meanings. So an enormous challenge presents itself here and perhaps this is central within our current music therapy discourse. How are we going to keep singing our own songs and sharing the songs of the people with whom we work whilst needing to locate all of this within not only musical but also other meaningful frames of reference? Nowhere is this seemingly more apparent than within the current debate on evidence-based practice and the continuous external pressure to provide and communicate rigorous support to our practice, all whilst not losing touch with the source of our inspiration as musicians. We can choose to connect with established scientific research pathways and frame our questions and projects within a wide battery of quantitative and qualitative approaches but need to take care not to become over-preoccupied on what needs to be counted and explored if this detracts from what really matters[1]. And what really matters may also be appropriately presented in certain contexts through established research pathways within musicology, the fine arts and the other humanities. Such bridging across roads may make it possible to include more narrative, metaphoric and creative analyses of the impact of music therapy and its processes which still maintain all the clarity, coherence and need for justification of the most rigorous scientific study.
It is not a straightforward question of either/or but, as many commentators continue to stress, of exploring the research strategy that best fits the question. And, as in therapeutic work, the waters are seldom as clear as at the source with much work needed to be done to achieve a sense of clarity. We also need to understand clearly the specific philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of any chosen pathway. Heaney’s road is well-known yet also local. Situating our practice and research within local cultural contexts and developing more reflexivity in our approach to research are further themes that link Heaney’s images to some of Brynjulf Stige’s writings, for example. The road forward is an exciting one if we can be confident in bridging these cultural traditions and listen to and learn from each other, holding the tension of opposites in a state of balance. To this extent it is encouraging to study such a richness of material within the 21 chapters on types of quantitative, qualitative and other research in Barbara Wheeler’s (2005) second edition of Music Therapy Research and to explore, in addition to more established methods, aspects of ethnographic, participatory, philosophical, historical, music and arts-based research in relation to music therapy. In this way the "value of polyphonic dialogue and crossing of cultures" (Stige, 2002, p. 308) can truly be explored.
A further road takes us into more theological realms, Erich Fromm (1950/1967) in his text Psychoanalysis and Religion reminding us that Freud’s method of psychoanalysis "made possible the most minute and intimate study of the soul"(p. 7). Fromm points out that in this work the analyst (and we can make the transition to music therapist) is not concerned with weighing or counting findings but in gaining insights through the explorations of patients’ internal worlds of dreams, associations and phantasies (and in our work of course with the additional element of the music). Although not primarily a philosopher or theologian the analyst, again according to Fromm, is rather akin to a "physician of the soul" (Fromm, p. 7).
Danah Zohar and Ian Marshall (2001) have introduced, in a ground-breaking text, the notion of spiritual intelligence. They present cogent arguments that draw on neuroscience, psychology and both Western and Eastern philosophical and theological worldviews for spiritual intelligence to be given its rightful place alongside the more traditional rational measure of intelligence (IQ) and the growing emphasis on emotional intelligence (EQ). In their view spiritual intelligence (SQ) is needed to complete the whole picture of human intelligence enabling us to develop a sense of meaning, to make sense of our lives in relation to broader cultural and deep collectively-shared viewpoints. They view SQ as the fundamental wellspring of both IQ and EQ. And where do we position musical intelligence?
I would like to end with a story related by Zohar that connects back to Heaney’s poem. She was participating in a conference in war-torn Georgia and one evening the delegates were taken to a concert. At the start the orchestra appeared not able to raise their spirits or to "lift their performance above their own and their city’s depression." (Zohar & Marshall, 2001, p.34). The atmosphere changed on the arrival of a well-known Georgian singer, a leading artist from the Bolshoi Theatre. Zohar relates that the voice appeared to reach back to an ancient source within the collective memories and unconscious of the Georgian audience. She comments:
That Georgian tenor’s performance symbolized for me what each of us must do to raise the game of meaning and value. Each of us must ‘sing our song.’ We must all, through our own deepest resources and through the uses of our spiritual intelligence, access the deepest level of our true selves and bring up from that source the unique ‘music’ that each human being has the potential to contribute. (Zohar & Marshall, 2001, p. 35)
Here was someone who knew how to sing his own song, to connect to the source of the singing and to be the conduit of the flowing emotional energy within the music so that the members of the audience could also reach deep into the well to touch this vital source.
Point relating to becoming over-preoccupied on what needs to be counted etc. inspired by a comment made by Professor Norman Myers (2001) in relation to species extinction.
Daykin N., McClean S. & Bunt L. (2007). Creativity, Identity and Healing: Participants’ Accounts of Music Therapy in Cancer Care. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 11(3), 349-370.
Fromm, E. (1950/1967). Psychoanalysis and Religion. New York: Bantam Books.
Heaney, S. (1996). From The Spirit Level. London: Faber and Faber.
Myers, N. (2001). Specious: On Bjørn Lomberg and Species Diversity. Grist Magazine. Retrieved June 14, 2008, from http://grist.org/advice/books/2001/12/12/specious/
Stige, B. (2002). Culture-centred Music Therapy. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers.
Wheeler, B. (Ed.) (2005). Music Therapy Research, Second Edition. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers.
Zohar, D & Marshall, I. (2001). Spiritual Intelligence, the Ultimate Intelligence. London: Bloomsbury
Bunt, Leslie (2008). On Singing Our Own Songs. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 13, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=colbunt160608