Voices ResourcesA website for the worldwide community around the journal Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy

In the December 30, 2001 column "Music Therapy Theory: Yearning for Beautiful Ideas," Kenny described the importance of theorizing music therapy with the language unique to music therapy, and she also referred to the healing practice which is deepened and inherited not so much with words but by "feeling in one's body, heart and soul" and "belief" as follows:

"In cultures that place words only on an equal basis with the arts,
no higher, no lower, perhaps, the drive for theory is not so
intense. Things are just known. Explanations are not always required
for practices to be accepted. Understandings are transferred across
the generations through action. Indeed, in some societies in which
traditional healing practices are maintained, healing is contingent
on not questioning the how's, why's, what's, when's, where's of the
experience. In these societies, the value is on belief more than
description or explanation."

This description arouses many impressions and thoughts in me,
because my country,Japan, has been exploring a new path between
tradition and the modernization in the area of
"transferring / educating". I was brought up in the Japanese
education, and when I lived in the United States as a student from
my late 20's to early 30's , I came to know objectively the
uniqueness of the education I had received in my culture. In a word,
Japanese education has its base on "imitating the forms of
precursors." It was very different from the education in the United
States where the basic idea was exploring, creating and
verbalizing=theorizing for oneself.

A typical example of Japanese education is found in the traditional
performing arts (Kabuki, etc.) The children of the family that
inherit the traditional performing arts for many generations,
receive the special education from their early childhood as the
successor . Here, in order to master it, flourish it, and bequeath it
to the next generation, "imitating forms" has been regarded as the best method. The children's education starts by imitating the
various daily customs which are practiced by the grown-ups in the
family, and on the June 6th of the his (her) 6th year (by the
Japanese traditional age-counting: 4-5 years old in western way),
the official lessons by the master (many times the parent) begin .
The core of this education is imitating intently what the master
shows as the form. The "form" transferred in such traditional arts
is the highest essence that survived hundreds of years of
exploring, and it naturally has beautiful coherence as theory.
However, in the education as well as in the actual performance, the
theory is not so much the subject talked about, but "practicing"
repeatedly recalling the precursors' is important. In this
process, the learner tries to unite the self and the great "form" to
be a true artist. Even if s(h)e does not fully understand what the
form means, (s)he is required to have obedience to imitate it
without questioning. Of course there are stages in which the learners
feel resistance and identity questions internally, but it is these
conflicts that grow the even stronger identity of the individual
artist within the great tradition.

Not all the Japanese receive such traditional arts education, but
there are many similar examples in our daily life--"finding the
meanings in obedient practicing without questioning": religion-
originated rituals (fragments of various religions exist
as customs in Japanese daily life, regardless of believing in that
particular religion or not), seasonal events/housekeeping/clothing,
etc. Interestingly enough, this "imitating forms unquestioning"
method was also sternly practiced in the western classical music
education which started to be active in Japan from 1950's, and it
bore not a few great fruits of musical talents. In my opinion, a
merit of this type of education which put its emphasis on the
"basics"is to give chances to the diverse buds, not only to the
elites who can cultivate themselves anyway. I myself received this
kind of music education from early on. In my case, I was given good
basics as a musician through it, but I started to question the
"form" in the process of identity exploring in my adolesence.
Looking back, this questioning motivated me in a long term to come
to a more innovative world such as music therapy. Probably that is
why I feel close to the idea that there is no "correct answer" nor
"complete theory" in music therapy field yet. Rather, I am attracted
to create a new theory unique to this field, as Kenny mentioned.

However, in Japan, "imitating forms" is so deep-rooted in the music
therapy field too. Many people seem to be looking for the
"forms" desperately in their learning/practicing processes. The
foundation of this tendency was created by the historical background
of the master-disciple system in the early music therapy education:
Before music therapy was officially included in the academie , the
first learning opportunities for those who were
interested in it was to become an assistant (disciple) of an
experienced music therapist. In short, internship came before the
theoretical knowledge, and learners were supposed to imitate the
senior therapists by doing it, not by theoretically thinking it so
much.

As a result, there is still a tendency to respect the experienced
precursors as a master, to expect them to know the complete forms,
and to grow best by faithfully imitating them. For example,
beginners' interests are often in what kind of rooms, with
what kind of instruments, using which songs, in which order, how
many minutes, music therapy session should be practiced. The
session programs they make do not reflect the clients' conditions,
but often what they saw on the appearance of their teachers'
programs. The advanced music therapist, who already have their own
practice and encounter the challenging clients would ask "what am I supposed to
do in such case?" as if there must be a fixed answer. Every time I
am asked such questions, I feel challenged as I have to reform the
question itself. But I cannot simply deny their tendencies either,
because it includes the cultural context they and I belong to.
Then I feel wavered as a practitioner/educator.

A merit of the traditional system in music therapy is that students
learn the importance of sympathizing the clients' nonverbal feeling
as the first thing, rather than arming themselves with the theories
which can distance them from the clients. The other side is that the
learners lose chances to be accustomed with creating their own "form"
and "theory". Here I do not mean a great academic theory
elaborately constructed, but evaluating one's own practice
objectively, describing and reconstructing it by simple verbalization, to create
music therapy unique to him(her)self. I have tried such theorizing
discussion with the students, but many times they looked like they
were handling a foreign language: even the same Japanese seemed to sound
something they do not belong to, and I had to realize the time it
would take for a theorizing attitude to be digested. The theorizing
language rooted in our cultural context is not mature yet, of
course including myself.

Consequently, when they start to go round in circle in their
"doing", they tend to rely on others (e.g. teachers) for theorizing.
This attitude leads to the one that music therapists rely on other
related fields' completed theory. Another risk I see is that they
often do not have enough immunity to theories in general, so when
they meet one proper-looking theory that has at least one common
perspective with their practice, they tend to indiscriminately adopt
it. As a result, in music therapy conferences we sometimes
encounter the case studies that apply inappropriate
theories . In such presentations I feel not only the discomfort
caused by the inconsistency between the essential of the practice
and that of the theory, but also the sadness as if I am looking at
a beautiful girl who is put peculiar make-up on: The attractiveness
young but unique to that practitioner is hidden under the abrupt and
extreme theorizing. The beautiful healing practice is often a very
ordinary action of ordinary human-beings. Certainly it is
difficult to put it into a theory without losing the implied meaning
and the smell of the living human-beings.

In a modern society which cannot be isolated as a sanctuary, there
are less and less places for "untheorized healing practice" to
survive. Especially in the culture where the ordinary people's life
is the jumble of tradition and modernization, like Japan. In such
societies, the traditional arts or healing practices get easily
grooved and ruined, by just handing down the "forms" without
theorizing. On the other hand inadequate theorizing will confuse
the dialogue among different value systems even worse. It will
destruct "the ordinal therapeutic relationships among the ordinary
people" which have been delicately built in the daily life. As
Kenny mentioned, "the reconciliation" between the two worlds is
indeed necessary. I wonder how other cultures deal with such
dilemmas. What kind of approach can be introduced for theory
building education--the theory which does not lose the implied
meaning unique to the ordinary human-beings' cultural context.

References

Kenny, Carolyn (2002). Music Therapy Theory: Yearning for Beautiful
Ideas [online] Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved November 13, 2002, from http://www.voices.no/columnist/colkenny311201.html

How to cite this page

Ikuno, Rika (2002) "Practicing" and "Theorizing" in Music Therapy - Some Impressions from the Practice Emphasis Culture or Theory. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 11, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=fortnightly-columns/2002-practicing-and-theorizing-music-therapy-some-impressions-practice-emphasis-