Towards a standard model of musical improvisation

Musical improvisation is a sophisticated cognitive process that combines creativity, goal‐directed action, sensory monitoring and social interaction. With a renewed interest in quantifying creative processes facilitated by recent advances in neuroimaging technology, musical improvisation has emerged as an ideal paradigm to study creativity. However, many studies isolate the top‐down processes related to creativity from those related to production and auditory perception, leaving the question of how creative behaviours integrate sensory information with higher cognitive processes unanswered. The bottom‐up neural correlates of music perception have been extensively quantified, comprising networks for auditory processing and parsing semantic and syntactic content. In studies of spontaneously generated music and domain‐general creativity, executive control and goal‐directed movement networks are added to the perceptual foundation. This review summarises previous work on music perception and improvisation and presents a conceptual model of musical improvisation with known neural correlates. We make recommendations on future directions for the study of improvisation and discuss the challenges posed by this endeavour.     

A musical assessment of psychiatric states in adults

In music therapy, joint musical improvisation of therapist and subject provides the framework for a spontaneous and intimate, non-verbal interaction. This study shows that such an interaction can be used to reveal the subject's capacity for emotional contact with another person, the nature of this contact and how well it is sustained. We examine the musical interaction in first music therapy sessions using a model of analysis specially developed for this study. A comparison between 15 schizophrenics, 15 depressed patients and 15 clinically normal controls revealed significant differences. The findings, which take into account subjects' musical background and perceptual functioning, have implications for the diagnostic use of music therapy in adult psychiatry.     

Family Therapists’ Perspectives on Implementing Musical Interventions in Family Therapy: A Mixed-Methods Study

Family musical interventions offer significant therapeutic outcomes when applied by music therapists. Although mainly focused on individuals with special needs, interventions contribute to family well-being by promoting family communication, shared emotions, relationships, roles, dynamics, mutual trust, and parental functioning. Despite the potential, family-based musical interventions are rarely used by family therapists or studied in family therapy programs. Thirty-five family therapists participated in an explanatory mixed-methods research aimed at identifying therapists’ perceptions toward musical interventions in clinical work, illuminating numerous sources influencing therapists’ inclination to refrain from using musical interventions. This article discusses implications for promoting use of musical interventions.     

The Role of Music in a Salutogenic Approach to Health

This article introduces the reader to the role of music in a salutogenic approach to health, focusing on lay musical practice in public health policy and mental health promotion. Several participants reported how they used music as an alternative to medication or medical treatment, often transcending pain and suffering through personal, musical practices. The participants described how musicking can enhance coping mechanisms, providing a sense of coherence and zest for life, for example how using music may activate individuals in difficult periods in their lives, and retrieve or mobilise a stronger self. Individuals have learned how listening, playing and singing for self or others can be used as a ‘technology’ to achieve a sense of wholeness in body and mind, often described as ‘musicking’. According to mood, context, need or situation, it is the combination of musical practices, properties and activities that tends to produce a personal or social healing effect.     

Music therapy in grief resolution

The multifaceted nature of grief and the enormous variation in individual clients' responses to losses make it necessary for therapists to have wide background knowledge and well-developed skills in counseling and/or psychotherapy. The author describes an innovative method of facilitating grief resolution using precomposed music that is significant to the patient after a major loss. In this method, music is of equal importance with verbal processing as part of the overall therapeutic approach. Musical improvization is also used as a primary tool to reflect back to, and affirm for, the patient the affective content of his or her life story. This approach requires the therapist to have particular musical skills and a wide repertoire of genres and specific musical pieces, as well as intuition. Several clinical vignettes illustrate the application of this approach.     

A qualitative and quantitative study of psychotherapists’ congruence in Singapore

Abstract

This study explores the phenomenological world of 11 Satir-based Singaporean Chinese therapists with regard to their experience of congruence. A mixed qualitative-cum-quantitative research method was used in this study. A phenomenological methodology was used to explore (a) the phenomenological world of therapists with regard to their lived experience of congruence in their personal or inner lives, (b) how this congruence is used in psychotherapy, and (c) how therapists can enhance their level of congruence. Quantitative findings include (a) significant nonparametric correlations among the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and transpersonal levels of congruence with overall congruence; (b) significant nonparametric correlation between intrapersonal congruence and interpersonal congruence; (c) significant nonparametric correlations between overall congruence and interpersonal congruence with self-esteem and life satisfaction; and (d) significant nonparametric correlations between intrapersonal congruence and self-esteem. These results may have research and clinical implications for the practice of psychotherapy.     

The pleasure of dissent: a critical theory of psychotherapy as an emancipatory practice

The intent of this paper is to examine the inherent contradictions in the practice of psychotherapy that, if left unexamined, ruin the emancipatory prospects that it holds. Critical theory and, more specifically, Jurgen Habermas' theory of communicative action is utilized as a starting point for reconceptualizing psychotherapy. This paper then establishes a phenomenological and ethical basis for solidarity despite the power differences and conflicting goals for therapists and clients. It draws heavily on a consideration of intersubjectivity and the self as fundamentally relational as conceived by theorists such as Schutz, Levinas, and Vygotsky. Through such an analysis psychotherapy will be constituted consciously as a free space for critique, dissent and action, allowing for a core experience of one's self as a source of power in the social field that will foster replication in society at large.     

Computer aided music therapy evaluation: Testing the Music Therapy Logbook prototype 1 system

Research indicates that music therapists are likely to make use of computer software, designed to measure changes in the way a patient and therapist make use of music in music therapy sessions. A proof of concept study investigated whether music analysis algorithms (designed to retrieve information from commercial music recordings) can be adapted to meet the needs of music therapists. Computational music analysis techniques were applied to multi-track audio recordings of simulated sessions, then to recordings of individual music therapy sessions; these were recorded by a music therapist as part of her ongoing practice with patients with acquired brain injury.The music therapist wanted to evaluate two hypotheses: one, whether changes in her tempo were affecting the tempo of a patient's play on acoustic percussion instruments, and two, whether her musical interventions were helping the patient reduce habituated, rhythmic patterning. Automatic diagrams were generated that gave a quick overview of the instrumental activity contained within each session: when, and for how long each instrument was played. From these, computational analysis was applied to musical areas of specific interest. The results of the interdisciplinary team work, audio recording tests, computer analysis tests, and music therapy field tests are presented and discussed.     

A woman's voice: The politics of gender identity in music therapy and everyday life

In contrast to a comparative model of gender that implies that gender is something you have, a performative model of gender points towards gender as something that is construed in relationship and in context. From this perspective music therapy can be understood as an arena for performance and negotiations of gender. In this process, music therapy can conceal a range of socio-cultural and political dimensions significant in how people manage their sense of self, health, and well-being. This article explores how gender and sexuality are located through singing as a musical act and cultural gesture, and how the social presence of the voice is implicated in sexual politics. Using the experiences of a young woman in music therapy as a point of departure, this article examines the notion of interrupted voices in everyday life and therapy.     

Pleasurable emotional response to music: A case of neurodegenerative generalized auditory agnosia

Recent functional neuroimaging studies implicate the network of mesolimbic structures known to be active in reward processing as the neural substrate of pleasure associated with listening to music. Psychoacoustic and lesion studies suggest that there is a widely distributed cortical network involved in processing discreet musical variables. Here we present the case of a young man with auditory agnosia as the consequence of cortical neurodegeneration who continues to experience pleasure when exposed to music. In a series of musical tasks, the subject was unable to accurately identify any of the perceptual components of music beyond simple pitch discrimination, including musical variables known to impact the perception of affect. The subject subsequently misidentified the musical character of personally familiar tunes presented experimentally, but continued to report that the activity of ‘listening’ to specific musical genres was an emotionally rewarding experience. The implications of this case for the evolving understanding of music perception, music misperception, music memory, and music-associated emotion are discussed.     

Musical anhedonia: Selective loss of emotional experience in listening to music

Recent case studies have suggested that emotion perception and emotional experience of music have independent cognitive processing. We report a patient who showed selective impairment of emotional experience only in listening to music, that is musical anhednia. A 71-year-old right-handed man developed an infarction in the right parietal lobe. He found himself unable to experience emotion in listening to music, even to which he had listened pleasantly before the illness. In neuropsychological assessments, his intellectual, memory, and constructional abilities were normal. Speech audiometry and recognition of environmental sounds were within normal limits. Neuromusicological assessments revealed no abnormality in the perception of elementary components of music, expression and emotion perception of music. Brain MRI identified the infarct lesion in the right inferior parietal lobule. These findings suggest that emotional experience of music could be selectively impaired without any disturbance of other musical, neuropsychological abilities. The right parietal lobe might participate in emotional experience in listening to music.     

Musical anhedonia: selective loss of emotional experience in listening to music

Recent case studies have suggested that emotion perception and emotional experience of music have independent cognitive processing. We report a patient who showed selective impairment of emotional experience only in listening to music, that is musical anhednia. A 71-year-old right-handed man developed an infarction in the right parietal lobe. He found himself unable to experience emotion in listening to music, even to which he had listened pleasantly before the illness. In neuropsychological assessments, his intellectual, memory, and constructional abilities were normal. Speech audiometry and recognition of environmental sounds were within normal limits. Neuromusicological assessments revealed no abnormality in the perception of elementary components of music, expression and emotion perception of music. Brain MRI identified the infarct lesion in the right inferior parietal lobule. These findings suggest that emotional experience of music could be selectively impaired without any disturbance of other musical, neuropsychological abilities. The right parietal lobe might participate in emotional experience in listening to music.     

Interaction between musical emotion and facial expression as measured by event-related potentials

We examined the integrative process between emotional facial expressions and musical excerpts by using an affective priming paradigm. Happy or sad musical stimuli were presented after happy or sad facial images during electroencephalography (EEG) recordings. We asked participants to judge the affective congruency of the presented face–music pairs. The congruency of emotionally congruent pairs was judged more rapidly than that of incongruent pairs. In addition, the EEG data showed that incongruent musical targets elicited a larger N400 component than congruent pairs. Furthermore, these effects occurred in nonmusicians as well as musicians. In sum, emotional integrative processing of face–music pairs was facilitated in congruent music targets and inhibited in incongruent music targets; this process was not significantly modulated by individual musical experience. This is the first study on musical stimuli primed by facial expressions to demonstrate that the N400 component reflects the affective priming effect.     

Neurophysiology and neurobiology of the musical experience

Music, a universal art form that exists in every culture around the world, is integral to a number of social and courtship activities, and is closely associated with other creative behaviours such as dancing. Recently, neuroimaging studies have allowed researchers to investigate the neural correlates of music processing and perception in the brain. Notably, musical stimuli have been shown to activate specific pathways in several brain areas associated with emotional behaviours, such as the insular and cingulate cortex, hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex. In addition, neurochemical studies have suggested that several biochemical mediators, such as endorphins, endocannabinoids, dopamine and nitric oxide, may play a role in the musical experience. A growing body of evidence also indicates that music therapy could be useful in the clinical management of numerous neurological and psychiatric disorders. Indeed, music therapy could be effective in patients with neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's dementia and Parkinson?s disease, as well as in psychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and autism spectrum disorders. Unfortunately, there is still a shortage of rigorous scientific data supporting the clinical application of music therapy, and there is thus a need to confirm and expand the preliminary findings regarding the potential and actual effectiveness of music therapy. This need should be addressed through prospective, randomized, controlled, single-blinded investigations of the short- and long-term effects of music therapy in diverse clinical conditions.     

Music technology usage in music therapy: A survey of practice

The purpose of this study was to determine (a) how many music therapists use music technology in their clinical work, (b) trends regarding music technology usage related to gender, age, and/or geographical location, (c) how music therapists acquire knowledge and/or training in music technology, (d) barriers to using music technology in clinical work, (e) types of music technology music therapists currently use, and (f) why music therapists do or do not use music technology in their clinical practice. Participants (N = 600) completed a 27-question survey with a 95% completion rate. The return rates for participants by country were: (a) US 27%, (b) Australia 6%, (c) Canada 9%, and (d) UK 9%. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses of the data were conducted. A majority of the music therapists surveyed (71%, n = 443) reported using music technology in the clinical setting. Differences in technology usage were found according to age and gender of the participants. Most of the participants reported to be self-taught (61%, n = 464). Results of this study indicated that more training in music technology related to clinical practice is needed, with attention given to ways to make more technology accessible to a variety of learners.     

Theme Song for Change: Utilizing Music to Enhance Client Resources

Music has been used for therapeutic purposes in a variety of settings; however, family therapists have been hesitant to use musical interventions in their work, although they are curious about their use (Nemesh, 2017a). This hesitancy to use music in therapy may be because therapists might not be musically inclined or trained as credentialed music therapists. Yet, the inclusion of various aspects of music in therapy does not need to be complicated. This article explains a technique, called Theme Song for Change, that uses a client’s chosen theme song as a way to access underutilized resources that can help clients live more fulfilling lives. These resources are aspects of living, such as behaviors or personality traits, the client may not have been engaging in to the level where they find it useful. This technique has been used with individuals, couples, and families where clients consider important images and themes from the lyrics of their chosen song. These themes pertain to values and practices related to their identity they may not have been honoring in their lives. These values, practices, and meanings are personal resources that can be accessed and utilized to enhance the client’s life. The rationale, application, and implications of this technique will be discussed along with brief case examples of its use with an individual, a couple, and a family.     

The abilities of a musical savant and his family

The ability of a male autistic savant (TR) to play two unfamiliar piano pieces after listening to a taperecording was tested, closely following the procedures of Sloboda, Hermelin, and O'Connor (1985). Other components of TR's musical ability—pitch recognition, improvisation, and ability to provide harmonic accompaniment—were also examined. TR's musical precocity was examined in relation to his general level of intellectual functioning as indexed by a battery of standardized psychological tests of intelligence, memory, reading, visual organization, and creativity. His parents and two male siblings also completed tests of intelligence. Results from psychometric testing indicated that TR has idiosyncratic levels of cognitive functioning with difficulties in verbal reasoning but high levels of concentration and memory. His speed of information processing, as indicated by Inspection Time, was better than average. TR demonstrated perfect pitch recognition and other family members also demonstrated excellent relative pitch. TR's ability to recall and perform structured music within both the diatonic and wholetone systems was exceptional but dependent upon his familiarity with musical structure and was therefore organized and ruledriven. Furthermore, TR demonstrated competence in improvisation and composition, albeit restricted by his adherence to structural representations of familiar musical rules.     

Music therapy in children's hospices: An evaluative survey of provision

This paper presents the results of a survey of the range of music therapy practice in children's hospices in the UK. Music therapists are challenged to work with children with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions during short periods of respite care over several years or at end of life. Flexibility is fundamental to working both individually and in small groups in response to the shifting needs of the children and their families. In the context of a children's hospice music therapists are called upon to work creatively with siblings and family members and members of the multidisciplinary team in addition to the children themselves. A questionnaire and focus group for music therapists working in the children's hospices provided evidence of the range of work, priorities and future plans for development. Telephone interviews with specialist staff at children's hospices where music therapists were not currently working provided evidence of how music and musical activities were perceived and utilised, with any plans for future provision for a music therapy service and some of the practical and resource issues being itemised.