Proceedings, Oxford, UK (2002) - World Federation of Music Therapy

Music as Personal Transformation: A Social Constructionist
Perspective
A central tenet within this perspective is that we cannot ‘know’ reality in
an objective sense. Knowledge of the world comes through observations,
perceptions, actions and interactions. Our identity – personal and social -
is constructed through the stories we find to tell about our selves. It is
also often constrained by the stories purveyed by the familial, social,
cultural, political and economic contexts within which we live. For those
seeking therapeutic help these are frequently contexts that confine
identity within what narrative therapists describe as a ‘problem-saturated
story’ (Freeman et al 1997, p.49), stories that inspire the challenge of
shaping ‘alternative stories’ (ibid, p50) in therapy.
From a social constructionist viewpoint language – and this includes the
‘language’ of the arts – plays a fundamental role in constructing and
reconstructing the narratives of identity. Language becomes a source of
creating as well as reflecting reality. It enables us to make meaning, to
shape more helpful metaphors for living. Music can have an important
part to play in this process. Writing within a social constructionist
perspective musicologist Nicholas Cook (1998) comments on how we
can understand and use music as a ‘means of personal and social
transformation’ (p128). In a vision remarkably congruent with music
therapy, Cook sees music as essentially a form of action and interaction.
Whether we are listening, performing or composing, it is about what
music does to our view of ourselves and others that matters. Music is
important as a means of representing or reflecting ‘the way things are’
but it also presents an opportunity for changing and reshaping realities.
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