Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

idiosyncratic melodic phrasing. Based on analogy, the client in music therapy is the
soloist, while the therapist(s) has the role of the rhythm section, providing stability
(holding the ‘groove’) and balancing it with spontaneity. In the case study of Lloyd
Aigen demonstrated how the jazz style seemed to “hold” the client, and how he
learned about staying in the groove and the flow of the music, thus enabling him to
tolerate longer and longer periods of non-structured transitions, first in the music, then
in his daily life. 37
Jungaberle (2000, 2001) studied musical metaphors extensively, based on Lakoff and
Johnson’s cognitive theory. He first made an analysis of newspaper music reviews in
order to identify conceptual metaphors in the descriptions of music and musical
experience. Then he made an analysis of clients’ verbalizations of their therapeutic
experience of music. In the music review analysis a series of core metaphors were
identified, based on the prototype “Music is xyz”, e.g. “Music is space”, “Music is a
landscape”, and “Music is water”. These metaphors were also found in the clients’
verbal reports on their music experiences, but they were even richer, containing four
new conceptual metaphors (or “metaphor families” in Jungaberle's words). Examples:
One family is “Music is energy and power” with subgroups like “Music gives access
to the inner world” or “Music moves me”. Other families were: “Music is interaction”
with subgroups like “Improvising is combat”; “Music is space”; and “Music is a
living being”. A specific conceptual metaphor is “Music is language” with subgroups
like “Music can hide truth” or “Music makes the ineffable understandable”.
Jungaberle attaches special importance to the metaphor “Music is a landscape”,
because it expresses the spaciousness of music - there is ‘room for everyon’, and most
people can 'find their place' in the music. Jungaberle (2001) also related the metaphors
to Johnson’s image schemata. Most prominent were the vertical schema (up-down),
the container schema (the body and the music is a container for feelings), and the
compulsion schema (being moved by music as an external force).
37 In the Ph.D. course at Aalborg University May 26th 2004 Aigen presented a paper on metaphors and
image schemata, based on Lakoff and Johnsons theory. He suggested that music therapy may give
clients first hand experiences with missing or undeveloped schemas. He paid special attention to the
Container-schema and the potential of music therapy to enlargening the container and thus –
metaphorically through the music – expanding the social situations a client may tolerate, as in the case
of Lloyd.
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