Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

exact transcriptions/scores or other types of notation, e.g. graphic) do not appear very
often in the literature. To a large extent this is due to the research paradigm and
interest of the researcher (Edwards 1999; Ruud 1980). If the research focuses on
effects of a specific music/sound stimulus or on aspects of the therapeutic relationship
it may not be relevant to give more than factual or broad descriptions of the music
involved. The stance of the present author, however, is that the validity of a music
therapy research study will always be enhanced by precise information on which
music was used how, when and by whom in what context.
Researching the music is a different endeavour for a music therapist than for a
musicologist. The traditional musicological dichotomy of autonomy and heteronomy
(or referentialism) is not very relevant for a music therapist or researcher, for whom it
does not make much sense to consider (applied) music a purely autonomous, aesthetic
phenomenon, even if the music may have excellent aesthetic qualities. In music
therapy it makes more sense to focus on musical experience as based on different
aspects or properties of music; researching the music (whether as a material or
intentional phenomenon, or as a psychological or cultural process) should thus be
based on a broad concept of music and music experience in order to cover the
different properties (Bonde 2002; Bruscia 1998; Ruud 1990, 2001; see also section
4.1.2).
In a short chapter in Handbook of Music Psychology McMullen (1996) stated that
popular theoretical explanations of affective/aesthetic responses to music have never
provided and still do not provide empirical researchers with effective guidelines for
their studies. His assumption was that this is closely related to the question of research
paradigm. Most research in the relationship between music and aesthetic/affective
behaviour “has been undertaken within the causal perspective” (or positivist
paradigm) of natural science “when the answer might lie within an alternative
interpretative framework” (or post-positivist paradigm). McMullen suggested that two
dimensions or polarities would form an interpretative framework for the study of
affective/aesthetic responses: perceived stimulus activation (plus/minus) and
evaluation (acceptance-rejection), enabling research that can be integrated with
philosophy, psychology, and related disciplines. This is an ambition we will also find
in the qualitative methodologies reviewed here.
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