Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

therapist and the (client) listener’s music experience (in receptive music therapy)?
Cook reviewed the most important types of musicological analysis, some of which are
also used occasionally by music therapy researchers: Traditional methods (focusing
on parameters like form, melody, harmony and rhythm), Schenkerian analysis
(including both Schenker’s own method and later American applications of his ideas,
focusing on ‘essential structures of music’), Psychological approaches (e.g. Leonard
Meyer, Rudolph Reti), Formal approaches (set-theoretical analysis, semiotic analysis),
and techniques of comparative analysis. – In other words: music as syntax/structure
can be analysed in a number of ways.
Interpretation. In traditional musicology of the 19 th and 20 th century (frequently called
‘formalism’ or ‘structuralism’, see Ansdell 2001) researchers often had a positivist
scientific ambition that made analysis of the ‘artwork as an independent universe’ the
ideal, while interpretation of some sort of ‘meaning’ of the work was not considered
proper. Kretzchmar’s popular “musical hermeneutics” was not taken seriously. The
critical musicology of the 1970ies and 80ies and the post-modern ‘new musicology’
of the last 20 years have changed the picture: it is not enough to analyse the syntax.
Meaning and context must be integrated (Ansdell 1997). – In music therapy this has
always been obvious: any description and/or analysis of the music must be related to
the context – the client’s personality, life story, culture, and of course pathology or
problem area. However, as we shall see, this can be done in many ways, and thus the
re-creation or construction of the meaning of an improvisation may reach very
different conclusions, – one researcher using e.g. object relations theory, another
using Jungian analytical psychology, a third cultural anthropology as framework of
the interpretation. This was illustrated clearly in a series of articles published in the
Nordic Journal of Music Therapy (1998-2000), where the first session of the famous
Nordoff-Robbins case “Edward” was re-interpreted in several discourses. 55
Music therapy research studies using qualitative methods often include description,
analysis and interpretation of the music as part of the research. The following
overview of selected methods will be divided in two sections: a brief introduction to
55 The series of re-interpretations of the ”Edward” case included the original case study by Nordoff and
Robbins (1977), and contributions from the following authors: Rolvsjord, Aigen, Bergstrøm-Nielsen,
Neugebauer, Robarts, Forinash and Ansdell.
234