Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

following preparations: 1. Information and associations concerning the session and its
context are provided, including participants’ comments, 2. The session is divided into
segments or episodes, and a summary of significant features is written (e.g. musical
aspects, verbal comments, interpersonal elements), 3. Segments of particular clinical
relevance are selected for musical microanalysis. Forinash and Gonzales (1989) also
developed a 7 step procedure which they used in clinically based research, and Amir
(1990) used this procedure for her study on meaning in improvised songs in two
music therapy session with a traumatic spinal cord injured young adult.
Common features in the music therapy variations on Ferrara’s original model are
summarized and discussed by Trondalen (2002, 2003, 2004), who in her latest review
suggests a revised 9 step procedure focusing on musical and interpersonal levels:
I. Contextualization (introducing the client’s personal, social, biological, musical
and clinical history)
II. Open listening 1 (focus on the whole, many repeated multimodal listenings)
III. Structural analysis (a. characterization of the sound as such; b. structural
analysis of the music (Grocke’s SMMA, see below)
IV. Semantic analysis (a. description of musical structures in relation to other
information from the session -> referential/explicit meaning, b. Interpretation
of codes and symbols in the music -> metaphor and analogy/implicit meaning)
V. Pragmatic analysis (potential outcome of the improvisation)
VI. Phenomenological horizonalisation (listing important issues, musical cues and
events)
VII. Open listening 2 (again with focus on the whole)
VIII. Phenomenological matrix (a descriptive summary of music, meaning and
effect)
IX. Meta-discussion (including also interviews with the client, therapist’s self-
reflexion and theoretical discussion).
In phenomenologically inspired procedures music analysis, including elements of
syntax/structure as well as semantics, is considered part of a complex whole. It is
debatable whether we can talk about a specific phenomenological framework.
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