Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

An Eclectic Approach to the analysis of improvisations was developed by Arnason
(2002). She gives guidelines for the examination of different levels of musical
meaning through a series of six reflections or listenings: 1. Open listening, 2.
Listening to the musical parameters and their combinations, especially with focus on
the client’s way of playing, 3. Description of thoughts and feelings of the listener, 4.
Imagery and metaphors elicited by the music, 5. Becoming aware of the client’s life
world and external influences on his/her musical experiences, 6. Final open listening
(synthesis). Corresponding to Ferrara’s meta-critique Arnason has included 2
reflections: one on the client-therapist relationship (before step 5) and one on the
integration of musical and referential analysis with clinical context (after step 6). The
presentation format is an “Improvisation narrative”, a type of interpretive musical
description using “a mix of free verse poetry, prose, and abbreviated sentences to
represent in words the dynamic and creative nature of improvised music.”
A number of the methods presented here are described and discussed by Mahns
(1998, 2003) and Smeijsters (1997). A systematic overview of the “procedural
multiplicity within a cores set of values” that characterizes qualitative improvisation
analysis, and a description of 11 stages of decision-making are given by Bruscia
(2001).
8.1.3 Qualitative methods focusing on composed and recorded music in receptive
music therapy
Many of the features included in improvisation analysis as presented above are also
found in the methods for analyzing composed and recorded music. The steps of open
listenings, listening for syntax or structure of the music, listening for semantics or
meaning content of the music, and an investigation of the pragmatic or therapeutic
effect of the music are overall requirements for therapeutic music analyses. However,
the formats vary with the purpose of the research and the intentions of the researchers.
In his overview of music analysis methods used in GIM Abrams (2002) distinguishes
between three approaches: musical, phenomenological, and heuristic, between music-
centered and client/image-centered methods, and finally between methods aiming at
understanding existing GIM music programs and methods aiming at creating new
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