Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

programs. Before the review of the most prominent methods used in GIM three
methods with a more general analytic purpose will be presented.
An Eclectic Method for Sound, Form and Reference
Ferrra’s first contribution to the development of a method for analyzing
improvisations in music therapy was mentioned above (Ferrara 1984). However,
Ferrara’s context was not music therapy improvisation, but (avant-garde) art music,
and later he developed an elaborate version of his method (Ferrara 1991). The
principal “openness to any level of music significance” and the distinctions between
explanation of form, description of the sound-in-time and the interpretation of
reference makes this elaborate method suitable for receptive music therapy also. The
method is eclectic, because it combines analytic approaches from different traditions
and epistemologies; however, these are applied at different steps and with specific
purposes in the ten steps procedure:
I. Historical background (the composer’s dates, style(s) and significance)
II. Open listenings (orientation in the overall sound, structure and meaning of the
work)
III. Syntax (analysis using conventional methods of music analysis)
IV. The sound-in-time (phenomenological description, introducing metaphorical
language)
V. Musical and textual representation (Referential meaning 1: analysis of text
and/or program)
VI. Virtual feeling (Referential meaning 2: hermeneutic analysis of how the music
is expressive of human feelings in virtual symbols)
VII. Onto-historical world (Referential meaning 3: hermeneutic analysis of the
composer’s intentions and context, as they are heard in the music)
VIII. Open listenings (bringing together the levels of sound, form, and reference)
IX. Performance guide (an aid to performer’s understanding of the work)
X. Meta-critique (a discussion of strengths and weaknesses of the outcome of the
analysis)
Neurophenomenology is a method where systematic observation of the participants is
combined with physical measurement. Lem investigated the flow of imagery evoked
by GIM music during unguided music imaging (Lem 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002). EEG
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