Dissertation - World Federation of Music Therapy

3.6.1 Music as analogy
A paper by David and Gudrun Aldridge’s bears the title “Life as Jazz” (Aldridge &
Aldridge 1999), and David Aldridge has often used similar analogies or metaphors in
his characterization of the relationship between music and human body, mind and
spirit. In a book chapter entitled “Health as performance” (Aldridge 1996, chapter
two) he suggests that the creative act (especially musical improvisation) is a core
element in the question of how health is achieved or promoted. Thus Descartes’
classic motto “Cogito, ergo sum – I think, therefore I am” should be replaced by
“Ago, ergo sum – I perform, therefore I am.” In a wider perspective he suggests that
personal identity should be understood as a dynamic expressive act, very much like a
musical improvisation. Or with a metaphor: a person is a composition, and the
composed self is an improvised order. Based on principles from phenomenology,
neurology and music psychology Aldridge emphasizes the close affinity between
musical and human processes:
“The perception of music requires a holistic strategy where the play of
patterned frequencies is recognized within the matrix of time. People may be
described in similar terms as beings in the world who are patterned
frequencies in time.” (Aldridge 1996. p. 31)
Correlations or isomorphies between musical form and biological form may describe
important aspects of ‘being in the world’; the body expresses itself in acreative,
musical way. (ibid., p. 23)
The Dutch music psychologist and professor of creative arts therapy Henk Smeijsters
has written extensively about the affinity between musical processes and expressive
properties on the one hand, human life processes and pathological characteristics on
the other hand. He has developed a comprehensive theory of analogy that will be
introduced briefly in the following (Smeijsters 1998, 1999, 2003. See also the
introduction by Bonde 2003).
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