Music Therapy Today - World Federation of Music Therapy

Aldridge, D. (2007) Dining rituals and music. Music Therapy Today (Online 1st April) Vol.VIII (1)
26-38. available at http://musictherapyworld.net
social in providing shema for action as conventional mental models
derived from a shared environment. These shared schemas are produced
and transmitted within a community and are the very basis of community.
Dining rituals often provide a framework for mutual interaction that
include appetite, desire, and pleasure and can offer a structure within the
daily that regulates social life. Finding a place at the table is an expres-
sion that relates to eating together but has a wider metaphor of social
belonging and acceptance.
Food practices, like eating rituals, deconstruct the idea of an autonomous,
singular self and return us to the idea of a relational, bodily self existing
in communitas. Serving and eating food encompass the connotation of
community, as self in relationship with others. Moving to an institutional
setting, and living in that setting, involves a constant negotiation of the
self in everyday life. The transition from the family home setting, or even
eating alone in the once family home, to an organisational setting is in
itself demanding. Taking part in mealtimes is an essential form of main-
taining a social self that demands a considerable social performance.
We eat to survive but we also eat to express appreciation, for a sense of
belonging, and as part of a family custom. We bake cakes for visitors or
birthday treats and those cakes are eaten without regard for nutritional
value and often when we have no hunger in terms of survival needs. Yet,
the baking, the delivery, and the eating of the cake with friends and fam-
ily, are important
What to eat, when to eat, how much to eat, how often and how are deter-
mined by culture. However, personal preferences, habits, family customs,
and social setting largely determine what a person consumes. There were
even rules for how to arrange food on a table and seating arrangements,
Ritual 28