Music and Meaning Making

Two weeks ago, I wrote about music as a cultural tool.  Music allows for expression of the self or group.  Music gathers us and captures our identity.  In many years of work as a music therapist, I witnessed the power of music to facilitate transformations, shape attitudes and alter behaviors. 

What is this cultural and therapeutic tool we call music?  Ian Cross (2001), explored the concepts of music as a “universal” phenomenon through the perspectives of cognitive anthropology and evolutionary perspectives.  Cross offered the following definition:

Musics can be defined as those temporally patterned human activities, individual and social, that involve the production and perception of sound and have no evident and immediate efficacy or fixed consensual reference.

This definition emphasizes music as a biological and psychological phenomenon.  The final part of the definition reinforces the importance of making meaning of the stimulus.  Cross contended that music has no efficacy until humans react and respond to it. The universal aspect is our ability to respond and our capacity to have a relationship with music.  The nature of our relationship with music is based on personal factors. 

Our cultural context helps to define how we make understand the music, but the capacity to make meaning is the universal human response. 

Growing up with a Sibling with Autism: Schemas and Motivation

For the past few weeks, I have been writing about culture as the context that shapes human development and learning.  The value of understanding cultural context is to become more aware of the layers that influence the behaviors and attitudes of both us and others.  Culture offers a lens for the larger question, “why do people do the things they do?’ 

D’Andrade (1992) explored how cultural learning translates into action through the concepts of schemas and motivation.  Schemas were described as “a conceptual structure which makes possible the identification of objects and events” (p. 28).   Schemas guide a person’s interpretation of events, past memories, and potential future actions.  Motivation is the desire to act on the future actions or goals.  “Cultural representations about how schemas should serve as goals…can combine together to create cultural schemas that motivate the individual with great power” (p. 38). 

My dissertation research was focused on young adult siblings of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).  I interviewed people between the ages of 18-25 that had a brother or a sister with ASD.  I was interested in exploring how their sibling relationship, a significant part of their context, shaped their transitions into adulthood.  I was also interested in how the siblings experienced any feelings of grief. 

Throughout the interviews, the siblings often commented on not feeling that neither their family nor their sibling experience were normal.  The concept of “normal” appeared to come from comparing their family experience to those they saw around them. One woman claimed, “we don’t do things like other families do.”   The concept of normal extended to their relationships with their brothers or sisters with ASD.  Another participant stated, “I feel like I have a sister, but I don’t feel she’s a traditional sister.”  The participants compared their sibling to their schema of siblings and sibling relationships that came from socially constructed idea of what brothers and sisters do.

All of the siblings in my dissertation spoke lovingly about their siblings.  They also talked about the sense of strength that came from their relationship with their brothers and sisters.  Culture shaped their definitions of sibling and family relationships.  The contrast between their schemas for sibling relationships and their own experience created feelings of loss and guided their future goals.  Growing up with a sibling with ASD shaped their career choices, peer selection, and mate selection. 

The goal of my research was not to suggest any valuation of the experience of growing up with a sibling with a disability.  We are all impacted by the people we grow up with.  Our perceptions of those experiences are also shaped by constructed schemas of what relationships “should” be.  Our behaviors are then guided by these relationships and beliefs.

Music as a Cultural and Therapeutic Tool

Music is widely recognized as a tool of culture.  Music represents the unique behaviors, beliefs, and practices of a group.  We have a relationship with our preferred styles of music which is based on our experiences with that music.  Music is a powerful vessel of ideas. 

When we examine the relationships that other people have with their preferred music, we can only really do our best to guess why people connect with that music.  Imagine the parent who wonders how on earth his or her adolescent child can “listen to that stuff”. 

In a 1996 article, Robert Walker posed the question, “Can We Understand the Music of Another Culture?” (Psychology of Music).  Walker stated that “the medium and content of musical activity become important to our understanding of how minds work in musical behavior” (p. 106).  The way that an individual engages with the music makes a difference.  Additionally, our brains have learned to respond to specific elements of music based on our context.   For example, we become adapted to recognize certain tonal structures.  When we attempt to understand the cultural behavior of behavior of another, we are viewing that behavior through our own contextual lens.  Our lens is informed by our own experiences, but also the physical way we have been taught to respond to music. 

Walker’s article demonstrates the idea of insider vs. outsider knowledge.   An insider will naturally have a different level of meaning of the experience based on experience and context.  As an outsider, we can develop empathy or appreciation, but we may never have the same felt sense of meaning as the insider. 

In music therapy, music becomes an incredible point of access to foster awareness and understanding.  The music allows the experience to move to deep levels of meaning and transformation.  A few years ago, I was treating a client who had a traumatic brain injury.  The client was non-verbal with significant limitations in motor skills.  We explored her preferred music through recordings and videos.  She selected music that reflected the complexities of her emotions, desire for friendships, and wanting to impact the world around her.  This client’s musical experiences were different from mine. We were about the same age, but she had a much greater knowledge of the music that was popular during our early adulthood years. That music was an incredibly powerful tool to represent her beliefs and desired behaviors. 

Although we may never experience another’s music at the same level of meaning as that person or group, there is so much we can learn if we just listen.

Culture and Human Development

Culture shapes our development.  In order to explore the relationship between culture and development, Rogoff (2003) recommends that it is important to first understand some basic ideas about cultural processes.  The following list provides a guiding framework that helps us understand the dynamic influence of culture on human development:

·         Culture isn’t just what other people do.

·         Understanding one’s own cultural heritage, as well as other cultural communities, requires taking the perspective of people of contrasting backgrounds.

·         Cultural processes fit together and are connected.

·         Cultural communities do change, as do individuals.

·         There is not likely One Best Way.  (The Cultural Nature of Human Development, p. 11-12)

Rogoff’s work highlights the importance of moving beyond an examination of surface behaviors to better understand how cultural processes shape development.  I have used this framework many times in class. To paraphrase, we all live within our rich cultural contexts.  If we want to understand culture, we have to be willing to examine those things we just accept as “truths”.  We do things for a reason and those reasons change.  Most importantly, our way is not the only or necessarily the best way.

One way that I have explored this concept in classes is to ask students if they have ever gone back to visit a town that where they used to live.  Most students instantly connect with the idea that the town that they once lived in had some impact on who they are, but that town has changed as much as they have. 

Last year, I completed data collection for a research project related to first year college students.  The students participated in three interviews over their first year of college.  All of the participants were asked to complete the second interview in or near their home town.  Engaging the students in their community was a powerful way to explore their local context.  The student’s past experiences shaped their first year at college.  Furthermore, their college experiences were shaping the person that they were when they re-entered their community.