Music Therapy
1990,Vol. 9, No. l, l-15
Aesthetic Experience
in Music Therapy
-_
JO SALAS
MUSIC THERAPIST,
ASTOR HOME FOR CHILDREN, RHINEBECK, NEWYORK
This article explores the nature of aesthetic experience and its
role in music therapy. Withreference to the music therapy litera­
ture, the western philosophical tradition, and the work of Gre­
gory Bateson, the author proposes a concept of the meaning of
beauty in which aesthetic experience is an affirmation of onto­
logical meaning. The importance of such experience to clients
who may perceive their lives as lacking in meaning is discussed.
Illustrative clinical material is drawn from the author’s work
with emotionally disturbed children.
Introduction
Music is an aesthetic form, and we who are music therapists are musi­
cians, drawn strongly enough to the aesthetic experience to build our
work, even our lives, around it. Writers and theorists in our field,
notably Nordoff and Robbins (1971,1977) and Kenny (1982,1989), have
acknowledged the importance of aesthetic experience. Nordoff and
Robbins (1971), whose clinical work has been distinguished for its
attention to aesthetic considerations, state that high artistic quality is
important because it enhances the music’s therapeutic effectiveness.
Kenny (1982), in her pervasive emphasis on aesthetic awareness and
experience, at times touches on the central issue that will be considered
here-i.e., the relationship of the aesthetic to ontological meaning. Dis­
cussing the aesthetic perception of patterns in music, she says that these
patterns “remind us of our connections to the whole of life.. . They re­
assure us about the ongoing processes of life as a whole, and the
significance of each life within that whole” (p. 66). Often drawing on the
Navaho world view, Kenny (1989) also emphasizes beauty as our ulti­
mate context. Growth and healing are seen as closely related to an
increased awareness of beauty and the capacity to create it.
1
Despite these and other writers’ awareness of the aesthetic, it seems
that searching questions on this subject have scarcely been asked, let
alone answered-questions, for example, as to why beautiful music en­
hances clinical effectiveness. This article seeksto examine the nature and
clinical significance of aesthetic experience in music therapy, focusing
on the element of beauty itself and on the aesthetic experiences of the
creator and perceiver of beauty. It is this author’sbelief that the meaning
of beauty has profound implications for healing and health, and that the
work of music therapists can be enriched by an increased awareness of
these implications.
Aesthetic Experience, Beauty, and Meaning
What is the nature of aesthetic experience? Of beauty? What is their
function? Although these questions relate to a common and universally
recognized aspect of human life, satisfying answers have been notori­
ously elusive. Philosophers since Plato and Aristotle have struggled just
to establish where to begin and what to consider. Many have focused on
criteria for assessing aesthetic value. However, there has been such
disagreement as to whether to consider only the formal properties of the
object or to look also at the experience of the perceiver that, to this day,
there is no generally accepted means of evaluation or even agreed-upon
definitions of art,’ aesthetic experience, or beauty. Some resign them­
selves to tautology, saying in effect that an aesthetic object is one that
arouses an aesthetic response. Others more or less sidestep the problem
of definition: Hospers (1964) states, “I have not defined the aesthetic
attitude..
Like all expressions which refer to experiences or states of
feeling, one must have had the experience to know what it is like” (p. 7).
Kenny (1989), a music therapist, begins her definition of the aesthetic
with, “The aesthetic is a field of beauty which is the human person” (p.
75). This seems to be more a statement of beauty-as-context than an
actual clarification of meaning.
A few philosophers have proposed metaphysical or spiritual solu­
tions to the questions of aesthetics, and it is these thoughts that will be
seen later to have the most bearing on the subject of aesthetic experience
in music therapy. Plotinus, A.D. 205-270, criticizing the formalist view
that accounted for beauty in qualities like symmetry thought that
beauty was a manifestation of the spiritual force that animates all of
reality. Paraphrasing Plotinus, Beardsley (1967) states that the soul
‘Author’snote.For the first part of this article, I will be discussingtheseissuesin
termsof art in general,including but not specifying music.The termsartist and
art objectshould therefore be
takento include musicianand music,respectively,in
their reference.
AestheticExperiencein Music Therapy
3
“finds joy in recognizing in the object an ‘affinity’ to itself; for in this
affinity it becomes aware of its own participation in ideal-form and its
divinity” (p. 22). A number of later philosophers also discussed the
relationship of art to ultimate reality. Schelling in the early nineteenth
century thought that it was through art that the Absolute was most fully
revealed, and Hegel, in the same period, found that beauty was the
sensuous embodiment of conceptual understanding.
To quote
Beardsley’s (1967) interpretation of Hegel, ‘When the sensuous is
spiritualized in art, there is. . a cognitive revelation of truth” (p. 29).
So far in this article, I have used the terms beauty,art, and aesthetic
experiencewithout clarification. Defining these concepts is not easy. Like
the philosophers referred to above, the temptation is to resort to tautol­
ogy or evasion. But the struggle to engage with the meaning of these
ideas leads toward a deeper level of comprehension.
The term aestheticexperienceis used here to denote the encounter with
beauty, the unique pleasure and satisfaction of perceiving something
that is beautiful, whether as an observer or a creator. Aesthetic responseis
used specifically to refer to the experience of the observer. Art is used to
refer to the enterprise or object that is designed to embody and convey
one person’s conception of beauty.
The term beauty is harder to define. It is tempting to say that some­
thing is beautiful if it leads to an aesthetic response. Most of the philo­
sophical discussion seeking to define beauty, whether from an objectivist
view (beauty as an inherent property) or a subjectivist view (beauty
exists in the experience of the beholder), agrees that certain elements
need to be present in order for something to be perceived as beautiful.
These include, most prominently, the quality of unity-an organic unity
that holds a variety of complex elements in an organized form. But in
actuality the presence of unity-in-variety still does not ensure a univer­
sal recognition that an object is beautiful. While objects of harmony and
pleasing proportion may give delight to some, others may perceive
them with indifference. And, similarly, some will find beauty in objects
that others find dissonant or disturbing.
Is there any common factor we can identify, then, that leads to the
experience of beauty? And, we need to ask, why is the aesthetic experi­
ence pleasurable or satisfying? What is the essenceof the delight we feel
in encountering beauty? I will begin to approach these questions by
looking in what may seem to be quite another direction.
Gregory Bateson (1972): in an essay called “Style, Grace, and InforSee also Kenny (1982)on patterns,connection,and meaning with referenceto
Bateson.
4
Salas
mation in Primitive Art,” refers to Aldous Huxleys conviction that the
central problem for humanity is the quest for grace. He goes on to
theorize about the role that art plays in this quest, a role that has to do
with pattern and meaning. Pattern refers to a related series of objects or
events. When the underlying unity of such an aggregate can be inferred
by experiencing one part of it, this part can be said to contain meaning
about the rest. In the task of integrating the conscious and the uncon­
scious, the heart and the reason, it is art-along with dream and myth­
that can reveal meaning through pattern. The forms of the work of art
contain information about unconscious experience, implying a coherent
unity. An art object is “both itself internally patterned and itself part of a
larger patterned universe-the culture or some part of it” (Bateson,
1972, p. 132).
Perhaps I would add, “or the entire universe itself.” Huxley’s quest
for grace transcends the integration of personality and goes to the search
for unity and pattern in existence itself-the search for ontological
meaning. The integrity of form in a work of art is above all a revelation
of order, form, grace in the universe itself. In Bateson’s terms, the
perception of pattern in a work of art allows us to perceive, by impli­
cation, the unseen pattern that we long to know exists. Newton (1950)
makes a similar point: “The pattern of the universe is of such extraor­
dinary complexity that the human mind can never grasp it fully.
Nonetheless, if the human mind does not grasp a portion of it, the
universe becomes meaningless, or rather it becomes chaotic, and chaos
is the opposite of beauty” (p. 25).
Going back to the question posed earlier about the nature of the
aesthetic response and of the pleasure that is intrinsic in it, the answer
may lie in our quest for grace. Beauty is no more or less than a phenom­
enon of universal order, and we experience it as an affirmation of
ontological meaning. The object that draws our aesthetic response may
be simple, complex, harmonious, discordant, widely recognized, or
appreciated only by oneself, but the delight we experience is a recogni­
tion of its rightness of form, its faithfulness to the integrity and pur­
posefulness we sense as our ultimate context.
This brings me to a possible definition of beauty: Beauty is the quality
of integrity of form that echoes, to a greater or lesser degree, the grace
and elegance of the patterns of existence.
So I want to return to the issue of meaning. Hospers (1964) points out
that this is a word which itself has a number of varied applications, and
to talk about meaning in the arts can be very confusing if we are not in
agreement as to which kind of meaning we have in mind. Meaning is
AestheticExperiencein Music Therapy
5
most commonly used to refer to the way in which a word or other sign
is taken by general consensus to indicate something else, e.g., houseis
understood by English speakers to refer to a building in which people
live; an image of a deer on a road sign is understood to mean that deer
may leap in front of one’s car, etc. But this common sense of meaning is
not usually what we are talking about when we discuss “meaning’ in a
work of art, especially in music where this denotative meaning may
have no place at all. Hospers (1964) lists several ofthe common usages of
the word, including causal consequences, logical entailment, intention,
and “general feeling of significance” (p. 74). He also proposes a new
definition to be applied to meaning in art: “A work of art means to us
whatever effects.. .it evokes in us” (p. 75).
This new definition seemsto me to be a misdirected narrowing of his
earlier-listed “general feeling of significance.” It is more productive to
try to discover what it is that accounts for a feeling of significance
aroused by a work of art. Langer (1942) and Meyer (1956) each explore
this question in relation to music. They find, in their respective discus­
sions, that the cogency and impact we experience in music lie in the
intramusical structures and relationships much more than in whatever
referential elements may be present. Meyer (1956) calls this embodied
meaning. Langer (1942) describes music’s unique quality of sharing the
morphology and dynamics of human emotion, thus giving voice to
currents of feeling far beyond what is expressible in language.
Bateson (1972) also refers to relationship as the most important level
of significance in a work of art. The white bird and the dark tree may be
images chosen by the artist to bring forth something about hope and
fear, but the meaning lies in the coexistence of these elements, their
dynamic tension. “It is an error to think of dream, myth, and art as being
about any one matter other than relationship” (p. 150).
Meaning in art, then, has to do with the capacity to embody the
dynamic structures of experience. The quality of beauty in a work of art
creates an expansion of meaning from the personal to the ontological.
Each art form accomplishes this function differently. Music, in par­
ticular, has aunique capacity to match the complexity and fluidity of our
experience. We readily recognize music as an analogue of our inner
world, allowing us to find in its essentially ordered nature-which
I
have identified with beauty-an intimation of ontological purposeful­
ness, an intuited perception that indeed our existence has meaning. In
experiencing the intricate, ordered, and beautiful patterns of music, we
are attuned, acoustically and spiritually, to our universe.
6
Salas
The Experience of the Artist
The encounter with beauty is framed differently when one is the
artist, though the differencesbetween artist and observer may be mostly
a question of degree and circumstance. The aesthetic response described
above is universal. That is to say, everyone knows this experience,
everyone perceives beauty and finds it ontologically meaningful. Some
people are more alive than others to aesthetic dimension, and they may,
with sufficient motivation and skill acquisition, become artists of one
kind or another.
Creativity is another word for this quality of aesthetic awareness
combined with the drive to convey one’s vision to others. It is a capacity
shared by all, though not in equal measure, and subject to encourage­
ment or suppression by life circumstances.
Rollo May (1975) describes creativity as the desire to bring something
new into being. But of course it is not simply a hunger for novelty:
Creative people are seeking to find new forms for their comprehension
of experience. There is content to the newness. It is a vision, a synthesis
that demands communication. The artist distills the substance of experi­
ence so that others can perceive its meaning in a new way. Newton
(1950) writes that the process of creation is more accurately a process of
discovery. It is misleading, he concludes, to say that the artist has
“crated beauty where none existed. What he has, in fact, done is to lift a
corner of the veil and and revealbeauty” (p. 26). Beauty is the underlying
reality which the artist’s sensibility perceives and manifests for us.
Aesthetic Standards
Undeniably, not every artist produces work of equal impact on the
perceiver, and alongside the artist there has always been the critic, who
seekstodetermine theaesthetic value of the work. Classical aestheticians
had limited successin establishing rules whereby art could be measured
and evaluated. The legacy of this approach in our own culture is a
persistent desire to assessart, still in the absence of meaningful criteria,
and now regrettably combined with a simplistic worship of the virtuoso,
a contempt for the amateur, and, increasingly, a confusion between
aesthetic and commercial value.
For many of us who are drawn to be artists ourselves, or to support
creative expression in others, the issue of standards can be troubling,
restricting, and confusing. Questions arise: Is there any value in artistic
expression below the virtuoso level? If we recognize the importance of
talent and skill, can we still acknowledge the artist in everyone? If works
of high aesthetic value can be delivered only by the highly gifted and
AestheticExperiencein Music Therapy
7
highly trained, how do we account for experiences of finding deep
aesthetic satisfaction in the art of amateur or untrained people?
Most people would agree that aesthetically valuable art requires
talent and technical skill. However, there is a third essential component:
the quality of conviction. By this I mean an openness to inner experience
and a commitment to its expression. The prime purpose of the artistic
impulse is to manifest and communicate some aspect of the artist’s
individual perception. The degree to which this quality of conviction is
present will affect the aesthetic value of the artist’s work independently
from talent or skill. The more an artist-sophisticated
or not--can
inform her work with her individual essence and truth, the more the
emotionsand spirit of others can be engagedand thedeeper theaesthetic
response will be.
Formal criticism has always sought to separate and discount this
affective component of aesthetic response. However, it is not only valid
but, in fact, integral. An aesthetic response is, arguably, a primarily
emotional response: Some philosophers even talk about the “aesthetic
emotion.” We are moved by beauty because it tells us that we, our lives,
have meaning.
Acknowledging the role of conviction in art can help a great deal to
reconcile the questions posed earlier. Aesthetic value becomes a matter
of the presence and proportion of these three components: talent, skill,
and conviction. Great art invariably includes all three in high degree and
can elicit an almost universal aesthetic response. Simple art may exhibit
far more conviction than talent or skill and may be found beautiful by
relatively few. Yet all artistic creation is valid and valuable because it
reveals and affirms meaning.
There is one more very important consideration: theinterdependence,
the cybernetic interplay between art and perceiver. Aesthetic value
exists only in potential until the art object is perceived and appreciated.
If we are not in some way open and receptive, we will not be reached and
moved by the artist’s work. Beauty is perceived when the conviction of
the creator meets the conviction of the perceiver. It is a co-creation,
perhaps analogous to the perception of color. Although there is an
independent reality to the varying length of light waves, “red” and
“yellow” will not be perceived--and arguably do not exist-unless the
light waves are received by the retinal cone function of the eyes. At the
heart of the question of beauty, there remains a paradox.
Ideally, aesthetic standards in music are a comment about the degree
to which a piece of music reveals ontological meaning, taking into
account the talent, skill, and conviction of the musician, and the an­
swering receptiveness of the listener. Unfortunately, the distortions of
our culture have greatly overemphasized talent and skill, usually over­
looking the performer’s conviction, and altogether losing sight of the
listener’s role in constructing value. The result is that most people have
become disenfranchised music-makers, feeling that only the gifted and
trained may play; and many of us, especially musicians, have forgotten
how to listen with open ears and open hearts.
The Aesthetic Experience in Music Therapy
The humanistic view of personality acknowledges the fundamental
human desire to evolve to one’s fullest potential. For many, the process
of growth is also part of a larger processof spiritual evolution, which has
implications beyond the individual to the nature and purpose of exist­
ence itself. why do we want to grow? Perhaps we sense,even obscurely,
that we are part of a purposeful universe, and that we have a role to play
in the unfolding of its design.
Viktor Frank1 (1959) writes very movingly about the “will to mean­
ing” (p. 154), a drive that he argues is as strong and primal as Freud’s
pleasure principle. It may be that the will to meaning is even more
fundamental than Frank1 claims. Certainly we need to find meaning in
ourlives, to know that we are loved by those we love, and to feel that our
work is needed and valued. But we also need to know that it all makes
sense, that we are part of a coherent pattern. We need to discover
ontological meaning. (Frank1 himself would perhaps repudiate this
extension of his theory. The existential view holds that there is no
ontological meaning, and that the human challenge is to courageously
find a purpose in life, while acknowledging a wider context of meaning­
lessness.)
Few of us move unimpeded toward self-actualization and spiritual
fulfillment. Unmet needs and psychic wounds can slow down or even
stop the process of growth. Psychotherapy is ameans of healing wounds,
meeting needs, dissolving blocks, so that the evolution of personality
and soul may resume, or gain in strength.
Music therapy seeks to reinstate and strengthen processes of growth
through musical phenomena and experiences. There is a general em­
phasis in music therapy training and practice on meeting needs broadly
related to self-esteem, self-expression, and the overcoming of impair­
ments. Music therapy has proved its effectiveness in these essential
areas. Nordoff and Robbins (1971, 1977),as well as others, also write
very vividly about the capacity of music, in its inherent orderedness, to
help the disordered personality find and strengthen its own structures.
However, the healing effect of music’s intrinsic nature goes even further.
AestheticExperiencein Music Therapy
9
Beyond finding new ways to express feelings, beyond achieving a new
sense of competence and self-worth, beyond discovering an organized
self, the client-playing
or listening-is experiencing an ontological
coherence coded in the music’s beauty. Blocked in the search for mean­
ing by impairments, whether circumstantial, organic, or psychological,
the client can find intimations of universal order and purpose in music.
Healing takes place within the aesthetic experience itself.
Illustration
from Practice: Wayne3
My work in music therapy has been mainly with institutionalized,
emotionally disturbed children under 14. Most of these children have
come from extremely dysfunctional families; many have been aban­
doned altogether. Most have experienced gross neglect and abuse of all
kinds, sometimes from infancy or even earlier. Their short lives have
been lacking in the elements that usually provide some assurance of
meaning: love, safety, an organized society. They have known the world
principally as a place of chaos and pain.
Wayne was nine when I first met him, a stocky black boy whom other
staff members described as “obnoxious.” He was of limited intelligence,
impulsive, oppositional, and violent toward childrenand staff. He loved
his mother, and she seemed committedto him, but his life was shadowed
by years of being the victim of his father’s physical abuse, and, perhaps
even worse, helplessly witnessing his father’s violence toward his
mother. As we got to know each other in music therapy sessions, it
became apparent that Wayne had an unsuspected artistic sensibility. He
loved this new opportunity to spend time in a room full of creative
possibilities, and for a year and a half his notorious behavior was never
apparent in our sessions.
Our work together developed a pattern after a while. At his initiation,
we would enact over and over again the episodes of violence he recalled
from his past. In dramatic action and without music, he tried out all the
roles-the sadistic, brutal father; the defenseless mother; the small boy.
He also with dramatic license played the powerful, righteous avenger,
who in real life he could not be. Then, having temporarily exorcised these
forces, he would turn to music, and another side of Wayne would emerge.
His favorite instrument was the resonator bells.One day, he surprised me
by picking out a simple but beautiful melody over my somewhat obscure
chord progression on the guitar: F-AGm-Dm. He was immediately de­
lighted with it, but he had a true musician’s attitude toward realizing it
3Namesof clients havebeenchanged.
10
Salas
fully. He worked very hard at being able to play it fluently, and then
experimented with the form, making artistic decisions as to which in­
strument should begin, whether to introduce extra elements such as the
voice, when and how to end, and what dynamics to use.
Week after week he wanted to play this tune. He never ceased to try
to improve it. He listened to it on tape with critical approval. He asked
me to arrange for him to play it for his group, and he performed it
proudly.
Our therapy eventually came to an end when he was 11, when his
sexual development had the effect of making him quite unable to control
his violent and sexually inappropriatebehavior while he was alone with
a woman staff member.
Much later, when I realized that his behavior-by then even worse­
was preventing him from receiving any services, I decided to try rein­
stating music therapy, with an assistant present to diffuse his responses.
He was very happy about this and behaved impeccably for the two
months that we met. He referred to the tune he had composed, but did
not play it, instead improvising on resonator bells and percussion,
hesitantly at first and then with increasing confidence and satisfaction.
Again, he explored emotional experience in drama. The concerns he
wanted to act out had changed. Now it was nostalgia and longing for the
tenderness he remembered with his mother, who had finally rejected
him out of fear and repulsion.
His music again had a strikingly artistic quality, expressive, highly
organized, and notable for its finesse. This was all the more remarkable
in view of the fact that his life at that time was on a downward spiral of
violence and punitive consequences, leading soon to his discharge to a
juvenile detention facility.
Wayne’s Aesthetic Experience and Its Meaning
Wayne was consistently and strongly drawn to play his composition
over a period of many weeks. He clearly found it a rewarding and
satisfying experience. In part, it answered some of his needs for self­
esteem and self-expression. He was proud of his achievement, he saw
that I was impressed, and he was able to convey a tender side of himself
that seldom, if ever, found expression. It was interesting that his impulse
to play lyrically tended to follow his venting of violent hatred and fear,
and that he chose to explore these dark emotions in action rather than
music. He seemed to have a need to keep these parts of himself separate.
In the later period of therapy, his self-expression in both drama and
music was broadened.
AestheticExperiencein Music Therapy
11
Wayne was in need of ways to express himself, and of experiences
that would nourish his self-esteem. And yet there was more. He was
entranced by the musical elements themselves: the soft timbre and
overtones of the bells, the rather haunting minor harmonies, the tension
and resolution of the cadences, the profile of the melody, the repetitions,
the leisurely but steady rhythm, the elegant shape he created with his
composer’s discretion. He was delighted with his music, as his com­
ments and behavior showed. The strength and consistency of his aes­
thetic pleasure indicated that his music meant a great deal to him. He
was immensely reassured, soothed, cheered by his music, by its internal
patterning, which spoke of a wider pattern otherwise hidden from him
by the ugliness and arbitrariness of his experience.
Wayne was someone with an artist’s sensibility. He had not known
this; it was not part of his self-concept. Faced with a beguiling instru­
ment in an atmosphere of acceptance and exploration, he spontaneously
played music that he found beautiful. This awoke in him the artist's
drive to manifest his own individual sense of form and the artist's
satisfaction in accomplishing this.
Not every client has this drive so strongly, though everyone perceives
beauty, and that perception alone may be powerfully healing. But the
dimension of creativity has aspecial significance in a therapeutic context.
The experience of creating a work of art is analogous to the experience of
creating one’s life. It can be the first step in a client’s journey toward
autonomy, which is the state of making adaptive and spontaneous
choices, free of self-sabotaging impulses.
Did Wayne play “good” music? In whose opinion? It was clear that
the question of aesthetic value was important to him. He had a concept
of what was good and not so good. His piece had aesthetic value in his
view, and he applied aesthetic judgment to his development and per­
formance of it. In the terms of the previous discussion of aesthetic
standards, the degree of aesthetic value was accounted for mostly by his
talent and his conviction. His technical skill was negligible, but he had a
natural gift for music, and he reached deep into himself for the emotional
phenomena, which then found their analogue in sound. The element of
commitment in his music-making was strong.
Aesthetic standards are a question of the degree to which talent, skill,
and conviction (or commitment) are present, and in what proportion.
Such assessmentsmust always be relative and subjective, though there
are cases-e.g., Bach, Beethoven, Billie Holiday-when
the almost uni­
versal assessment of high aesthetic value makes it seem objectively
identifiable. I thought Wayne’s music was good. I was moved, im­
pressed by its originality and formal beauty, the product of his musicality
12
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and conviction. My attitude was also a factor. In a situation like a
therapy session or a workshop in which I am the leader, I am most likely
to be listening with a generous receptivity, and I am not looking for
prodigious accomplishment. It is harder, at least for me, to attend a
concert with the same amount of openness and generosity. There, I want
a certain level of talent and skill, as well as conviction, and I am
disappointed, even critical, if I do not find it.
So, in one sense, one’s aesthetic standards are likely to be lower in a
music therapy session than elsewhere. To put it more positively, the
music therapist is likely to be maximally open to aesthetic pleasure in
the context of a session. Thus the music therapist’s approbation is
genuine and beneficial not only for the client but for the therapist who,
like everyone else, needs regular assurance of meaning.
Aesthetic standards are relevant therapeutically in two ways. Clients
who believe that their music is good will feel affirmed; their self-esteem
will be nurtured. And the more aesthetic value in their music, the more
they will experience the triumphant and healing victory of existential
coherence over meaninglessness. The fact that Wayne’s music had an
unusual amount of harmonic subtlety meant that it drew special admi­
ration from those who heard it, which felt wonderful to him. It also
meant that his music was more effective in its function of revealing
ontological meaning for him than if it had been less accomplished.
I used to feel uneasy about my impulse to make evaluative comments
on a client’s music: ‘That was great!” “I loved hearing that beautiful
music!” After noticing that other music therapists said similar things,
and after pondering some of the issues discussed in this article, I realized
that this impulse is a healing response. It comes appropriately and
inevitably from our own strong love of beauty, which has led us to be
musicians and to place music at the center of the therapeutic relationship.
It is the application of aesthetic standards in the service of healing and
growth.
Further Illustrations
from Practice
Wayne was one of a number of children I have encountered who were
both exceptionally musical and exceptionally disturbed. There has been
a notable tendency for these children to maintain their capacity for
organization in music even as they deteriorate in other areas of their
lives, sometimes to the point of needing long-term psychiatric hospi­
talization.
For musical children in less severe crisis, aesthetic experience has
appeared to be a significant factor in helping them to stabilize. Julio is a
AestheticExperiencein Music Therapy
13
gifted boy who is at his most ordered and creative inthe context of music
therapy. Recently, in response to developments in his family, Julio went
through a crisis featuring suicidal threats and gestures, running away,
regression, and withdrawal-as well as an increase in his already strong
motivation for music. Hisemotional turmoil wasevident in theviolence
of his playing and the partial resurrection of old barriers between us. But
in each session during that period he would manage to touch base with
the familiar phenomena of his music, the rhythms and timbres and
patterns, and find in them some respite from the undirected currents of
his fear and rage. There were moments when his great delight in his
musical creation very clearly went beyond the music’s value as a vent
for his emotion, though this was also an important part of his playing.
Witnessing and sharing his aesthetic pleasure, seeing him relax and
breathe again after a chuckle of satisfaction, I sensed that the lucidity
and coherence in his music told him these qualities were not gone from
his world after all.
Although one cannot be sure which out of all the variables account for
healing, I know that the resources Julio accessedduring his crisis had
become an integrated part of himself, since he drew on them spontane­
ously and repeatedly. It seems likely that the meaning he found in his
music helped him eventually to reestablish meaning and order in his life.
As well as being an especially powerful and accessible means of
growth for highly gifted clients, aesthetic experience is important and
healing for clients without any particular affinity for music. The artistry
and discrimination of the therapist becomes particularly important
here. The aesthetic value ofthe music in asession is morethan aquestion
of stimulating involvement and giving sensuous pleasure; it is a direct
vehicle for healing. I believe that we overlook a very significant part of
the healing process if we do not make our clinical music as beautiful as
we can.
In a weekly group-singing session, there are ten girls, ages ten to
thirteen, with varying degrees of musical affinity. Their most requested
songs range widely in terms of aesthetic value, from very simple,
formulaic songs, to songs with some musical and linguistic sophistica­
tion and nuance. Even the simpler songs provide some aesthetic expe­
rience. The repetitions and predictable patterns give form to the release
of high energy Other songs offer more. The girls often ask for “ICan See
Clearly,” a calypso song with an encouraging message about surviving
pain. The imagery is simple and vivid, with strong visual and emotional
impact. Using a heightened poetic language, the composer has artisti­
cally matched the words to musical phrases in a way that enhances
speech patterns (rather than violating them, which is unfortunately
14
Salas
common). The melody, harmonies, and rhythm contain charm and some
surprises.
The girls respond to the beauty of this song with awakened aesthetic
awareness. The quality of their voices becomes more beautiful; they
shape the song with appropriate dynamics and repetitions of the final
phrase. The aesthetic pleasure they find in singing this song deepens its
meaning from the content itself to the existential possibility of beauty,
within their reach.
Conclusion
Many of our clients in music therapy, including these children, have
been shadowed to a point where their world is dark indeed. An essential
aspect of their healing must be the discovery of meaning in a life that has
seemed randomly and cruelly put together.
This article has proposed the concept of beauty as a sign and manifes­
tation of ontological meaning-beauty not just in the sense of pleasing
harmony, but encompassing any created form that in some satisfying
way matches our experience. The encounter with beauty, the aesthetic
experience of both perceiver and creator, is an affirmation of meaning, a
whisper or a proclamation that, yes, there is a point to all this, there is an
order, and we have a place in it.
Beauty is integral to music, and to music therapy. As music therapists,
we can give our clients the opportunity to distill the expression of
emotion into aesthetic form. This is a profound experience. Far tran­
scending the simple discharge of feelings, it is a way to feel oneself part
of the “pattern that connects,” even to feel one’s participation in its
creation.
REFERENCES
Bateson, G. (1972. Stepsto an ecologyof mind. New York: Ballantine.
Beardsley, M. C. (1967).History of aesthetics. In p. Edwards (Ed.), The encyclopedia of phi­
losophy: Volume 1 (pp. 18-35).New York: Macmillan.
Frankl, V. E. (1959).Man’s searchfor meaning.New York: Pocket Books.
Hospers, J. (1964).Meaning and truth in thearts. Hamden, CT Archon Books.
Kenny, C. B. (1982). Themythic artery. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Company.
Kenny
C. B. (1989). The field
of play:
A guide for the theory and practice
of musictherapy.
Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Company.
Langer, S. (1942).Philosophyin a new key.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
May, R. (1975).Thecourage tocreate.New York: Norton.
Meyer, L. (1956). Emotion and meaning in music.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Newton, E. (1950).The meaningof beauty.New York: McGraw Hill.
Nordoff, P., & Robbins, C. (1971). Therapy in music for handicapped children London:
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Nordoff, P.,& Robbins, C. (1977). Creative music therapy.New York: John Day.
AestheticExperiencein Music Therapy
15
JoSalas,MA, CMT, works with emotionally disturbed children at the Astor
Home for Children in Rhinebeck,New York. Her interestin aestheticexperience
alsoplays a part in her life asa singer-songwriterand asa founding memberof
PlaybackTheatre,an original improvisational form. Her article “Culture and
Community: Playback Theatre”appearedin TheDramaReview.