Emotion, embodied mind and the therapeutic aspects of musical experience in everyday life

Journal article

The capacity for music to function as a force for bio-cognitive organisation is considered in clinical and everyday contexts. Given the deeply embodied nature of such therapeutic responses to music, it isargued that cognitivist approaches may be insufficient to fully explain music’s affective power. Following this, an embodied approach isconsidered, where the emotional-affective responseto music is discussed in terms of primary bodily systems and the innate cross-modal perceptivecapacities of the embodied human mind. It is suggested that such an approach may extend thelargely cognitivist view taken by much of contemporary music psychology and philosophy of music by pointing the way towards a conception of musical meaning that begins with our most primordial interactions with the world.

Authors: van der Schyff, D

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Greek Association of Primary Music Education Teachers
• Journal: Approaches: Music Therapy and Special Music Education
• Volume: 5
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 50-58
• Publication date: 2013-01-01
• EISSN: 2459-3338
• ISSN: 1791-9622
• Keywords: embodied cognition; music and emotions; music in everyday life; embodied aesthetics; music and meaning; music therapy