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Music Therapy, Phenomenology, and Neuroscience
PhD proposal by Erik Christensen
The aim of this PhD project is to contribute to the theoretical foundations of music
therapy by investigating two different approaches to research in music: The theories
and applications of music phenomenology, and the theories and findings of research
in the neurosciences and music.
Phenomenology and neuroscience have been considered irreconciliable approaches
to the understanding of human perception, communication, thinking and feeling, the
former based on a first-person insight in consciousness, the latter adhering to the
ideal of objective observation and description of brain functions. It is my intention to
investigate and discuss both research strategies in order to contribute to an
assessment of their relevance for music therapy. Furthermore, I wish to elucidate
theories and research which aim at reconciling the two paradigms.
The origin and background of the project is my work as an external examiner in
music therapy (since 1998), the publication of The Musical Timespace. A Theory of
Music Listening (1996), my activity as a teacher of intensive music listening (since
2001), participation in international conferences on The Neurosciences and Music
(Venice 2002, Leipzig 2005, Montreal 2008, Vienna 2008), and a period of research
at the Institute of Music Physiology and Musicians’ Medicine in Hannover (February
2008).
These activities have led me to assume that music therapy and neuroscience share a
common interest in the investigation of musical experience, communication and
consciousness, and to believe that the two fields of research can benefit from a
mutual exchange of ideas and results. I wish to contribute to such an exchange by a
discussion of research in music and neuroscience in the context of music therapy.
My project will consist of five parts: 1. Previous publications to be included in the
project. 2. Music phenomenology. 3. Music and the neurosciences. 4. Selection of
music in neuroscientific research and music therapy research. 5. Reconciliation
between phenomenology and neuroscience.
1. Previous publications to be included in the project
The first part of the project consists of selected chapters and paragraphs of my book
The Musical Timespace. A Theory of Music Listening (1996) Vol. I: Text, and Vol. II:
Notation Examples and Graphs, which represents a phenomenological approach to
the description of music. A practical application of ideas and observations stated in
The Musical Timespace is presented in my brief Introduction to Intensive Listening
(2007, see appendix).
These texts are included in the project for the following reasons:
I consider the timespace theory and its application in intensive listening relevant for
the description of music therapy improvisations and music applied in receptive music
therapy, and I want to discuss this listening strategy in relation to similar listening
strategies proposed by Denise Grocke (1999), Julie Sutton (2001) and Gro
Trondalen (2004).
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Moreover, I intend to discuss my texts in relation to the “classic” contemporary
theories of music phenomenology proposed by Thomas Clifton (1983) and Lawrence
Ferrara (1984, 1991) and their roots in philosophical phenomenology.
It is my intention to test the application of the timespace theory in various contexts
provided by music therapy: narrative versus non-narrative music, tonality versus
other kinds of musical syntax, investigation of auditory and visual imagery, musical
processes and the dynamic of musical form.
Finally, I wish to ascertain whether current empirical neuroscience can provide
evidence for aspects of the timespace theory.
Summary of The Musical Timespace:
The five basic listening dimensions
Hearing is not designed for music listening. Hearing is designed for survival in a
natural environment, permitting the auditory perception of sound sources,
movements and spatial relations in the surrounding world. Five listening dimensions
provide a basis for orientation in the natural environment: Intensity, Timbre, Space,
Movement and Pulse.
Intensity is the prerequisite of sound, and the fundamental listening dimension.
Above a certain threshold of physical intensity, auditory attention is aroused, and the
listening mind experiences sound of a particular quality and loudness. Instantly, the
nature of the sound source is estimated by Timbre perception, and its localization is
estimated by Spatial perception.
Intensity, Timbre and Space are microtemporal listening dimensions. Within a
fraction of a second, the microtemporal listening dimensions provide information
about the relation between the listener and the surrounding world.
Immediately after the arousal of attention, successive changes in intensity, timbre
and spatial cues may provide additional auditory information, evoking the experience
of Movement. The experience of movement is estimated in terms of beginning,
direction, course and goal, implying the concepts ”before”, ”during” and ”after”, which
are the basic concepts of time. Movement is an essential factor underlying the
sensation of time and the very idea of time.
The other essential factor underlying the sensation of time is Pulse. Recurrent
repetition of sound events, such as raindrops, heartbeats or footsteps, is perceived
as a pulse pattern, which evokes a sensation of regulated time in the listening body
and mind.
Movement and Pulse are macrotemporal listening dimensions, creating the
experience of time in the listening process. They are qualitatively different. Movement
evokes the awareness of change, Pulse evokes the awareness of regularity.
Intensity is a macrotemporal as well as a microtemporal dimension, providing
information about successive changes as well as instantaneous events in the world.
The following model displays the five basic listening dimensions:
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The five basic listening dimensions
Music evokes a virtual space in the listening mind
When music attracts auditory attention, a competition arises beween the musical
sounds and the sounds of the surrounding world. If the music drowns out other kinds
of sound, the musical sounds engage the potential of auditory perception to such a
degree that ordinary auditory spatial consciousness is suppressed. The auditory
images of the world are eliminated, and a virtual musical space is evoked in the
listening mind.
The five basic listening dimensions in music
In the surrounding space of the world, the majority of sounds are not characterized
by a clearly defined pitch. In music, on the contrary, well-defined pitch plays a
predominant role. It is my assumption that pitch height adopts the role of a vertical
spatial dimension, ranging from the ”lowest” to the ”highest” tones in a pitch
continuum. On this background, the model of listening dimensions can be simplified,
so that the description of the musical spatial dimension is limited to a description of
the vertical pitch height space. According to this simplification, the five basic listening
dimensions in music are Intensity, Timbre, Pitch height, Movement and Pulse.
The secondary listening dimensions in music
The traditional elements of music, Melody, Rhythm and Harmony, are secondary
listening dimensions which arise between the basic listening dimensions. Melody is a
spatial shape of movement, arising when the movement of sound is related and
adapted to a pattern of pitch intervals. Rhythm is a temporal shape of movement,
arising when the movement of a succession of sounds is related and adapted to the
regularity of a pulse. Harmony is an emergent quality arising between the sourcespecific quality of timbre and the focusing qualities of several pitches. The fourth
secondary listening dimension can be characterized as Micromodulation, arising as
an interaction between timbre and a pattern of pulsation, such as vibrato or tremolo.
The following figure illustrates the basic and the secondary listening dimensions in
music:
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The basic and the secondary listening dimensions in music
Music creates time
Music does not ”unfold in time”. Music creates time, and the sensation of musical
time is basically different from measured clock time. Music listening gives rise to
three kinds of temporal experience, The Time of Movement, The Time of Pulse, and
The Time of Being. The Time of Being is the temporal experience related to
sensations of gradual transformations which are so slow or indiscernable that they
are not perceived as movement.
The virtual timespace
States and events, movements and transformations of musical sound evoke
impressions of space. This musical space is a virtual space, which is completely
integrated with musical time. All kinds of spatial impressions, rise and fall, movement
and growth, shapes and patterns, are called forth by temporal changes of sound
qualities. The musical space is a virtual timespace.
The virtual musical timespace is evoked as a mental illusion by the experience of
differences in Intensity, Timbre, Pitch height, Movement and Pulse. Timbre and Pitch
height are microtemporal dimensions. In the temporal continuum, Pitch height
represents the experience of microtemporal regularity, and Timbre represents the
experience of microtemporal change. Movement and Pulse are macrotemporal
dimensions, evoking the experience of time. Movement represents the experience of
macrotemporal change. Pulse represents the experience of macrotemporal
regularity.
The final figure displays the relations between the microdimensions and
macrodimensions of the musical timespace:
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The microdimensions and macrodimensions of the musical timespace
For the present project, I have selected paragraphs from The Musical Timespace
which explain the unfolding of the theory of listening dimensions, and a number of
phenomenological descriptions of music. Excluded are a number of detailed score
analyses and musicological discussions, and certain paragraphs which appear to be
weakly underpinned.
Included chapters and paragraphs:
pages:
’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
(1) The Basic Listening Dimensions
10-15
The temporal continuum
18-21
(2) States, Events and Transformations
Explorations of the sound continuum - Xenakis, Ligeti, Lutoslawski
22-36
(3) Space, Time, Flow and Memory
Music listening evokes a virtual space
40-47
(4) Time, Space and the Environment
Music creates time - Ives, Schoenberg
The concept of timespace
48-58
66-67
(5) Microtemporal listening dimensions: Timbre, Harmony and Pitch height
A flow of pulsating harmonic color – Reich
Fusion of complex timbral-harmonic colors
Radiant luminosity - Ligeti
Graphs: Vol. II pp. 24-27
68-77
77-78
79-81
84-86
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(6) Macrotemporal listening dimensions: Movement, Pulse, Rhythm and Melody
Rhythm is the temporal shape of movement
91-92
Temporal patterns of regularity and irregularity - Ligeti
96-97
Melody is the spatial shape of movement
98-99
A swinging soundspace - Coleman Hawkins
103-108
Graphs: Vol. II pp. 36-39
A symphonic fairy tale - Beethoven
110-115
Graphs: Vol. II pp. 40-45
Change and Regularity
115-117
(7) Density, Extension and Color of the Soundspace
The color of silent darkness - Ives
Graphs: Vol. II pp. 48-49
Dominance and disappearance of pulse - Pink Floyd
The Density of Distortion - Sepultura
Flow, expansion and emotion - Ligeti
Graphs: Vol. II pp. 50-53
124-125
125-127
127-129
130-133
(8) Micromodulation is the ninth listening dimension
Xenakis, Sepultura, Coleman Hawkins, Ligeti
Graphs: Vol. II pp. 36-38 and 24-27
144-151
(9) A Model of the Musical Timespace
152-153
’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’’
It is the basic assumption underlying the timespace theory that human hearing is not
designed for music listening, but for orientation and survival in the surrounding world.
Consequently, the theory is established on the basis of investigations of music which
displays similarities to sound in the natural environment. Prominent examples are the
continuum of pitch in Xenakis’ Metastasis and Ligeti’s Atmospheres, the timbral
qualities in Ives’ Central Park in the Dark, and the transformations from regularity to
irregularity in Ligeti’s Second String Quartet.
This implies that The Musical Timespace is primarily founded on studies of art music
of the 20th Century, but examples of jazz, rock and classical music are included in
order to demonstrate that the theory is applicable to these genres as well. To
substantiate this assumption, it is my intention to describe selected examples of
classical music from the BMGIM repertoire according to the guidelines of the
timespace theory and intensive listening.
In continuation, I will discuss the image potentials of BMGIM examples in relation to
Ernst Kurth’s reflections on dynamic form (1931) as suggested by Bonde (1997).
Additional discussions will include Susanne K. Langer’s theories of art (1942, 1953),
Albert Bregman’s Auditory Scene Analysis (1990), Daniel Stern’s theory of vitality
dynamics (2000, 2004), and the relationships between Stern’s theory and
phenomenology (Holgersen 2007)
If feasible, an exploration of the image potentials of non-classical music (e.g. Ligeti,
Pink Floyd, Steve Reich) will be implemented in experimental GIM-sessions in
collaboration with a GIM fellow and an advanced GIM student.
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Considerations of strengths and weaknesses of the timespace theory.
I consider it a strength that the timespace theory takes the experience of sounds in
the surrounding world as its point of departure. This perspective permits that music
may include all kinds of natural, artificial and instrumental sounds, order and chaos,
clarity and interference, and a multi-faceted spectrum of sound qualities from
euphonious tones and timbres to harsh percussion and disturbing noise. It is the
basic idea of the theory that music can unfold in the complete continuum of audible
sound, contrary to theories of tonal, dodecaphonic or serial music, which are based
on subdivisions of the sound continuum in discrete units and scales.
It is a weakness of the theory that it is not thoroughly underpinned by
phenomenological theory and neuroscientific evidence. It is one of the aims of my
investigations to procure a more substantial basis for the theory.
The Musical Timespace does not provide a clear explanation of the relationship
between timbre and pitch. I will strive towards a more satisfactory explanation in
order to support the model of the listening dimensions in music.
The assumption that pitch height adopts the role of a “vertical spatial dimension”
remains speculative. The idea of a vertical dimension is derived from the notions in
European languages that melodies can go “up and down”, and tones can be “high or
deep.” This assumption may rely on a cultural bias. An inconsistency between the
concepts of “space” and “pitch height space” remains an unsolved problem as yet.
On the whole, the attempt to embrace the multi-variable phenomenon of music within
the limitations of a model may be debatable. Nevertheless, I adhere to the conviction
that the model of nine listening dimensions can contribute to raising essential
questions concerning the nature of music and musical experience.
2. Music phenomenology
a) Theory
For music therapists, music phenomenology is a necessary practical tool for
describing and analyzing music therapy improvisations and music applied in
receptive methods in music therapy. A theoretical basis for this work has been
provided (Bonde 2005). I wish to contribute to this theoretical basis by studies of the
roots and philosophical background of music phenomenology, critical comparison of
the theories of prominent music phenomenologists, and discussion of the practical
application of these theories.
This part of the project will include investigation and discussion of contemporary
contributions to music phenomenology: Thomas Clifton: Music as Heard (1983),
Ferrara: ”Phenomenology as a tool for musical analysis” (1984) and Philosophy and
the Analysis of Music (1991), Don Ihde: Listening and Voice. A Phenomenology of
Sound. (1976), James Tenney: Meta + Hodos: A Phenomenology of 20th Century
Musical Materials (1992), and studies of the roots of music phenomenology in the
philosophy of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
Phenomenological descriptions selected from The Musical Timespace will be
included in the discussion..
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Research Questions: What are the common denominators and the discrepancies in
music phenomenology as conceived by different authors? Are there essential
differences between a ”husserlian” and a ”heideggerian” approach to music
phenomenology? To what extent is Merleau-Ponty’s body-oriented phenomenology
relevant for music phenomenology?
b) Application
I will conduct microanalyses of selected music therapy improvisations, in order to
compare and discuss different methods of phenomenological and hermeneutic
inquiry, such as Clifton, Ferrara, Grocke’s Structural Model of Music Analysis (1999,
2007), Sutton’s Conversation analysis (2001, 2007), Trondalen’s
Phenomenologically Inspired Approach (2004, 2007), Christensen’s Timespace
theory (1996) and Intensive listening (2007).
Research question: What are the progressions of different listening strategies, what
concepts and musical parameters are taken into consideration, and how do these
factors influence the outcome of the descriptions? Research material: Forthcoming
publication of a DVD presenting a variety of music therapy improvisations.
3. Music and the neurosciences
This part of the project comprises selection and discussion of research in the
neurosciences and music which can be considered relevant for the theoretical
background of music therapy. My investigations will proceed in four steps:
Step 1: A pilot study comprising three collections of papers on the neurosciences and
music: The Biological Fundations of Music (Zatorre and Peretz, eds. 2001), The
Neurosciences and Music (Avanzini et al, eds. 2003), and The Neurosciences and
Music II (Avanzini et al, eds. 2005). The objective of the pilot study will be to establish
an overview of topics and types of music taken into consideration by neuroscientific
research, in order to trace out guidelines for further steps.
Step 2: Compilation of a comprehensive survey of literature, applying methods
indicated by Dileo (2005) and Bonde (2006). It is my intention to retrieve literature
from the 20-year period 1989-2009, which includes early studies employing Positron
Emission Tomography (PET) and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
alongside with Electroencephalography (EEG) and Magnetoencelography (MEG).
The search of literature will include four fields of neuroscientific research:
- Music, mood, emotion and feeling
- Music and imagery
- Music and movement
- Auditory pathways in the brain.
Step 3: Discussion of the retrieved literature with other music therapy researchers in
seminars and personal communication, in order to assess the possible relevance of
the publications for music therapy.
Step 4: Final selection and discussion of research in music and the neurosciences
which proves to be particularly relevant for music therapy.
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Robert Zatorre (2003) has provided an introduction to research in musical imagery
and music and emotion, including his own ground-breaking studies (Blood and
Zatorre 1999, 2001). Juslin and Västfjäll (2008) provide an extensive discussion of
the brain mechanisms underlying emotional responses to music, followed by
commentaries by numerous scholars. Spreckelmeyer (2006) has conducted a
convincing EEG study of the emotional impact of a single tone. Further research is
forthcoming in Handbook of Music and Emotion (Juslin and Sloboda, in press). Alain
Berthoz presents exhaustive research on movement and sensory processing in The
Brain’s Sense of Movement (1997/2000), Altenmüller et al. (2006) provide updated
research on sensorimotor control and music, and Bharucha et al. (2006) present an
insightful overview of the varieties of musical experience, including emotion and
movement.
Research on the processing of emotion in the brain by Damasio (1994, 2003),
LeDoux (1996, 2002) and Panksepp (1998, 2002) implies detailed descriptions of
the processes in the auditory pathways of the brain, not in the least in the subcortical
regions: the brainstem and the limbic system. I wish to include this field of research in
the present project, as I am convinced that this kind of evidence, which encompasses
pre-conscious bodily response, is essential for the understanding of musical
experience and communication.
As a side benefit of these investigations, I wish to ascertain whether empirical
neuroscience can contribute evidence for, or refutation of aspects of the timespace
theory of listening dimensions. One example: There seems to be evidence for the
existence of separate ”what” and ”where” streams in the auditory pathways
(Romanski et al. 1999, Kraus and Nicol 2005), corresponding to the microtemporal
listening dimensions Timbre and Space in the timespace theory.
4. Selection of music in neuroscientific research and music therapy research
The objective of this part of the project is to assess what types of music are taken
into consideration by research in music and the neurosciences on one hand and
research in music therapy on the other hand. The pilot study mentioned above traces
out guidelines for this investigation.
In order to compare and characterize the musical perspectives in the two fields of
research, I will establish a survey of publications – as complete as possible - in the
two fields of research within a delimited period. My preliminary proposal is to include
books and articles published during the three-year period 2007 - 2009.
It is my hypothesis that the selection of music taken into consideration in
neuroscientific research is restricted in favour of certain types of music, while music
therapy research includes a wider range of different types of music. This may raise
questions of validity in research.
5. Reconciliation between phenomenology and neuroscience
A number of authors advocate a rapprochement between the first-person point of
view of phenomenology and the striving for control and objectivity in neuroscience.
Varela and Shear (1999, p. 2) underline the necessity of harmonizing and
constraining first-person descriptions with third-person studies. Frede V. Nielsen
(2007) discusses the dualism between consciousness and neurology. Susan Hart
(2006 p. 286) believes that the neuroaffective point of view will imply a
reconsideration of psychological concepts in psychodynamic thinking.
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The volume Naturalizing Phenomenology (Petitot et al, eds. 1999) including the
concept of Neurophenomenology presented by Francisco Varela, and the research in
human knowledge and brain science by Gerald Edelman (2000, 2006) represent
substantial endeavours to reconcile phenomenology and neuroscience. Based on
studies of these investigations, I will pursue further evidence for this objective.
Concise Bibliography
Aksnes, H. and Ruud, E. (2008) ”Body-based schemata in receptive music therapy”.
Musicae Scientiae 12 (1), 49-74.
Altenmuller, E. et al. (eds.) (2006) Music, Motor Control and the Brain. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Avanzini, G. et al. (eds.) (2003) The Neurosciences of Music. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci.
999.
Avanzini, G. et al. (eds.) (2005) The Neurosciences of Music II: From Perception to
Performance. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1060.
Berthoz, A. (1997/2000) The Brain’s Sense of Movement. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press. First published in France as Le Sens du Mouvement (1997).
Bharucha et al. (2006) ”Varieties of musical experience”. Cognition 100, 131-172.
Blood, A.J. and Zatorre, R.J (2001) ”Intensely pleasurable responses to music
correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion”. Proc. Natl.
Acad. Sci. USA 98, 11818-11823.
Blood, A.J., Zatorre R.J., and Bermudez, P. (1999) ”Emotional responses to pleasant
and unpleasant music correlate with activity in paralimbic brain regions”. Nature
Neuroscience, 2, 382-387.
Bonde, L.O. (1996/97) “På opdagelsesrejse i det musikalske tidsrum. En samtale
med Erik Christensen og Inge Nygaard Pedersen. Del I og II”. Nordic Journal of
Music Therapy, 6(2), 139-146 and 7(1), 76-83.
Bonde, L.O. (1997) ”Music Analysis and Image Potentials in Classical Music”. Nordic
Journal of Music Therapy, 7 (2), 121-128.
Bonde, L.O. (2005) ”Approaches to Researching Music”. In Wheeler (2005), 489-525.
Bonde, L.O. (ed.) (2007) Psyke og Logos 28(1). Tema: Musik og Psykologi.
Bonde. L.O. (2006) ”Searching the Literature – Using Databases and Websites”.
Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, Online Papers, http://www.njmt.no retrieved 9th
Feb 2009.
Bregman, A.S. (1990) Auditory Scene Analysis. The Perceptual Organization of
Sound. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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Bruscia, K.E. and Grocke, D.E. (eds.) (2002) Guided Imagery and Music. The Bonny
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Christensen, E. (1996) The Musical Timespace. A Theory of Music Listening.
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Christensen, E. (1999) “Interruption, Surprise, Disturbance, Interference – A
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Christensen, E. (2000) ”Music precedes language. Comment on Bjørn Grinde’s
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Christensen, E. (2007) An Introduction to Intensive Listening. Working papers, The
University of Sheffield. Unpublished.
Clifton, T. (1983) Music as Heard. A Study in Applied Phenomenology. New Haven:
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Damasio, A.R. (1994) Descartes’ Error. Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. New
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Dileo, C. (2005) ”Reviewing the Literature”. In Wheeler (2005), 105-11.
Dissanayake, E. (2001) ”An Ethological View of Music and its Relevance to Music
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Edelman, G.M. and Tononi, G. (2000) A Universe of Consciousness. How matter
becomes imagination. New York: Basic Books.
Edelmann, G.M. (2006) Second Nature. Brain Science and Human Knowledge. New
Haven: Yale University Press
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Godøy, R.I. and Jørgensen, H. (eds.) (2001) Musical Imagery. Lisse, The
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Grewe, O. et al. (2007) ”Emotions over time: synchronicity and development of
subjective, physiological, and facial affective reactions to music”. Emotion 7(4), 774788.
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Grocke, D.E. & Wigram, T. (2007). Receptive Methods in Music Therapy. London:
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Grocke, D.E. (2007) ”A Structural Model of Music Analysis”. In Wosch and Wigram
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Haas, R. and Brandes, V. (eds.) (2008) Music that works. Contributions of biology,
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fænomenologisk orienteret musikpsykologi?” In Bonde (2007), 86-102.
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Juslin, P.N. and Sloboda, J.A. (in press) Handbook of Music and Emotion. Theory,
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Foundations in social neuroscience, 389 – 410. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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CV and publications (selection)
Erik Christensen – CV
Erik Christensen is a Danish musicologist, born 1945, educated at the University of
Copenhagen. M.A. in Musicology, Language and Literature 1978. He has been active
as a trombone player and as a member of an experimental music drama group.
1978-2007, he worked for the Danish Broadcasting Corporation as a producer of
contemporary music programs and music history programs, responsible for selecting
new works from international music festivals for broadcast, and for producing the
weekly program ”Listen to Something New”, reflecting current events and trends in
new music. He has been a member of the Nordic Council Music Prize committee and
a delegate to the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris, which selects and
recommends contemporary music works for international broadcast. External
examiner in Music Therapy since 1998. Lectures and workshops on Intensive
listening since 2001. 2007-08, Erik Christensen worked as a lecturer of contemporary
music at the University of Copenhagen. From 2009, he is a participant in the Danish
research network “Sound in Art, History, Culture, and Theory”.
He has published articles on music listening, music theory, music analysis, interviews
with contemporary composers, a book on Olivier Messiaen (1977), and ”The Musical
Timespace. A Theory of Music Listening” (1996). He is active as a musicologist,
guest teacher and lecturer in universities, music academies and conferences in
Europe, North and South America, and as a member of the Danish Network for
Interdisciplinary Studies of Music and Meaning (NTSMB). Erik Christensen was a
visiting scholar at The University of Sheffield, U.K. in 2007 and at the Hochschule für
Musik und Theater in Hannover, Germany in 2008.
Among his lectures, courses and conference papers can be mentioned:
The Musical Timespace. A Theory of Music Listening. 4th Int. Conference on
Music Perception and Cognition, Montreal, Canada 1996. Aarhus University 1997.
Copenhagen University 1997. Aalborg University 1998.
Interruption, Surprise, Disturbance, Interference - A Pluralistic Track in Musical
Modernism. International Symposium of Musicology, Ljubljana, Slovenia 1998.
”The Musical Timespace” and ”Contemporary Music in Denmark 1960-1999” .
Lecture series at UNAM, The National University of Mexico 1999.
Music Creates Time. Music and Media seminar, Aalborg University, April 2001.
Music Listening and Music Perception. University of Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.,
Aug-Oct. 2001.
Sound and Time. Centre de Création Musicale Iannis Xenakis, Paris, April 2002 and
May 2003.
Musical Processes. Interdisciplinary Workshop on Theories of Process, Aarhus
University, Denmark, June 2002.
El Tiempo-Espacio de la Música. Universidad de Morón, Argentina and Escuela de
Música de la SCD, Santiago de Chile, April 2004.
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Intensive Listening. A Method for Description, Analysis and Interpretation of
Music. Symposium, Danish Society for Musicology. Aarhus University, April 2005.
Intensive Listening, Innovations in 20th Century Music, Danish Music in the
21st Century. Workshops and lectures at UNAM, The National University of Mexico,
March 2006.
Intensive Listening and its Relationships with Ecological Psychology. The
University of Sheffield, February 2007.
Music of the 20th and 21st Centuries. Copenhagen University, Autumn 2007.
Contemporary Music Theatre. Copenhagen University, Spring 2008.
Theories of Music Listening. Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero, Buenos
Aires, May 2008.
Erik Christensen: Selected publications
(English translations are added to the titles of articles in Danish and German)
Miles Davis: Bags' Groove take 1. En analyse. (med Birte Mynborg)
Miles Davis: Bags’ Groove Take 1. An Analysis. In Musik og forskning 3.
Akademisk Forlag 1977, pp. 141-77.
Om Dansktopmusikken. On Danish Pop Music. In Musik og samfund, ed. Finn
Gravesen. Gyldendal 1977, pp. 333-353.
Messiaen - en håndbog (med Poul Borum). Messiaen – A Handbook. Edition
Egtved 1977.
Musikperception er ikke hvad det har været. Music Perception is not what it used
to be. In Dansk Musik Tidsskrift 1988/89, pp. 69-70.
Fire spor i den musikalske modernisme. Four Tracks in Musical Modernism. In
Dansk Musik Tidsskrift 1990/91, pp. 237-239.
Ny musik er sanselig energi og omverdensbevidsthed (med Mette Stig Nielsen). New
Music is Sensuous Energy and Environmental Consciousness. In Toner med
variationer, eds. Else Bjørnager & Ingrid Oberborbeck. Aarhus Folkemusikskole
1992, pp. 29-38.
Ni kritisk-analytiske perspektiveringer. Nine Critical Comments to Musical
Analyses. In Orla Vinther: Musikalsk analyse. Edition Egtved 1992.
Zwischen Chaos und Ordnung. Per Nørgård im Gespräch. Between Chaos and
Order. Interview with the Danish Composer Per Nørgård. In MusikTexte Vol. 50.,
Köln 1993, pp. 31-36.
The Musical Timespace. A Theory of Music Listening, Vol. I-II. Aalborg University
Press 1996.
17
Musikkens rum og tid. The Space and Time of Music. In Dansk Musik Tidsskrift
1995/96, pp. 227-229.
Musik skaber rum af klingende tid i det lyttende sind. Music Creates Spaces of
Time in the Listening Mind. In Humaniora nr. 3, 1996, pp. 26-30.
Musikalischer Raum und musikalische Zeit in Werken von Ligeti, Lutoslawski,
Xenakis und Ives. Musical Space and Musical Time in Works of Ligeti,
Lutoslawski, Xenakis and Ives. In Zeitgenössische Musik zwischen Ost und West.
Bericht über das internationale Symposium 1997. Orman Verlag, Bratislava 1998, pp.
98-105.
Interruption, Surprise, Disturbance, Interference – A Pluralistic Track in
Musical Modernism. In Music and Society in the 20th Century. International
Symposium 12.-15. V. 1998. Ljubljana 1999, pp. 42-50.
The Opera ”Nuit des hommes” (1996) by the Danish Composer Per Nørgård – a
Contemporary Total Work of Art. In The Idea of a Total Work of Art at the End of
the Millennium. International Symposium 13.-16. IV. 1999. Ljubljana 2000, pp. 69-74.
Danish Music: The Transition from Tradition to Modernism. In Studies in
Penderecki Vol. II, ed. Ray Robinson. Prestige Publications, New Jersey 2003, pp.
89-94.
Overt and Hidden Processes in 20th Century Music. In Process Theories.
Crossdisciplinary Studies in Dynamic Categories, ed. Johanna Seibt. Kluwer
Academic Publishers, Dordrecht 2003, pp.111-131.
Another Look at Perception. Innovations in Danish Music in the 1960’s related
to ”Minimalism” In Von Perotin bis Steve Reich. Die Ideen des ”Minimalen” in der
Musikgeschichte und Gegenwart. Symposium 8-10. November 2005. AE Press,
Bratislava 2005, pp. 163-166
Home Address:
Erik Christensen , Mosekrogen 23, DK – 2860 Søborg, Denmark.
Tel. + 45 39564221. Mobile +45 27853155.
E-mail: erc@timespace.dk Website: www.timespace.dk
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Appendix:
Erik Christensen: An Introduction to Intensive Listening. Working papers, The
University of Sheffield, February 2007.
Intensive listening: A tool for opening, expanding and deepening
musical experience
1. Forget about your musical likes and dislikes (John Cage says). Don’t be scared or
annoyed by noisy or unfamiliar music. Accept extreme simplicity and high complexity,
chaos and order, coherence and incoherence. If you are bored by the music, listen a
few more times and see what happens.
2. Keep alternating between receptive (effortless, “passive”) listening and deliberate,
active observation and description. Always begin with receptive listening, and listen
twice before you begin to describe the music.
3. Listen many times (no less than seven, no upper limit). Always begin with the
whole and repeat it until you have kind of memorized the entire piece. Divide the
music into large chunks before you go down to details. In the end, you will be able to
“replay” the music from memory in your mind and to sing parts of it and mimic it with
physical gestures. But the process may take time (sometimes weeks, if the music is
really unfamiliar).
4. Use paper and pencil and the marked time of the CD as an aid for your memory.
Describe the music in words, drawings and diagrams. You may add transcription.
Change your deliberate focus of observation (see next page). Use the CD player’s
search function to go back and forth and re-listen to both large parts and details.
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Intensive listening: What to listen for in music (some suggestions).
Attention can be focused on:
states, events, movements, changes
attacks, gestures, figures, lines, shapes, contours
sheets, layers, surfaces, patterns, textures
dense / transparent
distinct/ diffuse
appearing / disappearing
growing /diminishing
rising / falling
approaching / receding
foreground / middleground / background; distance
fusion / segregation of sounds
goal-directed / undirected motion; turning, waving, rotating, undulating
sensuous qualities, differences
bright / dark
soft / sharp
high / low
near / distant
clear / distorted
rigid / flexible
intensity, timbre, space
pitch height registers; the entire pitch range from the highest to the lowest audible
pitches
melody, rhythm, harmony, micromodulation (vibrato, tremolo, flutter)
gliding or stepwise motion, modes, scales, tone bending; noise / sound / tone
real space / virtual space; resonance, room acoustics
tempo, tempo changes, time layers
time of being, time of movement, pulse time; relations, tension, balance, swing
synchronization /non-synchronization
space / pulse relation
noise, sound, tone
materials, sizes and forms of sound sources; wood, metal, skin, glass …
voice, words, instruments
mood, expression, emotions
continuity, evolution, process / interruptions, cuts, breaks, silence
expectation / surprise
simplicity / complexity
regularity / irregularity
order / chaos
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Intensive Listening – a practical guideline
Intensive listening is repeated listening deploying varied focusing.
The purpose of intensive listening is:
- To get the listeners to accept unknown and unfamiliar music as well as familiar
music.
- To sharpen and educate their attention, so that they will gradually hear more and
more in the music – layers, nuances, aspects, parts and unified wholes, foreground
and background…
- To make them describe the musical experience in their own words. All kinds of
words and descriptions are valid – not merely the musicological terminology.
Descriptions of moods, events, images, emotions, stories and dramatic actions are
also relevant.
For intensive listening in a group, it is preferable to select short musical quotations
(1-3 minutes) so that all the music can be retained in memory. Divide slightly longer
pieces (3-5 minutes) into sections to be listened and described separately. Dealing
with long pieces or movements, select a well-defined section for intensive listening.
This will facilitate subsequent listening of the whole piece.
It may be profitable to compare two pieces. Comparison encourages inventive
verbalization.
Ensure the best possible sound quality, so that the music stands forward in its full
richness. The sound of MP3-files and other reduction systems does not comprehend
the depth, details and nuances of the music.
As a tutor, prepare the listening session by listening many times yourself, if possible
with a colleague. And practise the handling of the amplifier and CD player in the
classroom, so that you can play precise quotations without errors. Fumbling with the
equipment will spoil the listeners’ concentration.
A basic model for the practical progression of intensive listening in a class
(to be modified as required)
1. Listen
2. Listen once more
Talk together in pairs, describe what you have heard.
3. Listen a third time, listening for something your dialogue partner has told you.
Talk together again.
Short general discussion: The tutor asks all groups, collecting their impressions and
descriptions on the whiteboard or a flip chart (it is a good idea to keep the results on
paper for later use)
4. The tutor asks one clear and simple question
Listen and talk together in pairs. Short general discussion.
21
5. The tutor asks another clear and simple question
Listen and talk together in pairs. Short general discussion.
6. The tutor asks a third question
Listen (dialogue may not be necessary at this stage). Short general discussion.
7. The listeners talk together in pairs and formulate questions for the next listening.
Collection of all questions.
8…
It is important to listen twice before you begin talking about the music. After the
second listening, the listeners are qualified, because they can remember the music,
and because personal preferences and prejudices are less dominant after a second
listening.
It is important to talk together in pairs about the music. In dialogue, everybody is able
to find words for his or her musical experience, and nobody needs to be afraid of
speaking up.
It is of great value to listen a third time, listening for something your dialogue partner
has heard. This enhances attention, stimulates curiosity and deepens the musical
experience.
After listening three times, everybody is able to contribute to the description of the
music. The tutor asks every single two-person group. A multiplicity of descriptions
may come out; expressions, emotions, moods, events, images, dramatic courses of
events, and many kinds of musicological description.
Now the path is clear for the enhancement of consciousness and the deepening and
refining of the descriptions. Here it is the tutor’s task to present a simple and clear
question to focus the next listening. And, when listening again in order to answer the
question, the listeners will often hear something else and more, which will be
profitable for further listening.
It is continually important that the listeners talk together in pairs before the collection
of descriptions and impressions. It is the dialogue that evokes the description.
Proceeding to another piece of music, it may be a good idea to change dialogue
partners. This creates variation of the descriptions and furthers mutual confidence in
the group.
Later in the progression, when everybody knows the music well, the tutor may skip
the dialogue and ask for response from the whole group. Comprehensive and
detailed descriptions may be assigned as homework.
Allow for ample time for listening and talking.