Responsiveness in Music Therapy Improvisation: A Perspective Inspired by Mikhail Bakhtin

  • Responsiveness in Music Therapy Improvisation: A Perspective Inspired by Mikhail Bakhtin
  • Author: Stensaeth, Karette
  • ISBN: 9781945411236
  • E-ISBN: 9781945411243


Through the adoption of Mikhail Bakhtin's terms, this book presents a new creative theory called Musical Responsiveness. The theory proposes that responsiveness in improvisation is an open-ended, continual process, and that it involves not just creating meaningfulness and harmony, but also engaging laughter, struggle, dispute, and misunderstanding. To become musically responsive is a process of becoming answerable to the client; and in doing so, the therapist undertakes ethical challenges and tensions. Although without immediate implications for what to do, this book offers new insights and fresh perspectives on the use of improvisation in the practice of music therapy. 


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments          

Table of Contents           

List of Figures  

Prelude

INTRODUCTION            

The Book’s Scope          

Personal and Professional Context       

CHAPTER 1: (RE) DEFINING CORE CONCEPTS

Responsiveness             

Music Therapy

Health 

Music Therapy Improvisation  

Music Therapist             

Client   

Meaning            

Time    

Aesthetics         

Ethics in Donald Schön’s Perspective   

Theory

CHAPTER 2: ACTION   

Action and Socialization            

 “To Increase Possibilities for Action”  

Dag Østerberg on the Phenomenon of Action  

The Relationship between Action and Intention in Music Therapy Improvisation   

Playful Action  

A Short Summing up on Action

CHAPTER 3: INTRODUCING THE MUSIC THERAPY NARRATIVE           

The Observations          

CHAPTER 4: THE NARRATIVE OF JAKOB AND KARLA

The Guitar Excerpt        

The Djembe Excerpt     

Both Excerpts  

CHAPTER 5: SUMMING UP THE NARRATIVE   

CHAPTER 6: INTRODUCING MIKHAIL BAKHTIN AND HIS CONTEXT   

About Bakhtin 

CHAPTER 7: CONCERNING MY TRANSPOSING OF INSIGHTS OF BAKHTIN’S IDEAS     

My Perspective

CHAPTER 8: MIKHAIL BAKHTIN’S TERMINOLOGY       

Answerability  

Dialogue            

Other Related Concepts             

Carnival             

A Short Summing Up of Bakhtin’s Ideas             

CHAPTER 9: BAKHTIN’S IDEAS ON DIALOGUE, TRANSPOSED TO RESPONSIVENESS IN MUSIC THERAPY IMPROVISATION       

Responsiveness in Music Therapy Improvisation          

CHAPTER 10: BAKHTIN’S IDEAS ON ANSWERABILITY, TRANSPOSED TO RESPONSIVENESS IN MUSIC THERAPY IMPROVISATION         

Responsiveness and Answerability       

The Music Therapist’s Responsibility  

CHAPTER 11: “WE:” A COMMUNITY OF MUSIC THERAPY IMPROVISATION    

A Community of Music Therapy Improvisation              

Chapter 12: BAKHTIN’S IDEAS ON CARNIVAL, TRANSPOSED TO RESPONSIVENESS IN MUSIC THERAPY IMPROVISATION       

Carnival and Improvisation      

Kjetil Steinsholt’s Carnival: Carnival as Play     

Summarizing the Main Aspects of “My” Carnival            

Is the Music Therapist a Jester?             

CHAPTER 13: MERGING PERSPECTIVES ON CARNIVAL, PLAYFULNESS, AND ACTION              

Conditions for Responsiveness              

Materializing Time Aspects in the Improvisation Between Jakob and Karla      

Action Versus Interaction          

Maintaining a Dialogical Mind-set in the Carnival          

Summing Up    

CHAPTER 14: “MUSICAL ANSWERABILITY:” A THEORY ON RESPONSIVENESS

IN MUSIC THERAPY IMPROVISATION INSPIRED BY BAKHTIN              

Introducing My Theory              

Placing Musical Answerability within Three Perspectives         

Summarizing the Main Characteristics of the Theory

CHAPTER 15: DISCUSSING THEORY ASPECTS

               Musical Answerability as an Interlevel Theory

               Is the Theory Music-Centered?

               Returning to the Question of Authorship

CHAPTER 16: A RETURN TO THE QUESTION, WHAT IS MUSIC THERAPY?

               Framing the Question

               Responsiveness and Musically Answerable Acts

 

Postlude

No Last Words

References

Attachments

Endnotes

Index