Music Analysis and Image Potentials in Classical Music

Journal/Book: Nordic Journal of Music Therapy. 1997; 6: 121-128.

Abstract: Methodological problems in the analysis of music and imagery and their interrelationship are investigated - with special focus on the music/imagery experience within The Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music (GIM). R. Vaughan Williams' "Rhosymedre" prelude is used as core example in the discussion of two quantitative methodologies (McKinney 1990/1995 and Jensen 1994) and one qualitative (Bruscia 1996). It is demonstrated that quantitative and qualitative methodologies address different questions within the field: Quantitative methodologies uncover general patterns within the experience of imagery and music, while qualitative methodology allows a grounding of the therapeutical potential of music and imagery in the music itself. From a theoretical point of view the author suggests that a re-evaluation of Ernst Kurth's "Psychology of Music" (1931) might contribute to a deeper and more dynamic understanding of the transformational potentials of imagery and music, based on the dynamic idea of 'music as form in continuous tranformation', developed especially by Kurth.

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