| Contents |
Introduction : General background ; Strong experiences with music (SEM) ; Some previous studies ; Perception and reaction ; Structure of the book -- How the investigation was carried out : Tasks and participants ; Analysis of the accounts ; Questionnaire -- General points about the accounts -- Experiences during childhood : Security/safety and closeness ; Absorbed, moved, in wonderment, struck, overwhelmed ; Music for the first time ; Listening over and over again ; Strong experiences with music on special days ; Singing or playing music oneself ; Other special childhood experiences ; Commentary -- Experiences during one's teenage years ; Meeting one's idols ; Encountering new, unknown music ; Music as consolation, support, and therapy during one's teens ; Performing music during one's teens ; Commentary -- When music takes over : In everyday situations ; Certain music takes over -- Merging with the music : Special receptivity ; Being drawn into the music ; Alone with the music ; Identifying with the music ; Being led/governed by the music -- Feeling light, floating, leaving one's body : Feeling light, weightless, taking off, being lifted, floating ; Leaving one's body, out-of-body experiences ; Commentary -- Inner music : Music that just comes into one's head ; Composing music ; Inner music afterwards -- Inner images : Images with a background in earlier experiences ; Images in connection with programme music ; Images of a religious character ; Commentary -- Feelings/Emotion : Strong, intense feelings ; Positive feelings ; Negative feelings : Negative experiences due to other circumstances ; Negative experiences ascribed to the music itself -- Mixed, contradictory, changed feelings ; Using music to influence feelings -- Music and existence : The content and meaning of life ; Presence in life, ultimate moments ; Changed view of oneself and one's life -- Music and transcendence : Magical, supernatural, mysterious, spiritual experiences ; Ecstasy, trance ; Cosmic experiences, merging into something greater, dissolution of one's ego ; Experiences of other worlds, other realities -- Music and religious experiences : Visions of heaven, paradise, eternity ; Spiritual peace, holy atmosphere, Christian community ; Music conveys a religious message and contact with divinity ; Meeting the divine, God ; New insights, new possibilities : Making contact with one's innermost self: new perspectives ; Music opens up new possibilities in negative states -- Confirmation through music : Music reflects me, my feelings, and thoughts ; Feeling selected, personally addressed ; Self-confidence is strengthened -- Music as therapy ; Relief of physical pain ; Music in stress, uneasiness, anxiety, and depression ; Summarizing comments -- When performing music oneself : Feelings and thoughts while performing music ; Getting to play with advanced musicians ; Improvisation ; Nervousness or performance anxiety, and the feelings when it passes ; When feelings take over ; When everything fits and works: magical moments ; Commentary -- Singing in a choir : Choir singing during childhood and adolescence ; Singing in large choirs ; Choir singing in church/religious contexts ; Choir singing in other, unusual surroundings ; Commentary -- Music in love: happy and unhappy -- Music in connection with illness and death -- Music at funerals -- Music in nature -- Music from and in other cultures -- Music at concerts: classical music : Experiences of the compositions ; Experiences of particular artistes -- Music at concerts: jazz -- Music at concerts: pop and rock -- Metaphors and similes : Descriptions of the music or the performance ; Descriptions of both the music and the experience ; Listeners' descriptions of the experience ; Performers' and composers' descriptions of the experience ; Summary : The music ; The experience -- Survey of all reactions ; General characteristics ; Physical reactions and behaviours : Physiological reactions ; Behaviours, actions, activity ; Quasi-physical reactions ; Perception : Auditory perception ; Tactile perception ; Visual perception ; Multimodal perception ; Other senses ; Synaesthetic perception ; Intensified perception ; Musical perception-cognition ; Cognition : Expectations, receptivity, absorption ; Altered experience of situation, body-mind, time-space, parts-wholeness ; Lose control, be surprised, moved, struck, overwhelmed ; Special relation to the music ; Associations, memories, thoughts ; Inner images, inner music ; Musical cognition-emotion -- Feelings, emotion : Strong, intense feelings ; Positive feelings ; Negative feelings ; Mixed, contradictory, changed feelings -- Existential and transcendental aspects : Existential aspects ; Transcendental aspects ; Religious experiences -- Personal and social aspects : New insights, new possibilities ; New insights, new possibilities, and new needs concerning music ; Confirmation, self-actualization ; Community -- Answers to other questions : Gender and age ; Listeners and performers -- Where, when, and in what social situation did SEM occur? Live or reproduced music? The first time? The same strong experience next time? ; How often does SEM occur? ; Results of the questionnaire -- Music in SEM : Division into categories ; Distribution across different categories ; Examples of music in SEM : Art music, classical music ; Artistes and ensembles within art music ; Religious music ; Folk music ; Jazz ; Rock, pop, other popular music ; Songs, tunes ; Entertainment music, dance music ; Instruments, voices -- Connection between categories and reactions? -- What in the music elicited the reactions? : Emotional expression ; Special elements in the music ; Certain parts or portions of the music ; The importance of text (lyrics, libretto) ; Commentary -- Causes, consequences, and importance : Causes : Music ; Person ; Situation ; Interplay: music-person-situation -- Consequences : Directly afterwards ; Long-term perspective -- What music can mean: quotations -- Overview, comparisons, questions, outlooks : Brief overview/summary ; Comparisons with earlier studies ; Similarities with other strong experiences ; Can one trust memory and language? ; Some outlooks and relations to other topics ; Personal final comments. |
| Abstract |
Just like music is varied and endless, so are our reactions to music. The very same piece of music can generate totally different reactions in different people, and a person can react quite differently to the same piece of music on different occasions. Individual factors such as how you are feeling, how accustomed are you to listening to music, what your tastes are in music, what type of personality you are, and lots more, can play a major, sometimes completely decisive, role for how the reaction turns out. Similarly, the experience can be affected by the specific situation, for example where and when you hear the music (at home, in your car, at a concert, in the daytime, at night etc.), whether or not the acoustics are good, and if you are on your own or together with others. The experience is thus determined by an interplay of factors in the music, in the individual, and in the situation. Developments in the brain sciences have been invaluable in helping researchers to understand just how the human brain deals with music. However, there is a major gap between what we can uncover using state of the art technology, and understanding just what music really means to us personally. While measuring brain or heart activity can reveal much about our physiological reactions, there is of course much more to music than this. This book was developed from a long-running study into the effects of music. It draws on more than 20 years of research, and almost 1000 participants, who describe, in their own words, their own unique, powerful, and personal experiences of music. |
