The engine hums… occasionally it even sings: A response to Sara MacKian’s keynote ‘The constant hum of the engine…’

Abstract

In this response to Sarah MacKian’s conference keynote I take a personal experience as point of departure: my almost lifelong engagement with Bach’s cantata Ich habe genug. This leads to a discussion of the relationship between music and spirit, and how we as researchers can approach experiences with this relationship. A theoretical model of four levels of meaning in music opens up a number of ways to understand the affordances and appropriations of ‘deep’, ‘strong’ or ‘spiritual’ music experiences to clinical and non-clinical listeners. Examples from theory and empirical research in the receptive music therapy model Guided Imagery and Music (GIM) are used to illustrate a development from a more static-content-oriented approach to a more dynamic-process and interpersonal understanding of spiritual/transpersonal experiences with music.