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Music in body and imagination

Evans, H.M.

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Authors

H.M. Evans



Contributors

Youn Kim
Editor

Sander Gilman
Editor

Abstract

Music is widely thought to have therapeutic possibilities. The predominant attempts to understand music-as-therapy focus on “how it works.”. This readily leads to reductionist accounts that appear to leave out an understanding of musical experience—and of the metaphysics of music—that takes seriously the imagination and the will as well as the body. One way to approach this is through considering another side of musical experience—its sometimes intrusive, disruptive appearances (including musical hallucinosis), and the connections that these reveal between imagined sound, the sensations of bodily movement, restlessness, and anxiety. This approach can lead to an alternative, more “existential,” view of music-as-therapy whereby musical experience, operating through the imagination, recalls the sense of “premorbid states”—offering both consolation and reassurance. The account may have relevance to a wider understanding of musical experience beyond the therapeutic context.

Citation

Evans, H. (2018). Music in body and imagination. In Y. Kim, & S. Gilman (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of music and the body. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190636234.013.12

Acceptance Date Feb 17, 2017
Online Publication Date Jul 10, 2018
Publication Date Jul 10, 2018
Deposit Date Feb 17, 2017
Publicly Available Date Feb 20, 2017
Publisher Oxford University Press
Series Title Oxford handbooks online
Book Title The Oxford handbook of music and the body.
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190636234.013.12

Files

Accepted Book Chapter (410 Kb)
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Copyright Statement
This is a draft of a chapter that was accepted for publication by Oxford University Press in the book 'The Oxford handbook of music and the body' edited by Kim, Y. & Gilman, S. and published in 2018.





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