With listeners in mind: creating meaning in music therapy dialogues

WITH LISTENERS IN MIND: CREATING MEANING IN MUSIC

THERAPY DIALOGUES

MERCEDES PAVLICEVIC, RMTh, PhD*

There appears to be an uncomfortable tension be-tween the way that, as music therapists, we talk aboutthe work amongst ourselves, and the way that we talkabout it to “others.” Penny Rogers (1996) has drawnour attention to the duality that exists in music therapy“talk.” Generally, when talking amongst ourselves,we tolerate theoretical, philosophical and clinical un-certainty and diversity, and draw support from suchtherapeutic concepts as Patrick Casement’s “notknowing” (Casement, 1985). While this convergenceof thinking—and talking—may be somewhat illusory,it seems that when we talk with those who havedifferent world views from our own, and who wantdifferent kinds of “information” about music therapy,we tend to present certainty, cohesion and “hardfacts” as a sign of professional competence. Here,concepts such as “not knowing,” clinical “uncertain-ty” and professional “diversity” may be seen as pro-fessional disarray and clinical weakness. In order toavoid being misconstrued, it would seem that we cre-ate different dialogues with different audiences.

For all persons, the act of talking is a complexevent, and before pursuing “music therapy” grouptalk, I want to focus on the personal phenomenon oftalking, and especially the distinction between “inner”and “outer” talk.

As individual music therapists, our private, inner“talk” consists of a pool of personal/clinical/musicalfeelings, thoughts, experiences, that we assemblethrough being part of the community of music thera-pists. We can consider this “inner” talk to resemble

elemental forms: a vital pool that is (hopefully) con-tinuously created and renewed as we “take part in”music therapy practice, talk and research. In the act oftalking with someone, we exteriorize, assemble,thread and crystallize aspects from this inner reser-voir. It is this use of words that has listeners: anaudience. What audiences hear about music therapy isbased on our observable, hearable talk.

The process of “inner” talk becoming expressed in“outer” talk is a complex synthesis of neurological,conceptual, linguistic and speech–motor functioning.Although this might appear to be an effortless pouringof thoughts into words, it seems that words are notsimply passive receptacles, or barren forms, boundonly by “surface” rules and meaning that wait forthoughts to “pick them up” and give them life. Vy-gostzky (1962) has alerted us to the highly dynamicand reciprocal relationship between words andthought: to simply see “talking” as finding the rightwords to fit our thoughts is limiting. The interplaybetween words and thoughts means that not only dothoughts influence how we use words, but wordsthemselves impact our thinking. Language, with itssyntactic structures and culturally bound meanings,has a significant impact on how we think. How closeis the link between “inner” and “outer” talk? Can ananalogy be made, here, with “inner” music therapygroup talk, which can be somewhat abstract thanks tobasic meanings being shared, and “outer” talk withnon music therapists, which needs to be more con-

*Mercedes Pavlicevic is a Research Fellow, Department of Music, University of Pretoria, Lynwood, Pretoria, South Africa.The author wishes to thank Dayn Peters for his critical comments on this paper.

The Arts in Psychotherapy, Vol. 26, No. 2, pp. 85–94, 1999Copyright © 1999 Elsevier Science LtdPrinted in the USA. All rights reserved

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crete, and stay close to the basic “norms” of musictherapy?

In exploring music therapy dialogues, this paperfocuses on (1) the interplay between our inner, ele-mental reservoir of “inner talk” (abstract and un-formed), and “exterior” words, with all their syntacticand semantic rigour, (2) the complex and dynamicevent, between the speaker and listener, in otherwords, the dialogue, and (3) the meaning that can begenerated in dialogues—meaning that enriches, andhelps to renew “inner” talk, both individual and com-munal.

In thinking about the concept of dialogues, weremind ourselves of the work of Social Constructiontheorists (McNamee & Gergen, 1992; Shotter, 1993),who suggest that it is within the act of talking withanother, that meaning—inner and outer—is gener-ated, in constant negotiation and collaboration withthe other. In other words, dialogues with others con-tinuously enrich our individual inner pool of personal/clinical/musical music therapy meaning. This, in turn,enriches public/group discourses.

In keeping with this concept of interactive word-finding, the idea of dialogues is presented throughoutthis paper as integral to talking about music therapy.In other words, we talk about music therapywith an“other”—rather than only talkingabout music ther-apy. Talking happens with listeners in mind.

Finding Discourses

We have seen so far that our use of words isreciprocal with thinking, and that it is dynamic: theway we use words impacts the way that we think, andvice versa. Moreover, the act of “talking with” an-other shapes the way we think, and enables us toconstantly create and recreate, shape and define ourworld. Dialogues help to create our realities.

But how do dialogues happen? From where do wefind the concepts, the verbal material in order to enterinto a dialogue with another person, music therapistor not?

It would seem that as well as our inner, privateelemental pool of thoughts, feelings and experiencesdescribed earlier, there is a public, common reservoirof language, a discourse, to which members of a com-munity have access (see Figure 1). All music thera-pists share an understanding of music therapy dis-course: we can assume a common meaning to wordsand concepts like “clinical improvisation,” “GuidedImagery in Music,” “musical-therapeutic relation-ship,” “transference,” and so on. Up to a point. Toomuch assumption is problematic, generating a com-fortable illusion, alluded to earlier. On the other hand,however, thereis a basis for common understand-ing—a pool of meaning which, in dialogues with nonmusic therapists, would need checking and explain-ing. This “music therapy discourse” is used, and con-

Figure 1. The discourses we use and recreate in our various dialogues.

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stantly recreated, in dialogues—both between our-selves and with non music therapists. In fact, I wouldsuggest that weneeddialogues with non music ther-apists in order to challenge—and enrich—meaning inmusic therapy discourse. Music therapy discourseneeds our dialoguing minds, needs our inner reservoirof ideas and needs different kinds of listeners anddialoguing partners in order to renew itself.

The process of dialoguing, then, can be seen as oneof finding a “fit” between our personal inner/outertalk, an existing external, public discourse, and theminds of our listeners/dialoguing partners.

Music Therapy Discourse

There appears to be two fundamental kinds of mu-sic therapy discourses, whether professional, theoret-ical or clinical. We can trace these discourses to thetwo prevailing world views (which we have talkedourselves into) at the end of the 20th Century. Simplyput, these are the discourses of Art and Science, ofHolism and Reductionism, of Naturalism and Deter-minism and of Dionysus and Apollo (Aigen, 1991;Aldridge, 1996; Bunt, 1994; Pavlicevic, 1997). Thesetwo world views are generally regarded as dualitiesrather than a dialectic, and they present us with dis-tinctive models of illness and health. Each of thesemodels impacts concepts of “treatment,” which inturn determine the kind of music therapy practiced,which in turn impact the discourse we choose, howwe research music therapy and what kinds of dia-logues we have.

Since research is one of the more “public” dis-courses, often crossing over from music therapy tonon music therapy, I want to briefly explore howresearch discourse portrays the distinction betweenthese two world views, without unnecessarily carica-turing their polarities or aggravating their separate-ness.

Music Therapy Research

With few exceptions, music therapy research(Wheeler, 1995) either places itself in the experimen-tal quantitative discourse, or else “talks about” qual-itative research. The two positions represent distinc-tive worldviews, discourses and practices.“Scientific” models of music therapy practice (behav-iourally and medically based) need—and create—dis-tinctive discourses and research paradigms from thosethat are more “arts” based (e.g., improvisational mu-

sic therapy, analytical music therapy, music psycho-therapy and Guided Imagery in Music).

In other words, the discourse of qualitative re-search appears to be closer to the way that “arts-based” music therapists practice music therapy andtalk about the work amongst themselves, toleratinguncertainty not only in the therapeutic relationship,but in a research process that might unfold towardsany direction (Aigen, 1993). However, its reticence atbeing published provides few role models and under-mines its theorizing. This reticence may also reflect adiscomfort with the (perceived?) dominance of “sci-entific” and deterministic paradigms of thought,and/or a distorted perception of “scientific” as uncre-ative and unspontaneous.

Quantitative music therapy research, in contrast,fits pre-determined and existing frameworks that pro-vide verifiable truths in terms of objectivity and sci-entific method. “Scientific” research is generallyviewed as noncompatible with (and critical of) qual-itative research methodology and discourse. Quanti-tative research offers the safety of numbers, tried-and-tested methodology and approval by the “scientific”community. While it can be inaccessible to those notfamiliar with the methodology, and risks diminishingthe richness of the practice, its creativity and sponta-neity must be acknowledged.

By remaining separate, these research discoursesrisk reinforcing a duality of practice and of thinking,rather than negotiating a dialogue between them.Their separateness risks caricaturing “art” as illogicaland “science” as uncreative, and demands particu-lar—and distinctive—kinds of dialogues.

Music and Words: Whither a Discourse?

Finally, at the base of any music therapy discourselies what Gary Ansdell (1996) has identified as “mu-sic therapist’s dilemma,” i.e., an extension of musi-cologists’ acknowledged and much debated difficultyof talking about music, crystallized as “Seeger’s di-lemma” by musicologist Charles Seeger (1977). Mu-sic therapists bear a more complex burden to that ofmusicologists. Not only is the phenomenon of musicdifficult to talk about, but the music therapy situationpresents additional dimensions. These include themusical–emotional, the personal and interpersonal,and the therapeutic–pathological. Each of these hasdistinctive theoretical concepts and distinctive dis-courses (complicated by various world views), withparticular emphases of meaning. In addition, the ther-

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apists’ theoretical basis and working context (whetherclinical, educational, medical, social, etc.) has its ownaudience, which may or may not be consonant withmusic therapy.

Finding a music therapy discourse is apparentlynot so simple, and perhaps to think in terms of “a”music therapy discourse is naive. Perhaps, we need tothink in terms of dialogues, within which many dis-courses can be negotiated, created and recreated: dis-courses that are continuously coloured, restrained, ex-panded and imposed upon, discourses that remainpliable and ambiguous, with the help of our dialogu-ing minds.

Creating Dialogues: Fixed, Ambiguous and Fluid

It seems that dialogues—the live sharing, exchang-ing and creating of discourses—potentially draw fromus a rich palette of meanings and explorations, and,moreover, the generating of meaning in music therapydiscourse is a complex, collaborative dialoguingevent that depends on various conditions. Here, I wantto emphasize thatboth partners participate in a dia-logue, even if one is speaking and the other listening.The speaker bears the listener in mind when talking,thus making the listener an active part of the dialogue,rather than a passive receiver of information.

In this section, three kinds of dialogues are ex-plored: Fixed, Ambiguous and Fluid. Although pre-sented as categories in order to simplify the discus-sion, they need to be seen on a continuum of Fluidity,Ambiguity and Fixedness. Also, we need to remem-ber that dialogues do not occur in “chunks”. Rather, adialoguing pair slip, subtly and fleetingly, betweenone kind of dialogue and the next.

Fixed dialoguesare characterized by little devia-tion from a set public/common discourse, whethertheoretical, educational, professional, clinical, re-search or academic. In fixed dialogues, “facts” arepresented, and the dialoguing pair “stick to thescript.”

Ambiguous dialoguesdraw from set discourses,but have more “play” in them. There is less emphasison simply presenting the discourse—there is a ques-tioning, a tugging against, a tossing about of the dis-course.

Fluid dialoguesare highly personal and idiosyn-cratic, with some reference to a discourse, which re-mains peripheral.

These three kinds of dialogues suggest severalthings:

1. That any dialogue is not only fixed or only ambig-uous, but is more likely to have aspects of all three,and bedominatedby one or other kind of dialogue.This “dominant” dialogue gives the dialogue anoverall flavor. Thus, any dialogue, no matter how“fluid,” has some “fixed” aspects to it. For exam-ple, if a pair is discussing a written text, then thatpart of the dialogue is fixed. The text is unshift-able. Theway that the pair dialogues about it maythen be fixed, ambiguous or fluid—and, as weshall see, this will affect the degree/richness ofmeaning that the dialogue can generate.

2. That the content of the discourse itself may welldetermine the kind of dialogue that partners enterinto. Some discourses, as we shall see, are simplyabout themselves (e.g., the “social rules” of musictherapy) and make no space for ambiguous or fluiddialogues. Other discourses (such as music therapyassessment) may be more amenable to ambiguousand/or fluid dialogues.

3. The individuals themselves—or rather, the kind ofsynchrony of minds that they manage to establishbetween them—can determine the kind of dia-logues that they have. Here, the concept of “inter-mental synchrony” (or “synchrony of minds”) isborrowed and adapted from that of “interpersonalsynchrony” (Bernieri & Rosenthal, 1991; Brown& Avstreih, 1989; Condon & Ogston, 1966) tosignify minds working together, flowing betweenand interweaving with each other, and arriving atan interpersonal knowing of one another’s think-ing and meaning.

4. The synchrony of minds between dialoguing per-sons allows rich meaning to be generated in eachof the three kinds of dialogues, whilst asynchro-nous minds risk diminishing or at least, limiting,the generation of meaning.

5. Interpersonal synchrony cannot be excluded fromthinking about generating meaning in dialogues.Although beyond the scope of this paper on dia-logues, it would seem that the presence or absenceof interpersonal synchrony has significant bearingon the generating of meaning—as will be seenlater. The next section develops various aspects ofthe different dialoguing forms that can be charac-terized as fixed, ambiguous and fluid.


Fixed Dialogues

Here, we remind ourselves that the subject mat-ter—the discourse—is most powerful, overriding thepersonal.

Social rules.With clients, client carers, profes-sional colleagues and clinical supervisors we havefixed dialogues about “social rules” (Pavlicevic,1997). These set boundaries about sessions, for ex-ample, to do with time, place, length and fee of ses-sions, duration of the work, etc. The dialogue is prac-tical and functional, it remains close to the discourseof logistics and arrangements. The discourse itself isstatic.

Reporting.A form of dialogue that featuresstrongly in music therapy is that of reporting. Wereport on the work itself, on the client, on literature,on research, on economic and educational aspects ofmusic therapy, etc. Reporting is a fixed, formallystyled dialogue, allowing little negotiating of the dis-course of choice (e.g., work context, treatment ap-proaches, music therapy practice, evaluation, etc.).Synchronous minds will nuance the meaning of thereporting more richly than asynchronous minds,which may keep the meaning limited to just the re-port.

Describing (fixed).This dialogue is, simply, de-scriptive: a putting together of facts, a portraying ofevents with minimal personal interpretation or infer-ences. For example, we describe a session, the music,what happened with a particular client, etc. The dif-ference between Reporting and Describing is that Re-porting is more formally styled–for example, a re-search report, or an economic/viability report,whereas Describing may be presented in any format,formal or informal.

Ambiguous Dialogues

Here, the discourse is central, and allows somepersonal reflection, some “playing with” the discourseby dialoguing partners.

Descriptive—ambiguous.In contrast to Descript-ing (fixed), where “objective” facts are presented,ambiguous descriptions are personal. For example,the client might say to the therapist, “the music wasloud” or “the piano sounds out of tune,” or “you werefollowing me”: these are personal descriptions. Theymay or may not be observable or objectively verifi-able, but are the individual—and idiosyncratic—real-ity of the speaker. The discourse is prominent, for

example, about playing music, but its use in the dia-logue is coloured by individual nuances and experi-ence.

Negotiated dialogues.These refer closely to afixed discourse (e.g., to a research report, a descrip-tion of work) or to a set discourse (a body of litera-ture, a theoretical stance, the economics of an insti-tution), but the dialoguing partners “play” with thediscourse or fixed dialogue. They try out other waysof thinking about it, offer their own thoughts, percep-tions, they reflect on its meaning, contribute towardsthe discourse and construct meaning about it. Forexample, amongst music therapists, we develop the-ories from existing discourses, we discuss and “playwith” a research report, we color the meaning of workthat we observe.

Fluid Dialogues

Here there is an absence of set discourse, or, atleast, a very peripheral presence. The emphasis is onpersonal and idiosyncratic “talk.”

Inner talk. We talk with the client in a sing-song,sprechtstimmemode during sessions, almost in a formof recitativ. This may be underpinned by a musicalimprovisation, it may be a free-flow of words or takethe form of a story of a poem. The talking may haveobscure private meaning, and may not “make sense”grammatically or semantically. It reveals our internalpool of thoughts/experiences, rather than crystallizedthoughts and feelings.

Creating meaning.Here the dialoguing partnerscreate meaning in the moment. This is “new” mean-ing: it is a “new” dialogue and there is no “set”discourse, drawing, rather, from daily, personal expe-riences. This dialogue may draw from “inner talk,”and the negotiating of meaning is ongoing and fluidsince meaning is embedded in the partners’ being inrelation to one another. For example, with supervisorswe might negotiate what is going on between super-visor and therapist in the moment. This may touch onhow the supervisor experiences the therapist talkingabout the client, the work, the work-place or what-ever; on how the therapist experiences the supervisorand on feelings that arise between supervisor andtherapist, from the supervision dialogue (Brown,1997; Hawkins & Shohet, 1989).

Interpretative dialogues.Amongst ourselves, asmusic therapists, we may talk about music therapy ina self-reflective, searching manner that barely refersto other writings and discourses: we “play” with ideas

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and “muse” about their possibilities for development.In contrast to creating meaning, here there is a refer-ence—even if totally implicit—to a familiar dis-course: this does not need refering to directly—oreven indirectly. This dialogue is far more fluid thanthe Negotiated Dialogues (Ambiguous) dialogue,which refers more directly to a specific text or idea.

Do we have different kinds of dialogues with dif-ferent dialoguing partners? In the next section, sixpartners are considered on the basis of their roles, andthe contents of the discourses that we have with them.Are dialogues distinguished only by the content oftheir discourses? Or by the degree of synchrony ofminds between partners? It is in this section that therole of interpersonal synchrony begins to feature, asan added complication to the generating of meaning.

Partners in Dialogue

1. Clients: we can think of our relationships withclients as “primary relationships”: clients are ourraison d’etre, the focus of our practice, talking andthinking. The expressive and relational nature ofmusic therapy suggests that the prevailing qualityof dialogues with clients will be fluid—idiosyn-cratic and personal. Some dialogues may be fixed(such as deciding time, length, place and fee ofsessions), and some ambiguous, such as personalnuancing of observable “facts” and events. Theremay be little synchrony of minds between thera-pists and clients, but the interpersonal synchronymay override this, and enable ambiguous and fluiddialogues.

2. Clinical Supervisors, with whom we form anotherintimate relationship, which can be seen as “co-primary”. This relationship extends towards thetriad: the supervisor, therapist and the “absent-present” client. There are various kinds of dia-logues within this relationship (Brown, 1997)—some are highly practical and functional, dealingwith logistics (e.g., the setting, the work dynamic,the referral system), some fluid, personal and inti-mate; and a significant proportion ambiguous,rooted in the therapeutic event, and clinical knowl-edge and theory. The quality of the relationship ispredominantly synchronous, with free-flow be-tween the minds of both therapist and supervisor,which generates as much richness of meaning pos-sible. There is also a place for asynchrony ofminds, which is tolerated by interpersonal syn-chrony.

3. Client-Carers, who may be clients’ families, care-givers, school/hospital staff, and other profession-als involved in the client’s care: this audienceknows the client with various degrees of intimacy,and knows the client-care discourse, although theymay be unfamiliar with music therapy. The kindsof dialogues we have with client-carers depend ontheir familiarity with music therapy practice: themore needs to be explained and described, themore time we are likely to spend in “fixed” dia-logues. The greater the synchrony of minds be-tween the dialoguing partners, the more opportu-nity there is for entering into ambiguous, and evenfluid dialogues. The latter depends on both part-ners’ willingness to partake in one anothers’ dis-courses.

4. Music Therapy colleagues, including students: thisaudience is familiar with music therapy practicediscourse, but is unlikely to know particular cli-ents, their circumstances, and the work contextdiscourse. Here, potential exists for dialogues thatare predominantly ambiguous, and also for somefluid dialogues. Fixed dialogues may be necessaryto “set the scene” for other kinds of dialogues.Although we would expect a high degree of mentalsynchrony between partners, too much may pre-vent the dialogues from being critical. Some asyn-chrony of minds may be necessary to prevent com-placency, and generate sharper, more complexmeaning (see Figure 2).

5. Professional colleagues (non music therapists)with whom we work: some may be familiar withmusic therapy discourse and practice, others lessso. Here, fixed dialogues about music therapy dis-course informs them about the practice, facilitatesreferrals, etc. Again, depending on the degree ofmental synchrony, familiarity with music therapydiscourse, world views, and/or with some under-lying concepts (e.g., behavior modification, Jung-ian symbol or projective identification), some am-biguous, and even fluid dialogues may occur.Synchronous minds will generate richer meaning,and asynchrony will help to draw boundaries be-tween which discourses fit, and which do not fitthe dialogue.

6. Employers, government bodies, hospital boards,professional committees, etc., who may know verylittle about music therapy: here, the dialogues thatdraw from a set discourse of facts, figures, successrates, employment codes, etc., are likely to befixed. The dialoguing partners need to work hard


in order to establish common meaning: their worldviews and discourses tend to be different, and nottoo much shared understanding can be assumed.This can, of course, be a source of richness ofmeaning. The presence of interpersonal synchronybetween speaker (e.g., music therapist) and listener(e.g., hospital accountant) who do not necessarilyshare a common discourse, will nuance and colorthe dialogues with richer meaning. An absence ofinterpersonal synchrony will limit the potentialmeaning of the dialogue (see Figure 3).

It seems that with different dialoguing partners wedraw from different discourses, and these can gener-ate different kinds of dialogues. Moreover, the qualityof the interpersonal relationship seems to color, en-rich or limit the meaningwithin the dialogue. Forinstance, a fixed dialogue between therapist and pro-fessional may remain just that—a fixed participationin a set discourse, an exchange of information orfacts. Synchronous minds will color this dialogue andgive it richness of meaning and—depending on thediscourse—may shift to ambiguous and even fluiddialogues. Asynchronous minds are more likely toremain in fixed dialogues, adhering closely to thediscourse, and limit its meaning. However, we need tobe careful of oversimplifying: I would suggest that inthis instance, interpersonal synchrony will temper theeffects of asynchronous minds and the lack of famil-iarity with discourse, whereas the absence of interper-sonal synchrony will aggravate it. Conversely,

amongst partners who are familiar with one another’sdiscourses (e.g., music therapists) and whose mindsand persons are in synchrony, then some asynchronyhelps to sharpen the meaning of dialogue by challeng-ing assumptions (Figures 2 and 3).

A case study, below, presents the complex inter-action between dialogues, discourses and the role ofsynchrony (mental and personal) in generating mean-ing.

Case Study

I once prepared a presentation to “professional col-leagues” in a psychiatric hospital as part of their jour-nal club meeting. The presentation, on music therapywith adults with mental health problems, was partDescription (fixed), part Report (fixed), as well assome Descriptive (ambiguous) and some NegotiatedMeaning (ambiguous). The overall discourse was thatof “mental health colleagues who know little aboutmusic therapy.” We (i.e., myself as presenter and the“audience”) could assume common discourse aboutadult mental health problems, but none about musictherapy. I anticipated personal and mental synchronyand asynchrony with the dialoguing/listening audi-ence.

At the last moment, I was informed that a group ofworkers from a home for the mentally handicappedwere visiting the adult psychiatric hospital from out oftown, were interested in music therapy, and would

Figure 2. The relationship between synchrony of minds, familiarity with discourse and the richness of meaning generated in dialogues.

91DIALOGUES

attend my presentation. I was thrown by the requestbecause I knew that if I were to take the “new” lis-teners into account as partners in dialogue, then mypresentation would have to change. I could notpresent in a discourse exclusive to “mental healthcolleagues who know little about music therapy,” butwould have to adapt, as I went along, to include the“mental handicap colleagues who do not know thehospital, who may know little of mental health prob-lems, and nothing about music therapy.” In otherwords, I could assume little shared meaning betweenmyself and the “new” audience, and this caused mesevere stress and aggravation. My anticipation of anyform of synchrony with the audience diminished.

The result was most unsatisfactory. What becamequickly clear was that it was, in fact, the originalaudience—the mental health professional col-leagues—who checked every fact and statement that Imade, increasingly demanding a “fixed” dialogue:one that stuck rigidly to the discourse of psychiatryand biochemical science. There was seemingly nonegotiation of meaning between myself and this partof the audience, and our rapport deteriorated. Ourminds seemed to become less and less synchronous,and I felt forced into a reporting-type of dialogue. Iexperienced the meaning of my dialogue being dimin-ished by the minds of the listeners, whilst any notionof interpersonal synchrony vanished, in my mind.With this realization, I became irritated—particularlyas I was sure that possibilities for more ambiguous

dialogues—and richer meaning—could be created.Perhaps the “mental health” audience was also un-nerved by the “new” arrivals.

I had two choices: I could give the “mental health”audience what they demanded—descriptive reportingof the discourse of their choice by entering into a“false” synchrony with them; or I could shift thediscourse, and possibly attempt more ambiguous dia-logues, probably with the “new” arrivals. This was thecourse I chose, and “broke the rules” of the journalclub meeting. The content of my discourse began toshift spontaneously towards the “new” audience, whoturned out to be more ready to explore meaning and“play” with ideas. Our interpersonal synchronyseemed to increase, influenced undoubtedly by ourincreasing synchrony of minds, despite the “new”audience’s unfamiliarity with music therapy dis-course.

I could have complied to the demands of the orig-inal audience—and, in terms of social norms, perhapsI should have. However, by doing so, I risked creatinga “false” synchrony with them, by complying to anarrow discourse. This would have compromised themeaning of the dialogue. I felt trapped. By sticking tomy original presentation, I might have negotiatedmeaning with the hosts, and would have alienated thevisitors. However, the trigger for switching discoursesin midstream, so to speak, was the creation of asyn-chrony of minds by the hosts: they let me know thatno assumptions could be made—not even in the men-

Figure 3. The relationship between the discourse, synchrony of minds and interpersonal synchrony in generating meaning.


tal health field—and I knew this to be false. Thismade me decide to generate meaning with the “new”audience (which was socially improper). Their listen-ing was synchronous with my speaking, and we wereable to enter into a dialogue that ranged across thespectrum of fixed, ambiguous and fluid dialogues.

Conclusion: Creating Communities of Meaning

This paper began with Penny Rogers’ (1996) as-sertion that amongst ourselves we tolerate uncer-tainty, whereas with others we present a cohesive,united front. If we develop this idea in terms of dia-logues, then we see that amongst ourselves, much ofthe music therapy discourse can be assumed—andpossibly not even be referred to directly. Abstract,fluid, and highly reflective dialogues are possibleamongst ourselves—which may, to “outsiders”, beincomprehensible (rather like the dialogues of andintimate old couple, who no longer need to explicatemeaning, but “know” what the other means). There isa drawback here: too many assumptions about mean-ing can limit the development of new meaning. Someasynchrony of minds infuses a challenge to look at adiscourse in a new way.

However, it is not only amongst ourselves thatfluid and ambiguous dialogues occur. With those whodo not share our discourses (e.g., non music thera-pists), there might appear to be less potential for cre-ating new meaning—each of the dialoguing partnersneeds to adapt to one or other discourse in order tocreate a ‘fit’ of meaning between them. For example,the discourse(s) may need to be constant checked tosee whether its meaning is common to both partners.The degree of meaning that can be generated will, tosome extent, depend on their inter-personal syn-chrony (Figures 2 and 3). Where the minds of partnersare in synchrony, even when discourses are unfamil-iar and there is little room for assumptions, then richmeaning can be generated between them. Where “di-aloguing” minds are not in synchrony, discourses areunfamiliar and there is limited interpersonal syn-chrony, there is less potential for new meaning—infact, there may be little potential for the partners toarrive at “common” meaning. The danger is the cre-ating of “false” synchrony, where there is a pretenseat common understanding and shared meaning, inorder not to lose face, lose power or appear an antag-onistic partner.

Is music therapy talk amongst ourselves too com-fortable, too cozy? Perhaps too lazy? Is talk with

others too difficult, too diverse? Does it make usretreat behind a mask of homogeneity and false syn-chrony of meaning?

What seems certain is that both amongst ourselvesas music therapists, and between ourselves and others,we need minds to be synchrony, and we need to moveagilely—we need to dance—between fixed, ambigu-ous and fluid dialogues in order to recreate and sus-tain rich meanings in music therapy practice and dis-course, and in order to enrich our personal, “inner”talk. It seems that when entering into dialogue, nomatter how difficult, we need to retain our imagina-tion and creativity, our improvisatory skill of thoughtand reflection, rather than being satisfied with simpli-fied meaning and “false” synchrony of minds. Weneed to generate a rapprochement between the variousmusic therapy research discourses. We need to con-tinue generating multifaceted, diverse, complex andrich dialogues about music therapy in order to enrichmeaning in our personal, our music therapy group andour public lives.

But perhaps more important is our need to main-tain a sense of inner confidence and belief in the rigorof our discourses, however asynchronous our listen-ers’ minds are with ours. A final challenge remains:that of engaging with “other” audiences in a way thatinvitesboththem and us to transcend the discourses inwhich each of us is embedded, in order to engage ingenerating fresh meaning. By exploring the natureand complexity of “music therapy” dialogues, thispaper hopes to have contributed to music therapists—and indeed to arts therapists—facing this challenge.

Coda

Ideas for this paper came from asynchrony ofminds in ambiguous dialogues at a music therapytheory seminar at the 4th European Music TherapyCongress in Leuven in April 1998. The presence ofinterpersonal synchrony between (most) contributorsand the fact that we shared a common, implicit dis-course enabled those ideas that did not “fit” to con-tinue “playing” in my mind. Various drafts of thispaper developed from inner dialogues: some fixed(the concrete planning of the paper, choice of dis-courses), some ambiguous (the tugging against earlierdrafts and drawing from other discourses) and somefluid (when some inner and obscure narrative wouldemerge, apparently unrelated to this paper). Laterdrafts were shared intensely with a psychologist–musician colleague. Here, our different discourses

93DIALOGUES

meant intensive challenging of assumptions, whilstour high degree of interpersonal and mental syn-chrony meant that (almost too much) rich new mean-ing was generated in our discussions. The final draftsgrew out of dialogues within my own mind—betweenmyself and a projected self, where there was dangerof too much synchrony and too many assumptions. Tocounteract this, I at times created an audience in mymind with whom there was little synchrony of mindor person, in order to adjust perspectives. Finally, myown inner reservoir of meaning has been immeasur-ably enriched and renewed by these dialoguing pro-cesses with myself, with imaginary others, and withanother person.

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With listeners in mind: creating meaning in music therapy dialogues