Synthesis Sunday: Songs Without Words - Chapter Eight

I found myself back into the writings of Mercedes Pavlicevic this weekend. I finished chapter eight (of thirteen - only five more weeks to go), and, as always, found myself thinking about what I do in a deeper manner. I wonder why I didn't read this book before now. It would have enriched my clinical education so much. Maybe I wasn't in a place to understand it until now. That's what I'm going to believe - I'm reading it when I need it the most.

I am enjoying this book.

Chapter eight, entitled "Songs without words: Music in communication," addresses how we, as humans, develop our communication skills outside of the musical environment (but with ramifications for music therapists). The majority of the information presented comes to us from infant and infant-mother research and includes articles that are familiar to me from my education in cognitive psychology and human development. I'll be re-investigating my article archive for the names Trevarthen, Trehub, Bowlby, Stern, and several others to get back into the primary sources for the statements made in this chapter. (Learning NEVER ends!)

For me, the most important parts of this chapter came in the forms of quotations. Here are some of the quotes that made me take notice...

"...focus on those aspects of our humanity and of human consciousness that do not fit into words, since it is our essential 'being' that is captured by music therapy improvisation." (p. 99)

"Patterns of interaction." "...less stable and unsatisfactory patterns, which may result in on-going personal lack of satisfaction and instability, separate from the mother-infant dyad." (p. 99)

"Our innate capacity to seek optimal inter-personal relating, even as young infants, needs to be understood as part of our 'interpersonal intelligence' that is enormously flexible and co-ordinated." (p. 100)

There were so many other quotations that allowed me to think more deeply about how we learn about communication as infant humans. There are direct correlations between this concept and many of the behaviors that I see with my clients with developmental interruptions and disorders.

This quotation was one of the ones that resonated (pun intended) the most with me.

"...we perceive one another's acts as cohesive forms. Thus each partner in a communicating dyad perceives the other's acts as a temporally, co-ordinated whole, rather than as disparate fragments of behaviour." (p. 107)

I also liked this idea (synthesized by me into a thought) - empathy includes changing patterns to support and interact with another person.

As a music therapist, I spend quite a bit of time attempting to communicate with clients who do not readily communicate. I respond to what my clients project to me through their bodies, words, tones of voice, music, and other characteristics through and in my music. Most of my co-workers do not even notice the shift in the behaviors of our clients during the music therapy session, but I do.

One more quotation.

" 'Interactional synchrony' is composed of rhythm, simultaneous movement and the smooth meshing of interaction and a feature of this interpersonal co-ordination is that of matching." (p. 112)

There were several examples of good infant-mother communication and some examples of harmful communication as well. I can see many characteristics of my current clients in the descriptions contained within this chapter, many of whom were neglected or abused during infancy. I wonder if these patterns can be changed or adapted. I certainly hope so.

After this reading, I will be paying a bit more active attention to my own communication and the communication of other people in music therapy sessions. I am going to observe who is in synchrony and who is not. I am going to see if I can change my patterns to match those of the asynchronous and attempt to shape those patterns into something different. (Iso-principle!) I do lots of those things already, but not as consciously as I could/should/would (goblins!) with more attention to the skill.

One of the problems that I have is coordinating the patterns of response for 12 clients simultaneously. I'm still working on that, but I know that the individuals make up one group that can be treated as an individual (prior blog post and presentation about how to make that work - let me know if you want to see the presentation...).

So, my goal for this next week is to watch the patterns of communication of my individuals within their group settings to see if there are any that are discernible to me. That's not too much to do - right?

Happy Sunday, all.
 


Pavlicevic, M. (1997). Music therapy in context: Music, meaning and relationship. London: Jessica Kingsley.