Chapter 2. Music phenomenology:
A Tool for Describing the Listening Experience.
Research questions
What are the basic ideas and approaches of phenomenological description of music and sound?
How is music phenomenology rooted in phenomenological philosophy?
How is phenomenological description of music applied in music therapy research?
Can the approaches of experimental phenomenology be applied in music phenomenology?
Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to clarify a basis for the phenomenological description of music as heard,
and to elucidate the application of phenomenological music description in music therapy research.
The central sources for this investigation are the writings of Thomas Clifton, Lawrence Ferrara and
Don Ihde, three scholars who, in very different manners, have yielded important contributions to
the field of music phenomenology. Clifton is the enthusiastic investigator, Ferrara the pragmatic re-
searcher, and Ihde the reflecting philosopher. This chapter will present ideas of these three pioneers
stated in their early manifestos and later book publications.
The music phenomenologies of Clifton, Ferrara and Ihde are based on the phenomenological philos-
ophies of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The second section of
this chapter traces the foundations of music phenomenology in major works of these philosophers,
notably Heidegger’s Being and Time and Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception. No par-
ticular work by Husserl is pointed out, as his philosophy branches into many different publications,
many of which are posthumous.
For understanding Husserl’s concepts, the clarifications of the Danish phenomenology scholar
Dan Zahavi and his American colleague Shaun Gallagher have been instructive. The writings of an-
other Danish scholar, Ulla Thøgersen, have served as a useful guide to Merleau-Ponty and phenom-
enology in general. A main entry to insight in music therapy theory and practice has been the volume
on Music Therapy Research edited by Wheeler (2005), in particular the chapters on Phenomenolog-
ical Inquiry (Forinash and Grocke 2005:321-334), First-Person Research (Bruscia 2005:379-391),
and Approaches to Researching Music (Bonde 2005:489-525).
The theme of this chapter is the phenomenological approach to music listening. Adjacent fields of
investigation, such as music performance and the application of phenomenological psychology in
research interviews^1 , are outside the scope of the present text.
2.1 The aim, basis and practice of phenomenology
Phenomenology is a means of discovering unnoticed aspects of the world. Phenomenological inquiry
uncovers the wealth and complexity of human experience and provokes the sense of wonder (Mer-
leau-Ponty 2002:XV, Clifton 1983:296, Ihde 2007:203, Thøgersen 2004:32).
Phenomenology is not a finished system, but an evolving practice. The philosopher is a perpetual
beginner. Phenomenology is a style of thinking, a special type of reflection, and the means of under-
standing phenomenology is the practical application of phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty 2002:VIII,
XV, Ihde 1977:14, Clifton 1983:18, Varela 1996:335).
1 Dissertations by Grocke (1999) and Pedersen (2006) present noteworthy applications of phenomenological psychology
for the analysis of interviews.