nological investigation is inevitably interpretation (Heidegger 1962:62, 191. Merleau-Ponty 2002:IX-
XII,162, Ihde 1976:20, Zahavi 2003a:36-37).
Conducting a phenomenological exploration, the investigator has to inquire his own lifeworld
critically. Husserl called for the suspension of presuppositions and paved the way for exploration
of essence, structure and presence. But an absolutely pure experience is not possible. The inves-
tigator’s lifeworld is the basis for pre-understanding, and experience and description can never be
completely segregated from the lifeworld (Ferrara 1991:34). Heidegger’s approach invites further
investigation of existence, culture and history. It invites hermeneutical inquiry by means of variation
of the object’s context, reflections on the investigator’s lifeworld, and intersubjective validation and
corroboration.
- Regard the body as the origin and enduring basis for phenomenological investigation
Consciousness is not separated from the body. Husserl pointed out that the body is involved in all
conscious functions, and Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty adopted this fundamental idea, with which
they were familiar from the manuscript of Husserl’s second book of Ideas, which was published post-
humously (Husserl 1989:XV-XVI, 160-61, Heidegger 1962:143). Heidegger acknowledges that Das-
ein is a bodily being, but avoids thematizing its bodily basis (Zahavi 2003a:69, Thøgersen 2004:136).
This thematization is Merleau-Ponty’s extensive project. “The body is our general medium for having
a world” is Merleau-Ponty’s fundamental statement (2002:169). The body is the basis for perception:
”Our own body is in the world as the heart is in the organism: it keeps the visible spec-
tacle constantly alive, it breathes life into it and sustains it inwardly, and with it forms a
system.” (2002:235).The body is the basis for action, and for understanding space (2002:291-295), and bodily experi-
ence imposes meaning in the cultural world (2002:169-170, Thøgersen 2004:122-131, Matthews
2006:50-53). Dufrenne states, in his discussion of music:
“It is primarily our body that is moved by rhythm and that resonates with harmony. (...)
The body is the always already established system of equivalences and intersensory
transpositions. It is for the body that unity is given before diversity” (1973:339).Evan Thompson, in his book Mind in Life, spells out the gist of Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy: “The
brain is an organ, not an organism, and it is the organism, animal, or person that has conscious ac-
cess to the world” (2007:242).
In music listening, one is inevitably aware of the music’s immediate bodily impact in the form of
emotional response and bodily entrainment. For phenomenological investigation, it is a task and a
challenge to describe the primary bodily reactions to music and to reflect on these reactions as part
of the natural attitude. Furthermore, it is important to explore the effects of repeated listening and the
effects of different contexts, and to survey and assess the varieties of experience due to cultural and
intersubjective differences.
2.2 Phenomenological description of music
Music Phenomenology has a history of more than a hundred years. In the beginning of the 20th cen-
tury, publications and academic discussions regarding music phenomenology were abundant in Ger-
many. Noteworthy scholars were Paul Bekker, Ernst Kurth, Hans Mersmann and Roman Ingarden
(Grüny 2008, 2010). Later in the century, studies by Alfred Schutz and F. Joseph Smith clarified the