Insights in Music and Culture
The Evolution of Consciousness Through Music
How can music help us uncover our highest potential? This article explores this question through the lens of Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Largely misrepresented, recent studies suggest that Maslow’s highest human value was not self-actualisation (an expression of personal potential and ego) but self-actualisation, an experience beyond the ego through peak experience and communion with others. Music contributes to these higher goals by offering access to higher states, such as ‘flow’ described by Milhaly Csikszentmihalyi. Musical flow states offer a way participate in higher human ideals, moving beyond selfishness, egotism, and conformity to contribute to the evolution of human potential, health, and development.
The Healing Power of Music
How does music heal ? This article explores this question and suggests that three core elements are necessary for music healing to occur. It uses examples from Latin American ritual, Catholicism, and electronic music festivals to suggest that differences in cultural music are united by these three core elements, used to produce music healing for different audiences and in different cultural contexts.
Beyond the Personal Self
How can music be used to create connection, enhance community cohesion, and increase social health ?
In this article we explore music improvisation, and how it enables us to move beyond our personal sense of self to envision a holistic musical experience.
The Psychology of Music: Arranging
What is music arranging, and why is it critical to powerful music experiences?
First in a series that explores the psychology of music, this article begins by offering us an insight into music arrangements, suggesting that these underlying structures are the key to creating powerful works that create impact, emotional affect, and altered states in audiences. Based on research in ritual, cultural practices, music psychology, and cutting-edge science.
