‘May those who know nothing be content to listen': Loys Bourgeois's Advertissement to the Psalms (1551)

Abstract

In 1551 the Genevan cantor, Louis Bourgeois, published an updated collection of metrical psalms with melodies, as part of Jean Calvin's project to publish all 150 psalms in French verse. With this collection, Bourgeois wrote a short notice describing the changes he had made to some of the pre-existing psalm tunes, and offered advice to the congregation on how they might improve the quality of their psalm-singing. After the appearance of the publication, Bourgeois was imprisoned for making unauthorized changes to the psalms, and for encouraging people to remain silent rather than sing out of tune or out of time. Although the intervention of Calvin ensured the cantor's quick release, the Genevan town council ordered that all copies of the book be destroyed. For the first time, Bourgeois's Advertissement to the reader is presented here in the original and in English translation with commentary.     

Prayerful silence and creative response in twenty-first-century monasticism

Many of today's monks and nuns are active composers: some have entered their communities as highly trained musicians, while others find themselves drawn to musical expression after profession. But how does such a creative musical response relate to the monastic atmosphere of hesychia (prayerful silence), and does this response differ in secular experiences of a prayerful silence? This paper provides an ethnographic account of the relationship between hesychia and creative response among twenty-first-century monastic musicians in the Western tradition, comparing these responses with those from secular Christian composers and from composers in the Quaker tradition for whom silence is, as for monastics, an integral component of worship; the issues are then explored in the context of methodological constructs for discursive meditation and contemplative prayer, and of conceptual notions of silence. This paper argues that essential differences between monastic and secular experiences of silence are significant regulators of creative response to hesychia.     

Instituting heteronormative belief in the law: the case of California's Proposition 22

This paper is based on ethnography of the ‘worship time’ at ‘Breakfree’ Church, a Pentecostal congregation in suburban Perth. I begin by exploring the ritualistic ways in which music is used to catalyse an ecstatic experience. Making use of the metaphor of ‘break free’, borrowed from a popular worship song, I demonstrate that music is used in deliberate ways to assist people in leaving behind the profane and encountering the sacred. Drawing on the thought of theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher and philosopher Paul Ricoeur, I explore the ways music facilitates and symbolises this experience. I demonstrate that for church members, the ecstatic divine-human encounter is the centre of their church worship and the antidote to difficult experiences such as grief or illness.     

The Impact of Musical Lyrics on the Lives of Graduate Counseling Students

Abstract

This study surveyed 28 graduate students in counseling on the meaning of lyrical music in their lives in a CACREP accredited program at an independent, southeastern university. Results showed that some songs were more popular or better remembered than others. It also showed that while some lyrics are personally meaningful and others convey important messages, a number of lyrics are just relaxing, joyful, and entertaining without a deeper level of significance to them.     

Conversations with My Father

ABSTRACT

This article provides a brief review of the literature describing successful aging life tasks, such as reminiscence, meaning-making, and forming substantive connections. Using Relational-Cultural Theory as a base, the article addresses the need for connection and ways that connections can be developed and sustained in later life. Through a personal account, the authors also illustrate how grown children can use music to connect with their parents. Finally, the authors adapt A Musical Chronology and the Emerging Life Song, an intervention that uses music and memories, for use with older adults.     

Book reviews

Books reviewed:
Dale Mathers, An Introduction to Meaning and Purpose in Analytical Psychology
Jane Cabot Reid (ed. & narrator), Jung, My Mother, and I: The Analytic Diaries of Catharine Rush Cabot
Heather Formaini (compiler), Landmarks. Papers by Jungian Analysts from Australia and New Zealand
Neil Russack, Animal Guides in Life, Myth and Dreams: An Analyst's Notebook
Rose–Emily Rothenberg, The Jewel in the Wound
Judith Edwards (ed.), Being Alive, Building on the Work of Anne Alvarez     

Rough‐and‐tumble play in human children

Rough and tumble (R&T) play is a unique set of behaviors that can be reliably distinguished from aggression and other childhood activities. Although it may be the most fundamental form of play, it has received comparatively little experimental attention in the human species. Forty children, ages three to six, were allowed to play in pairs (10 male pairs, 10 female pairs) during a 30 minute videotaped session with no toys available while music played in the background during every other five‐minute time period. The incidence frequency of children's play and related behavioral activities were scored using 20 behavioral categories. The major findings show only modest gender differences in the frequency of play behaviors in such controlled social encounters; the main difference is that boys engaged in slightly more physical play solicitations than girls. Music facilitated General Motor Activities (e.g., Running and Walking behaviors), but not specific R&T play actions (e.g., Wrestling, Ventral and Dorsal contacts). Finally, most play behaviors as well as general activities declined systematically over the course of each recording session. This experiment highlights how human social play can be systematically studied in a controlled laboratory setting. Aggr. Behav. 29:539–551, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

The Therapeutic Community Sing: Music Therapy Inpatient Group Process

Early psychoanalytic authors and music educators in both Europe and the United States pointed to the contemporary use of music therapy as a powerful modality in an inpatient psychiatric unit. The inpatient community sing is discussed in its capacity to address both individual and group goals. A clinical vignette from such a group is presented and discussed.     

Audience gaze while appreciating a multipart musical performance

Visual information has been observed to be crucial for audience members during musical performances. The present study used an eye tracker to investigate audience members’ gazes while appreciating an audiovisual musical ensemble performance, based on evidence of the dominance of musical part in auditory attention when listening to multipart music that contains different melody lines and the joint-attention theory of gaze. We presented singing performances, by a female duo. The main findings were as follows: (1) the melody part (soprano) attracted more visual attention than the accompaniment part (alto) throughout the piece, (2) joint attention emerged when the singers shifted their gazes toward their co-performer, suggesting that inter-performer gazing interactions that play a spotlight role mediated performer-audience visual interaction, and (3) musical part (melody or accompaniment) strongly influenced the total duration of gazes among audiences, while the spotlight effect of gaze was limited to just after the singers’ gaze shifts.     

Transforming school ensemble instruction through spiritually informed teaching practices

The transformative experiences that could be central to learning are curiously absent from American school music education. Students are motivated through competition and the goal of most programmes is flawless large ensemble performance. This paper describes a music programme in which the daily instructional practices have been modified and influenced by an outreach programme in which the students taught socially and economically challenged children of similar age. This programme was developed by a teacher with a deep sense of faith. His spiritually informed teaching practices emphasise the same principles of social justice espoused by secular educational philosophers. Parallels between spiritual and educational philosophies and a discussion of the transformations experienced by students conclude the paper.