Music and Consciousness 

音樂與意識狀態

Instructor：Yuh-wen Wang

Semester：Fall 2007, Spring 2007

Credit：3

Description

Certain consciousness often takes place in the accompaniment of certain music or

sound phenomena, such as trance or ecstasy in religious activities. Such unusual

consciousness does not always appear in religious rites. It may appear in, for

instance, rock or heavy metal concerts. Sometimes people experience certain mental

states which are not detected by people around, and are not obviously different from

our normal day-to-day consciousness, such as clear minds, melancholy, etc.

This course explores the relationship between music and trance or ecstasy in various

cultures. Is there any causal relationship between music and these states of

consciousness? What elements in the music that are of particular relevance? What

roles do the elements of the sound phenomena (such as speech, singing text, pitch,

timbre, rhythm, tempo, or other elements), the listener’s expectation or background,

the particular culture or society each play in the occurrence of certain consciousness

such as trance? These are the main issues of this course.

Three textbooks will be used as our main reading material, though other readings may

be required from time to time. They are:

Becker, Judith. Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing.

Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 2004.

Friedson, Steven. Dancing Prophets: Musical Experience in Tumbuca

Healing. University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Rouget, Gilbert. Music and Trance: A Theory of the Relations Between

Music and Possession. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Requirements

Reading and discussion: Each week there are reading assignments. Students should finish them and be prepared for discussion before next class.

Summary presentation of an assigned essay: make an oral report on the main points and reasoning procedure of the assigned essay. A handout of 1-2 pages should be made and turned in to the instructor three days before the class report, in order to get suggestion and, if necessary, make correction.

Final project: oral presentation and written paper on a topic to be discussed with

the instructor. Starting with the second week, students are urged to make an appointment with the instructor to discuss their individual projects. In order to obtain enough guidance on the final project, they should also follow the schedules below:

Wk 3-5: discuss with the instructor some possible direction of the project, in order to start search and review related papers and literature.

Wk 6: discuss with the instructor the result of the search and review, so as to confirm, reduce or revise the project direction and scope.

Wk 8: decide the topic.

Wk 11: literature review finished for the decided topic; discuss with the instructor.

Wk 13: consult for the general outline of the paper.

Wk 15: consult for the content of the paper.

Wk 16: Oral Report

Syllabus

Wk. 1: Lecture: Sound and consciousness

Wk. 2: Becker, Intro. and ch. 3 (pp. 69-86)

Wk. 3: listening practice

Wk. 4: Becker, ch. 4

Wk. 5: Becker, ch. 5

Wk. 6: Becker, ch. 6

Wk. 7: Benjamin D. Koen, “Medical Ethnomusicology in the Pamir Mountains: Music and Prayer in Healing.” Ethnomusicology 49/2 (2005): 287-311.

Wk. 8: Friedson, pp. 119-20;

Wk. 9: Friedson, ch. 5

Wk. 10: Friedson, ch. 6

Wk. 11: John Blacking, “The Context of Venda Possession Music: Reflection on the Effectiveness of Symbols”

Wk. 12: Rouget, ch. 2

Wk. 13: Rouget, ch. 4

Wk. 14: Rouget, ch. 8

Wk. 15: Compare and conclusion

Wk. 16: Project consultation

Wks. 17, 18: Student Final Project Presentation

Other Reference

楊儒賓。《儒家身體觀》。台北：中央研究院中國文哲研究所籌備處，1996.

Blacking, John. “The Context of Venda Possession Music: Reflection on the Effectiveness of Symbols,” Yearbook for Traditional Music 17 (1985): 64-87.

(A revised version appears as “Reflections on the Effectiveness of Symbols,”

in Muic, Cluture and Experience: Selected Papers of John Blacking, ed. By Reginald Byron. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1995; ch. 6, pp. 174-97.)

Brothers, Lester D. “On Music and Meditation in the Renaissance: Contemplative

Prayer and Josquin’s Miserere,” Journal of Musicological Research 12 (1992): 157-87.

Fromson, Michele. “A Conjunction of Rhetoric and Music: Structural Modelling in

the Italian Counter-Reformation Motet,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 117/2 (1992): 208-46.

Jourdian, Robert. Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination. New York: William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1997.

Kapferer, Bruce. A Celebration of Demons: Exorcism and the Aesthetics of Healing in

Sri Lanka. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991.

Koen, Benjamin D. “Musical Healing in Eastern Tajikistan: Transforming Stress and

Depression through Falak Performance.” Asian Music 37/2 (2006): 58-83.

Koen, Benjamin D. “Medical Ethnomusicology in the Pamir Mountains: Music and

Prayer in Healing.” Ethnomusicology 49/2 (2005): 287-311.

O’Connell, Julia Grella. “Of Music, Magdalenes, and Metanoia in The Awakening

Cons cience,” Journal of Musicological Research 24 (2005): 123-43.

Roseman, Marina. Healing Sounds from the Malaysian Rainforest: Temiar Music and

Medicine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Budd, Malcolm. Music and the Emotions: the Philosophical Theories. London:

Routledge & Kegan, 1985.

◎Hemi-sync

Kliempt, P., D. Ruta, S. Ogston, A. Landeck & K. Martay.

“Hemispheric- synchronisation during anaesthesia: a double-blind randomized trial using audiotapes for intra-operative nociception control,” Anaesthesia 54 (1999): 769-73.

Lewis, Ariane K., Irene P. Osborn & Ram Roth.

“The Effect of Hemispheric Synchronization on Intraoperative Analgesia,”

Anesth Analg 98 (2004): 533-6.

Dabu-Bondoc, S., J. Drummond-Lewis, D. Gaal, M. McGinn M, A.A.

Caldwell-Andrews, & Z.N. Kain.

“Hemispheric synchronized sounds and intraoperative anesthetic

requirements.” Anesth Analg. 2003 Sep;97(3):772-5.