Heart's Ease: Eudaimonia, Musicking in the Pandemic, and Its Implications for Music Education.

June Boyce-Tillman

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.698941

Abstract

This article will review the themes found in the literature on eudaimonia: ethical behaviour, a sense of meaning and purpose, autonomy – being able to make wise decisions and manage behaviour, contemplation, relationship with spirits of the ancestors and celestial beings and relationships of mutuality, respect. It will use these to critique various events online during the pandemic, such as the Embodiment conference, the SHIFT conference and the ZOOM peace choir. These developments related to music and wellbeing will be used to interrogate the purposes of music education and what might be learned from these new developments in relation to technology in relation to themes, such as values, orality and literacy, process and product.

Highlights

I start with this poem to indicate how the perception of the sound world has changed during the pandemic, maybe a shift to Heart’s Ease which is how John Tavener saw the purpose of music (Boyce-Tillman and Forbes, 2020)
The offerings from the internet, which we shall look at initially in their claims for eudaimonia, require us to look beyond the sounds produced by human beings to a much wider sense of a vibrating world to which musickers contribute in a variety of ways: These ideal relationships are often extremely complex, too complex to be articulated in words, but they are articulated effortlessly by the musical performance, enabling the participants to explore, affirm and celebrate them
The development of the wellness industry has moved away of Aristotelian model of eudaimonia by placing it in a neo-liberal context. This can be critiqued for its individualised nature where autonomy and contemplation are valued above ethical behaviour and relationships of mutuality and respect; a sense of meaning and purpose is linked with neo-liberal values

Summary

INTRODUCTION

I start with this poem to indicate how the perception of the sound world has changed during the pandemic, maybe a shift to Heart’s Ease which is how John Tavener saw the purpose of music (Boyce-Tillman and Forbes, 2020). The offerings from the internet, which we shall look at initially in their claims for eudaimonia, require us to look beyond the sounds produced by human beings to a much wider sense of a vibrating world to which musickers contribute in a variety of ways: These ideal relationships are often extremely complex, too complex to be articulated in words, but they are articulated effortlessly by the musical performance, enabling the participants to explore, affirm and celebrate them. The development of the wellness industry has moved away of Aristotelian model of eudaimonia by placing it in a neo-liberal context This can be critiqued for its individualised nature where autonomy and contemplation are valued above ethical behaviour and relationships of mutuality and respect; a sense of meaning and purpose is linked with neo-liberal values. New ways of ethical behaviour with the other-than-human world are emerging; there is generalised interest in love but in an individualised world, this is less often linked with virtuous action

A SENSE OF MEANING AND PURPOSE

SUMMARY

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT