Improvisation and meaning

Simon Gilbertson

doi:10.3402/qhw.v8i0.20604

Abstract

This article presents and discusses a long-term repeated-immersion research process that explores meaning allocated to an episode of 50 seconds of music improvisation in early neurosurgical rehabilitation by a teenage boy with severe traumatic brain injury and his music therapist. The process began with the original therapy session in August 1994 and extends to the current time of writing in 2013. A diverse selection of qualitative research methods were used during a repeated immersion and engagement with the selected episodes. The multiple methods used in this enquiry include therapeutic narrative analysis and musicological and video analysis during my doctoral research between 2002 and 2004, arts-based research in 2008 using expressive writing, and arts-based research in 2012 based on the creation of a body cast of my right hand as I used it to play the first note of my music improvising in the original therapy episode, which is accompanied by reflective journaling. The casting of my hand was done to explore and reconsider the role of my own body as an embodied and integral, but originally hidden, part of the therapy process. Put together, these investigations explore the potential meanings of the episode of music improvisation in therapy in an innovative and imaginative way. However, this article does not aim at this stage to present a model or theory for neurorehabilitation but offers an example of how a combination of diverse qualitative methods over an extended period of time can be instrumental in gaining innovative and rich insights into initially hidden perspectives on health, well-being, and human relating.

Highlights

This article presents and discusses a long-term repeated-immersion research process that explores meaning allocated to an episode of 50 seconds of music improvisation in early neurosurgical rehabilitation by a teenage boy with severe traumatic brain injury and his music therapist
The NIH (1999) provides a list of therapies, including music therapy, with information regarding the level of evidence of effect of the treatment for the consequences of the traumatic brain injury
The literature on music therapy and traumatic brain injury has grown during the past decades to include guidelines for therapists, a Cochrane review and literature reviews on children and adults (Baker & Tamplin, 2006; Bradt et al, 2010, Gilbertson 1999; 2005a; 2008; 2009)

Summary

Exploring meaning

Alongside domains of relational aspects that were hidden in the first research project, the letter communicates an impression of the naıveteof an early-stage therapist. This may provide a neurophysiological rationale for the selected action when improvising in a situation that demanded extremes in terms of temporal physical control, immaculate control of the trajectories and dynamics of my music-making body It became clear through the pilot study that my body may be considered as the main vehicle of relating in that scenario and that it makes sense to make use of those parts of my body that are most extensively trained (I have played the piano since I was 6 years old) in exactly that way. Meaning is embodied in this visible acrylic hand crafted from the fleshy, sensing, and pulsating reality of my being

Final thoughts

The sense of sense