Strong Experiences with Music

Laura Mitchell, Bishop's University, British Journal of Music Education An elegant and careful investigation, this book is unquestionably a momentous contribution to the mission of the author, and our field.

Alf Gabrielsson is professor emeritus in psychology at Uppsala University, Sweden. He earned his PhD with a thesis on musical rhythm in 1973 and at the same time also conducted research at the Department of Technical Audiology, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm. His research areas include musical rhythm, music performance, music experience, music acoustics and audiology. His present research focuses on strong experiences with music and on expressive performance in music. He has published numerous papers in scientific journals and books and is consulting editor for Psychology of Music, Music Perception, Psychomusicology, and Musicae Scientiae. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and served as President of the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM) 1997-2000 and has been awarded the Honorary Life Membership of ESCOM.

1. Introduction; 2. How the investigation was carried out; 3. General points about the accounts; 4. Experiences during childhood; 5. Experiences during teenage years; 6. When music takes over; 7. Merging with the music; 8. Feeling light, floating, leaving one's body; 9. Inner music; 10. Inner images; 11. Inner images; 12. Music and existence; 13. Music and transcendence; 14. Music and religious experiences; 15. New insights, new possibilities; 16. Confirmation through music; 17. Music as therapy; 18. When performing music oneself; 19. Singing in a choir; 20. Music in love - happy and unhappy; 21. Music in connection with illness and death; 22. Music at funerals; 23. Music in Nature; 24. Music from and in other cultures; 25. Music at concerts: Classical music; 26. Music at concerts: Jazz; 27. Music at concerts: Pop and rock; 28. Metaphors and similes; 29. Survey of all reactions; 30. Music in SEM; 31. What in the music elicited the reactions?; 32. Causes, consequences and importance; 33. Overview, comparisons, questions, outlooks; Postscript to the Swedish edition; Appendix A: A descriptive system for Strong Experiences with Music; Appendix B: An example of analysis of an account