Lighting up the Mind: Evolving a Model of Consciousness and its Application to Improvisation in Music Therapy

Abstract

This paper explores Professor Susan Greenfield's theory of Neuronal Assembly Formation (Neuronal Gestalts) within a clinical music therapy context. Neuronal events in the brain are seen not only as shaping the physiological and communicative responses of the client, but also contributing to the character of the musical material itself, as it evolves in improvisation. This paper describes work with adults with profound learning difficulties living in a long-term residential unit. For these non-verbal clients, music becomes a primary language for translating and exchanging feelings and meanings. Greenfield's Concentric Theory offers new ways of analysing and characterising the somatic and neurological processes of stimulation and arousal underlying this process in each individual. Some current theories of consciousness are compared, and the evidence for possible links between the formation of neuronal assemblies and the development of musical gestalts is investigated through a series of case studies.