Musikk+. En autoetnografisk layered account om musikkopplevelser i musikkterapi.

Abstract

The thesis begins with the question of how the author can articulate and understand musical experiences in music therapy and personal music making outside of music therapy by employing autoethnographic methodology. As autoethnography seeks to challenge canonical ways of doing research, the text does not follow a standardized structure and does not claim to have any traditional “findings” as such. However, the text reflects on how aesthetics, musical values and representation of self and others in text can be understood as entangled ethical issues. Examples from practice placement in mental health care, work within dementia care, personal history and private musical practice are used to illustrate this. As musical experiences are conceptualized as an ecological phenomenon, these examples are discussed in relation to each other using a theoretical metaphor of music-plus, illuminated with the symbol +. By doing so, the text also gives a particular and nuanced description of an emerging professional identity of a music therapist in the specific context and training in Bergen.