Listening in the Ambient Mode: Implications for Music Therapy Practice and Theory

Abstract

This theoretical paper explores the function, structures, and experience of listening to and creating ambient music, and encountering the ambient mode of being (Jaaniste, 2007). In the ambient mode of being, a listener becomes immersed in the raw materials of sonic environments (soundscapes) and nomadically shifts awareness across the terrains of these environments- simultaneously experiencing being in a liminal space and grounded in the here-and-now. For music therapists this might mean navigating and attuning to the lo-fidelity soundscapes in various levels of health and helping people achieve hi-fidelity and clarity on individual, community, cultural, and spiritual levels of existence. The ambient mode of being suggests that music therapists can access these levels simultaneously by entering into a creative state of listening in which pervasive ambience becomes salient within the musical relationships built in music therapy. Implications of the ambient mode of being for music therapy practice and theory will b be explored. Clinical outcomes related to encountering the ambient mode of being are discussed including capturing distant or forgotten parts of one’s self and making them salient again.

Keywords

• ambient music
• music-centered music therapy
• music therapy theory
• environmental music therapy
• ecological music therapy
• soundscape