The Role of Spirituality within the Musical Experience

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The Role of Spirituality within the Musical
Experience
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Spirituality

Music ?
From Plato to Stockhausen to Mick Jagger
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Spirituality Music - Growing interest

• Separation of Spirituality from religion
• From Ethnomusicology to Neuroscientific research

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Spirituality Music - Changing definition

• Greek - Spirit is opposed to the body and
  material reality
• Hebrew - Spirit is within the body, providing
  life force or motivation
• (Casaldaliga Vigil 1994)

• Connection (Goldberg 1998)

• Transcendence (Peterson Seligman 2004)

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Spirituality - working definition
"A spiritual experience is one which incorporates
a sense of transcendence beyond one's limited
self, towards a sense of the sacred, however that
is understood by the individual."
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Music and Spirituality - a connection
apparent

• Maslow - Hierarchy of Needs (1954)
• Hilliard - Music Therapy and Spiritual Wellbeing
  (2005)

• But how do we understand this connection?

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Leonard Meyer (1956)
Absolutism Intra-musical
Referentialism Extra-musical
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My Research Questions

• 1. To what degree does the experience of
  spirituality, align with one of Meyers
  dimensions?
• It will not align closely with either

• 2. What impact does the cultural difference of
  Pentecostalism have on the results?
• Emotions stronger for Pentecostals (Dibben
  Hanson 2002)
• Transcendence equal but Spirituality stronger
  for Pentecostals a matter of cultural
  interpretation
• Explore other relationships

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My Research Questions

• 3. What is the impact of sacred vs secular
  context on the experience of Spirituality?
• Both experiences strong
• Transcendence equal for both
• Spirituality lower for secular experience -
  because a transcendent experience is not
  necessarily understood as being spiritual

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Methodology

• Participants (n 114)
• Attendees of Christian Church
• 60 Males, 54 Females
• Ages 18 - 77 years
• Musical Experience

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Methodology
Fig. 1. Number of participants at each point of
agreement with the culture of Pentecostalism
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Methodology
Materials

• Questionnaire

1. Demographic detail
2. Sacred experience
3. Secular experience - balanced ordering

• Referential
• Transcendent
• Spiritual
• Absolute

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Results
a) The Transcendence Index
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Results
Composite transcendence Index
Overtaken
Transformed
Lose Track
Spirituality
Transcendence Index
Fig. 2. Correlations of the Transcendence Index
with each element of transcendence as well as
with Spirituality.
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Results
A) The Transcendence Index 1. To What degree
does Spirituality align with one of Meyers
Dimensions?
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Results
Total Variance Explained
Fig. 3. Percentage of variance explained by each
of the factors discovered in factor analysis.
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Results
Fig. 4. Factor loadings of the given components
from the Questionnaire with each of the four main
factors determined by Factor Analysis.
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Results
A) The Transcendence Index 1. To What degree
does Spirituality align with one of Meyers
Dimensions? 2. What is the effect of the
cultural group of Pentecostalism?
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Results
Effect of Pentecostalism
Fig. 5. Correlation of Pentecostalism with the
main elements of the investigation
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Fig. 6. Average rating of Referentialism for
Pentecostal groups, /- 1 SE.
Fig. 7. Average rating of Absolutism for
Pentecostal groups, /- 1 SE.
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Fig. 8. Average rating of Emotion for Pentecostal
groups, /- 1 SE.
Fig. 9. Average strength of experience for
Pentecostal groups, /- 1 SE.
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Fig. 10. Average ratings of Spirituality for
Pentecostal groups, /- 1 SE.
Fig. 11. Average ratings of Transcendence for
Pentecostal groups, /- 1 SE.
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Results
A) The Transcendence Index 1. To What degree
does Spirituality align with one of Meyers
Dimensions? 2. What is the effect of the
cultural group of Pentecostalism? 3. What is
the influence of Context on these results?
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Fig. 12. Comparison of ratings on various
elements in Sacred and then Secular experiences.
/- 1 SE.
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Fig. 13. Comparison of Sacred vs Secular ratings
of Spirituality for the three Pentecostal Groups.
/- 1 SE.
Fig. 14. Comparison of Sacred vs Secular ratings
of Emotions for the three Pentecostal Groups. /-
1 SE.
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Discussion . . .

• 1. Spirituality
• a unique factor?
• (Correlating with Strength, Emotion,
  Spirituality and Transcendence - as well as
  weakly with Referentialism)
• Demand Characteristic?

Spirituality OR Absolute Expressionism? Weak
correlation with Referentialism
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Discussion . . .

• 2. Pentecostalism
• Some effect on emotion
• No effect on Spirituality
• Groups demonstrated equal variance in
  difference between sacred and secular
  experience
• Not sufficient cultural difference in terms of
  perceptions of Spirituality?

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Discussion . . .

• 3. Sacred vs Secular
• Large differences for Spirituality and
• Transcendence
• Demand characteristic?
• Cultural conditioning?
• A matter of focus?
• Secular experiences were spiritual /Transcendent
  to a degree, just not as strongly.
• Not all reported experiences were of Spiritual /
  Transcendent nature - this was not a criteria for
  selection of experience

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Summary

• 114 Participants from Christian Church
• Strong Experiences of Music in Sacred and
  secular context
• Special factor aligned with Spirituality but not
  Referentialism or Absolutism
• More so in the sacred than secular context
• Spirituality closely related to Transcendence
• Culture of Pentecostalism made minimal impact
• Responses generally stronger for the sacred
  experience
• Especially Spirituality and Transcendence

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Conclusion . . .