The lecture explains musicological, cultural and health-philosophical aspects of the Turkish-Arabic microtonal system (maqam), the raga of India and the pentatonic system of China. This involves the question whether curative effects depend on a certain isomorphism between music and human beings, on biographical experience, or on neuro-psychological modes of “music-processing”. Answers shed light on the question about how to apply such practices in western clinical settings. This includes the phenomenon that therapeutic outcomes are likely to differ between various cultures. While the Chinese Erhu evokes sad feelings in China, in the West it is a viable means in hypnotherapy to generate trance, for instance.
Wolfgang Mastnak, professor (chair) at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich and at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. Active full member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and the New York Acacemy of Sciences. In the domain of music therapy he focuses on psychiatric, perinatal, paediatric, geriatric, cardiological, and cross-cultural issues. Further main fields of research involve music education, neuropsychology, long-term cardiac rehabilitation, sports medicine, life & health philosophies and Western and Eastern medical systems.
The lecture is in English, but translation into Hungarian will be provided.
The event is coorganized by Zeneterápiás Klub and supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum www.okfbudapest.hu.