The Mushroom Argument; or: Music is So Much More than Creativity

The football match of my oldest daughter (6) is canceled, so early in the morning I am sitting at the table, writing this blog, while my oldest daughter, her football friend, and my youngest daughter are busy making drawings, and my son is at the computer working at his Minecraft world. In the background Bach's Motets play, in the performance of Herreweghe's Collegium Vocale. My youngest daughter is enthusiastic because actually this is the music used in the Peter Pan Disney-movie she just saw, she tells me.

Embodied Cognition

I was sitting in the car with my kids. Johnny Cash' "Southern Accents" was playing.

Daughter: "This is a sad song."
I (hoping, as a proud father, for intricately verbalized brilliance): "How do you know?"
Daughter: "I feel it in my body".

What Music Does for People

I finished writing my dissertation, had the exam, and then of course: party.

With our research group we found ourselves on the island of Schiermonnikoog, in the renowned Hotel Van der Werff, enabling me to spend some days of work and reflection amongst colleagues who are all, in some way, connected to studying the power of music.

One evening, my colleagues had decided to organize a little party for me. Speeches, presents, and music. Two of my colleagues played Fauré's "Les Berceaux". I will try to explain what went through my head - or rather: through my body, including my head - while listening. An incomplete story, because moments like those (or any moment, if you observe yourself carefully) are so incredibly filled with links to yourself and the rest of the world that it takes at least a work similar in size to one of the books of Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu" to explore the full meaningfulness of the moment.