A Journey into Acousmatic Music and Psychophysiological Dis-ease

I met Nikos when he chaired a PhD examination in which I was the internal examiner. As a result, I attended Nikos’ inaugural lecture, where he performed some of his acousmatic compositions. This marked the beginning of our journey into acousmatic music, pain, and psychophysiological dis-ease. We thought it would be great fun to invite our colleagues at the Balbir Singh Dance Company, an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation that engage communities with the arts, on the journey too.

A year ago, on the 25th of March 2024, Nikos hosted a taster session in the music studio at Beckett. The audience included academics from Beckett, the Balbir Singh Dance Company, and members of the Mid Yorkshire Breast Cancer Support Group. The acousmatic music performance blew our minds away – acousmatic music is like nothing we had ever experienced before.

A year later, Nikos led the submission of a research funding bid to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for a pilot project that would bring this interdisciplinary team together again to explore the transformative potential of acousmatic music as an innovative approach to narrative reshaping.

Nikos and I have also written a conceptual paper about acousmatic music, which we have submitted for publication. The paper is titled "Exploring Pain and Suffering Through Spatial Acousmatic Music: Innovative Perspectives Beyond Conventional Music Therapy." In it we contend that acousmatic music departs from the traditional 'instrumental music paradigm’ by obscuring or removing the origin of sounds and this triggers emotional memories and conversations about experiences of illness and ‘dis-ease’.

There is much research into music therapy, suggesting that music therapy has beneficial effects including distraction and relaxation. However, to our knowledge, there has been nothing looking at acousmatic music in a healthcare setting.

I often encourage our students to ‘curiously explore’ and to go ‘out-of-the-box’. This project embodies our university moto of being "unlike-minded". Why not try it yourself by listening to a stereo reduction excerpt of acousmatic music to facilitate an appreciation of the unusual nature of acousmatic music composition - here.