Suggestive Potential of Music for the Formation of Personality

Abstract

The article discusses the suggestive potential of music, coupled with three key factors that can be distinguished as part of an interdisciplinary approach. The first factor is the ability of a piece of music to impart otherness to an existing subjective experience and relive it in a new way. The second factor is the sociocultural context of the perception and understanding of any musical work, which has historical prerequisites, as music is born and develops as a group communication practice. Thus, during individual listening in the absence of direct communication, the effect of the presence of the Other, “reflecting” the experience of the subject, is still formed. The third factor is emotional coloring, interpreted as the energization of a “consonant” experience, which has a biological basis and can be described as a stimulation of a dominant, based on the concept of A.A. Ukhtomsky. Actualization of a subjective experience leads to a strengthening of the dominant and, as a result, to a significant decrease in the perception of signals coming from outside. The listed factors, according to the author, seem to be interdependent, and their philosophical understanding is of fundamental importance for understanding the role of music in self-regulation. Special attention is paid to the ability of music to actualize subjective experience without the loss of integrity. At the same time, the author does not understand integrity as plenitude or completeness but as dynamism, implying both openness and closeness in relation to something another and new. This approach to the consideration of the integrity of subjective experience allows us to interpret its transformation and enrichment, including what happens in an altered state of consciousness, and sheds light on the effect of increasing the personal resources achieved by music and used in therapy.