PROJECT
Music for Dialogue

Music is intrinsically linked to our internal world and to significant emotional memories in our life, and can serve as a tool to enable us to reflect upon and clarify issues that are connected to ourselves.  The music that we love is an extension of ourselves.  It reflects our personal traits and social background, our individual identity at the deepest emotional levels.  Consequently, it can offer a powerful tool in our interpersonal and intrapersonal dialogue, a tool that can also overcome barriers of alienation and suspicion.

 

The “Music for Dialogue” model enables and encourages deep personal revelation with the aid of music and songs that are significant to us.  These constitute an immediate and powerful catalyst that enables us to tell our personal stories and to listen to the music and personal stories of others, and thereby to understand and internalise them, and possibly also to change our perception of them.

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“Music for Dialogue” and the research of consciousness

 

Aims:

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1.  A deep familiarity with oneself and others; a broad self-knowledge – an expansion of self-consciousness: This process takes place by means of the selection and sharing of songs and personal stories by the participants, who reveal, clarify and identify themselves to themselves.

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2.  Music and songs that can broaden our self-consciousness:

This refers to songs and music that are of great personal significance and possess the power to imbue us with the insights that can enable us to change and to expand our self-consciousness.

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3.  Profound listening, absorption, empathy, change in perception:

Listening refers to what is perceived as both acoustic and psychological, and also engages with interpretation. Listening is indeed an intuitive process, but it also requires skill and study in order to convert it into a meaningful tool, as part of our daily life.  Developing listening skills is critical in creating a true dialogue, and consequently plays a central role in the processes of “Music for Dialogue”.  Sharing music and the personal stories connected to it with others is a valuable part of these processes: in obliging the participants to listen – they are exposed to the music and the personal exposure of the other participants as a fundamental and inescapable part of the process.  Sometimes, in-depth listening to the songs and personal stories of others, and abstaining from judgment regarding the tastes, opinions and preferences that differ from those of our own, may even lead to a change in our perceptions. This holds the potential for exposure to new ways of looking at things, to different tastes, to a better ability to deal with and perhaps even to change our perceptions and thereby expand our own self-consciousness.

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4.  Meaningful giving, encouragement and support:

In the “Music for Dialogue” model we perceive meaningful giving as the culmination of a process of dialogue between people: an act of giving that incorporates true caring and the desire to inspire happiness and encourage others, to strengthen the connection with them and support them. And, together with these – a sense of strength, that we have the ability to give, that we are able to strengthen and enhance others.

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5.  Dimensions above and beyond:

In music, and in the “Music for Dialogue” processes in particular, there are dimensions that lie beyond rational explanation.  During the course of these processes powerful "electric energies" are created, some of which transcend the borders of rational definition and understanding.  It is possible that this is connected to the fact that each participant brings with them something deeply personal, that each participant serves as a catalyst for the participation and courage of the others. And perhaps there is a hidden energy here that lies in the connection between the music and the souls and minds of the participants, as individuals and as a group.

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It is clear to us that there is a need to delve into a deeper understanding of the value and meaning of these processes for the participants, both individually and as a group – regarding their internal feelings, what is happening between them, and the enduring effects on each and every one, separately and as a collective.

  

It is possible that other levels of consciousness enter the picture here, beyond that which is visible to the eye – in touching upon a world of individual and collective consciousness of the participants; and upon the possible changes in consciousness that take place among them during the process, and as a consequence of “Music for Dialogue”.