Abstract
Even if I am an amateur musician, I don’t have first personal access to the kinds of experiences to which brilliant musicians refer. This is problematic for my aim of constructing a phenomenology of musical absorption. But it also points to a limitation to traditional phenomenology, which, if restricted to a first-person perspective, cannot access the plethora of beautiful, strange, and extraordinary experiences to be found in the human species. So, is it impossible for phenomenology in general, and for me as a researcher of the musical mind in particular, to find a method to include the experiences of others’ into my work? This chapter sketches a solution to this question by describing the “what”, “why”, and “how” of a phenomenological interview. I also introduce the protagonists of this book, namely, “the Danish String Quartet”.
The thinking in this chapter is borne out of discussions on fieldwork, methodology , and epistemology first and foremost with Susanne Ravn and Kristian Martiny, the latter with whom I wrote “Framing a Phenomenological Interview ” (Høffding and Martiny 2016) which constitutes the theoretical platform for this chapter.
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Notes
- 1.
It is unfortunate to have to add “philosophical” to “phenomenology”. The latter while already difficult to adequately pin down its original form as found in authors such as Husserl , Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty , and Sartre , when introduced to the qualitative domain, takes on a host of different, underspecified meanings. The term is used very loosely generally referring to something to do with “respecting the first-person perspective ”. When I use the term, I specifically refer to the philosophical tradition instigated by the aforementioned thinkers and not the general and loose term.
- 2.
See Zahavi (2018) for a phenomenological assessment of some of these methods.
- 3.
The constitutive role of body-language, facial expression, and emotion expression in consciousness has a long tradition in phenomenology especially in Scheler. For a more modern treatment, see Krueger (2012).
- 4.
This principle is also found in standard ethnography working under the idea that: “the social world cannot be understood in terms of simple causal relationships or by the subsumption of social events under universal laws” (Hammersley and Atkinson 2007, 7). Again, it is emphasized that the study of the mind, here in form of social phenomena, cannot be deduced from quantitative science. Ultimately, however, the quantitative, qualitative, and the phenomenological can enrich each other see Shaun Gallagher (2003), Zahavi (2004) and the boundaries between natural, social, and human studies are not hermetically closed off. See also Pedersen et al. (2015).
- 5.
See Krueger (2012), Krueger and Overgaard (2012).
- 6.
For a thorough discussion on the relation between realism and idealism in phenomenology, or rather in Husserl , see Zahavi (2017).
- 7.
When two unique individuals meet, the conversation that unfolds cannot be reproduced (besides for the acting scenario in which it is memorized and repeated), yet it is likely that two similar individuals with roughly similar interests could arrive at similar conclusions.
- 8.
See also Brinkmann and Kvale (2014, 277–300).
- 9.
For a discussion on this and for promising applications, see Martiny (2017).
- 10.
Good examples of accessing such inaccessible experiences concern epilepsy (Petitmengin et al. 2007).
- 11.
In the qualitative literature, these two kinds of consistency are known as “petit” vs. “grand” generalizations see Ravn and Christensen (2013), 6.
- 12.
This conception of a factual variation has an epistemic status similar to Flyvbjerg’s “case study” (Flyvbjerg 2011). Briefly put, this concerns the power of the case study to add to or find flaws within an established theory.
- 13.
Arthur Tatossian makes the same objection to Merleau-Ponty’s methodology (Tatossian 2002, 12) as does Maxine Sheets-Johnstone (1999, 277).
- 14.
Netto is a Danish grocery chain store.
- 15.
For the answer, see Chapter 5.
- 16.
The difference between the perspective of conducting and understanding an interview and the perspective of posterior transcription can be likened to two different perspectives on revising academic writing. One form of revisions happen on the fly, while composing the text and constructing the arguments. Another perspective, however, arises when one returns to a text months later and read, it almost as if it was written by another author. As with writing, both perspectives contribute to one’s understanding of the interview data.
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Høffding, S. (2018). How Should We Study Musical Absorption? The Phenomenological Interview. In: A Phenomenology of Musical Absorption. New Directions in Philosophy and Cognitive Science. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00659-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00659-4_2
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