Abstract

Within the field of music education, there is a need of approaching the holistic view of musical experience from different angles. Therefore, the aim of this article is to investigate the phenomenon of multi-dimensional musical experience from a life-world-phenomenological perspective and indicate its benefits to music education. The analysis is informed by Dufrenne’s philosophical writings regarding the phenomenology of aesthetic experience and also draws on Merleau-Ponty, Heidegger, interpreted by Benson and Ford, together with Schutz. These philosophers provide tools for understanding musical experience from a bodily, existential, and sociological perspective, and their complementary ideas about being and learning can be applied to musical experience in the first case and secondly its influences for music educational praxis. Firstly, the concept of lived music is defined through a discussion of dimensions of musical experience; the phenomenology of aesthetic experience; the use of several senses; the heard and the hear-able; apperception; and musical dwelling. Then, the sharing of experience in musical dwelling and its relevance to the concept of imagination is highlighted. I will also emphasize the importance of the view of human beings as holistic bodily subjects. Finally, the article includes a discussion regarding the implications of a life-world-phenomenological view of musical experience to music education.