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Being Touched By Music: A Phenomenological-Hermeneutical Approach To Understanding Tranformational Musical Experience, Kurt Kumler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigated the lived experience of being personally transformed by listening to music. The investigation started with an exploration of the literature that relates to the phenomenon of musical transformation, including natural-scientific research as well as ideas from musicology, ethnomusicology, psychology, literature, and philosophy. This research was designed to access the nuanced and subjective aspects of the phenomenon by attending to the experience as lived by the experiencer. The method was qualitative in nature, based on a phenomenological-hermeneutical methodology. Throughout the research process, the researcher maintained a reflexive stance, attending to assumptions and preconceptions held about the phenomenon. This …