Music and well-being

Abstract

This paper scrutinizes how human beings relate to the wider cosmos in the thinking of the European Middle Ages. The re-invention of the ‘spiritual’ might liberate Western culture from Cartesian elements within Western Christianity and the consequent limited and exclusive views of musicking. Practical examples of how singing together forms community at a variety of levels will be discussed. Others aspects that will be addressed are: being human; culture, health and illness; the place of the spiritual and the implications of this for music education.