Stimulus accessibility and music theory/therapy

This paper draws on music therapeutic, neuroscientific, and philosophical literature to posit three aspects of musical engagement that qualify music as an unusually accessible stimulus: 1) audition as a means of self-orientation 2) music's instigation of self-referential thought, and 3) the lower threshold required for processing musical meaning compared to linguistic meaning. This accessibility renders music a promising therapeutic stimulus for people living with a disorder of consciousness or other cognitive disorders, as clinical studies suggest. Moreover, this paper argues that culturally sensitive music theory and cognition can help maximize music's therapeutic potential by clarifying the variables that influence the accessibility of musical stimuli. Specifically, by complicating the research findings from participant cohorts dominated by members of Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) societies, music theory and cognition can illuminate how cultural context impacts the manner and extent to which listeners derive therapeutic benefit from musical structures. This suggests that there is fertile ground for future collaborative work between music therapists, cognitivists, and theorists