The Inner Music and Wellbeing Network

What does it mean to imagine music? Imagining music in one's head is a common experience (Bailes, 2015). Yet relatively little is known about how this aspect of our shared humanity relates to our wider wellbeing. The innovative 'Inner Music and Wellbeing Network' represents the first interdisciplinary collaboration to address this question.

'Musical imagery' (MI) can be defined as a mentally generated representation of musical sound. There has been a tendency for MI research to separately focus on either clinical cases of musical hallucinations (e.g. Coebergh et al., 2015), on everyday 'earworms' (research led by music psychology), or on voluntary MI (e.g. in creative practice).

MI has also been a source of inspiration in the arts and literature, while a humanities approach has been adopted by scholars in cultural history (Kennaway, 2015) and philosophy (Priest, 2022). But the challenge of capturing the complexity of MI and wellbeing experience calls for a collaborative response across disciplinary boundaries. An interdisciplinary approach can inform and invigorate research on the intricate question of how human beings relate to the music in their mind's ear, with its consequences and potential for wellbeing.

The project aims to develop a set of interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the range and significance of MI and wellbeing experience across contexts and communities. To achieve this, the main objectives are to generate new knowledge about MI and wellbeing by joining across disciplinary boundaries for the first time, and to broaden understanding of the ways in which MI plays a role in the lives of different communities.

The network will promote exchange between people researching clinical and non-clinical manifestations of MI and develop knowledge about their inter-relationship. By working together, we can begin to identify cultural differences in perceptions of, and attitudes towards, inner music in diverse contexts. One applied objective is to work collaboratively to identify treatment and prevention ideas for those who experience intrusive MI, and conversely to develop the intentional use of MI as a beneficial intervention (e.g. as a positive distractor, to aid sleep).

The network's activity will stimulate discussion from arts, humanities, social science, and clinical perspectives, allow scholars to see how research on inner music and wellbeing can impact on their own work, and facilitate collaborative partnerships in the UK and abroad. It will be driven by questions such as: What cultural differences exist in how we feel about MI?

What can MI researchers in different areas learn from and with each other about imagination and wellbeing? What opportunities exist for arts and humanities researchers to collaborate with clinical practitioners to support people who suffer from intrusive MI?

Network events (workshop and themed webinars) are designed to progress from 'sandpit' exploration through thematic dialogue (driven by a co-produced set of network research questions) to a final International Symposium, new collaborative funding proposals, and the main academic output of a multidisciplinary edited volume. A website will present the outcomes from the network activities, including a curated collection of examples of musical imagery in the arts and literature, musical imagery testimonials from diverse contributors, and an open-source Bibliography.

Project partner Elysium Theatre Company will contribute to the network's activity to inform a public performance of scenes from plays which feature MI, at the International Symposium. In partnership with non-academic participants, the network will enable the co-creation of a new interdisciplinary research agenda to 1) further theoretical understanding of the relationship between MI and wellbeing, and 2) enhance applied research to benefit clinical practice and lead to recommendations for health (e.g., sleep, with project partner The Sleep Charity).