What can’t music do?

Abstract

In this article we consider how the question of what music can or cannot do is linked to the kind of light cast upon musical engagement and its outcomes. We describe how a concern with flourishing, as opposed to a concern with more conventional understandings of ‘health’ versus ‘illness’, can help to illuminate some of otherwise invisible processes by which music ‘helps’. We show how the processes by which music ‘helps’ can slip past modes of enquiry associated with more ‘scientific’ and ‘rigorous’ investigate modes. A focus on flourishing challenges more conventional imageries of what comes to count as ‘evidence’ of music’s role in relation to health and well-being.