ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the phenomenon of music and silence as incorporating an unfolding communicative act between people, rather than from a view of music existing as an object for study within a written score. In the UK, music therapy is a health profession with registered status and governmental accreditation. In music therapy sessions, a range of musical and psychological applied theory is used by the therapist in order to respond appropriately to the client, central to which is the complexity of a developing therapeutic relationship. Working with the idea of an everlasting silence from which music is born and into which it dies can help to create a sense of endless time within music itself. Composers agreeing with this perspective affirm that their music emerges from spiritual and philosophical discourses. Arvo Part is one composer holding the mixture of personal motivation and theoretical thinking.
