Schwerpunktthema III
Harmonizing conflict and chaos: A musical model for enhancing communication between Arabs and Jews in Israel
Avi Gilboa
Parts of this article are based on or adapted from Gilboa, A. (2016). Let’s talk music – A model for enhancing intercultural communication: Trying to understand why and how music
helps. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 16(1). We thank the journal editorial board for giving their permission to use these materials in this article.
I would like to thank Laura Venturi and Christine Decker-Voigt for helping with the production of this article, including adapting parts of it from a previous article I published, and making adjustments to the formatting of this journal.
Introduction
In developing the Let’s Talk Music model, I sought to promote dialogue, openness, and mutual understanding among people from different cultural backgrounds through structured group work centred on music. First implemented with immigrant and native-born students, the model showed that participation in a music therapy group fostered greater acceptance of cultural differences while strengthening awareness of both one’s own cultural roots and those of others.
Since then, the model has been adapted to a range of multicultural settings and specifically, to bi-cultural groups involving Jewish and Arab participants in Israel1 (Gilboa, 2016). These experiences prompted broader questions about music’s social role and the processes through which musical experiences can facilitate intercultural communication. Rather than assuming
that music naturally brings people together, the model examines how musical identities are formed, how they shape relationships, and how they may become a basis for dialogue and mutual recognition.
Music as a Unifier and a Divider
Music is often described as a universal language because it exists in every known culture and accompanies human life across historical and social contexts. Its capacity to evoke emotions, create shared experiences, and strengthen interpersonal bonds suggests that it can provide common ground for communication across linguistic, national, and cultural boundaries.
Yet music also has a less visible social dimension. Precisely because it is deeply embedded in cultural life, it contributes not only to solidarity within groups but also to distinctions between them. As DeNora (2000) argues, music helps shape social identities, reflects cultural values, and may reinforce stereotypes, hierarchies, and processes of inclusion and exclusion. Likewise, Garofalo (2010) observes that the same force capable of inspiring love, unity, and belonging may also reinforce hostility, division, and exclusion. Music therefore has the potential both to connect people and to separate them.
At the individual level, musical preferences are equally significant. The music people choose to listen to, perform, or reject reflects personal history as well as cultural belonging. Musical
taste becomes an expression of identity, while rejected or unfamiliar music may reveal equally meaningful social and cultural attitudes. Every individual therefore develops a distinctive musical identity that includes not only preferred music, but also music that is rejected or remains unfamiliar.
Recognising these dynamics is central to the Let’s Talk Music model. Rather than assuming that music automatically creates harmony, the model acknowledges that musical differences may reveal underlying cultural tensions. At the same time, these differences provide opportunities for dialogue. By exploring musical identities within a supportive group environment, participants are encouraged to examine their assumptions, become curious about unfamiliar musical traditions, and develop greater openness towards people whose cultural experiences differ from their own.
A Configuration of Musical Identity
The concept of musical identity provides the theoretical foundation of the model. Based on repeated observations in multicultural groups, it can be understood as comprising four interconnected components.
The first, My Music, includes the music a person enjoys and regards as part of his or her identity. These preferences reflect personal experience, emotional memories, and individual taste.
The second, My Culture’s Music, refers to music representing one’s cultural background, even when it is not part of everyday listening. People often become aware of this dimension in different cultural environments, where familiar songs and traditions acquire new significance as expressions of identity and belonging.
The third, Other’s Music I Do Not Like, includes music that is known but rejected. Such rejection often reflects more than aesthetic preference; disliked music may symbolise social values, cultural groups, or identities with which a person does not wish to identify. Examining these reactions therefore reveals important aspects of both personal and cultural identity.
Finally, Other’s Music I Do Not Know represents musical traditions that remain unfamiliar. Because unfamiliar music is often perceived as distant or irrelevant, this area reflects unfamiliarity rather than active rejection. Expanding familiarity with previously unknown traditions therefore becomes an important step in broadening one’s musical identity.
Together, these four components show that musical identity is shaped not only by the music people embrace but also by what they reject or have never encountered. This broader understanding underpins the Let’s Talk Music approach.
Bridging Musical Identities
At first glance, the diversity of musical identities seems to challenge the idea that music can facilitate intercultural communication. If musical preferences are closely connected to personal histories and cultural affiliations, different groups may appear more divided than united by music.
The model addresses this apparent contradiction by focusing on experiences shared by all participants. Although musical preferences differ, everyone experiences attachment to certain kinds of music, distinguishes between familiar and unfamiliar musical worlds, and defines part of identity through these preferences. Likewise, everyone listens, and all music—regardless
of style or culture—is organised in some way, whether rhythmically, melodically, harmonically, emotionally, or structurally. These shared experiences provide common ground for dialogue.
Participants are therefore encouraged not to abandon their musical identities but to understand how they have been formed and how they shape perceptions of others. As familiarity with previously unknown traditions increases, music once rejected or ignored may become understood, appreciated, or at least respected. The aim is not to change musical preferences but to broaden understanding of what music means to others. In this way, expanding musical identity gradually reduces the domains of rejection and unfamiliarity while fostering greater openness to cultural difference.
The Let’s Talk Music Model
The model is implemented in groups of participants from different cultural backgrounds and facilitated by one or two music therapists experienced in group processes. It has been applied in multicultural settings as well as in bi-cultural groups bringing together Jewish and Arab participants. Participants are not required to have prior musical background or skills, because the musical activities implemented in the sessions are based on the musicality, creativity, and intuition people hold naturally. Depending on the context, programmes consist of thirteen 4-hour
sessions or twenty-six 2-hour sessions organised in three successive stages.
Establishing a Safe Musical Space
The initial sessions focus on building trust, familiarity, and group cohesion. Through listening exercises and collaborative music-making, participants become acquainted while developing attentive listening and mutual curiosity. Musical activities such as drumming together on a common groove, or learning to call and respond musically, encourage cooperation before more challenging cultural issues emerge.
Learning to distinguish between the objective characteristics of music and personal responses is central to this stage. Simple improvisations also encourage participation regardless of previous musical experience, emphasising that musical expression is accessible to everyone.
Musical Presentations and Cultural Dialogue
The central phase revolves around musical presentations first developed by Dorit Amir, in which each participant prepares a carefully edited and time-limited (e.g., no more than 12 minutes) sequence of meaningful musical excerpts. The sequence functions as a musical autobiography, reflecting personal values, cultural background, and musical identity while encouraging reflection on how one wishes to be represented. In some “Let’s Talk Music” groups, musical presentations are prepared not individually but in Arab-Jewish pairs, thus challenging each pair to find ways to musically co-exist, make space for each other’s music, while also finding place for joint choices.
After each presentation, group members share their impressions before the presenter (or presenters) adds personal insights and impressions about the musical choices in the presentation.
The intended meaning of the music. Such exchanges often reveal previously unnoticed aspects of identity and encourage participants to reconsider both their self-understanding and their perceptions of others. As presentations accumulate, unfamiliar musical traditions become opportunities for curiosity and dialogue rather than distance.
Alongside discussion, participants continue engaging in improvisation, ensemble playing, and other shared musical activities. These experiences reinforce listening, cooperation, and flexibility while allowing interpersonal dynamics to be explored through both music and reflection.
Reflection and Closure
The final stage consolidates the group’s experience and prepares participants for its conclusion. Reflection on personal development, changing perceptions of others, and the role of music helps integrate the group’s experiences and acknowledge the relationships that have developed.
Rather than resolving cultural differences, the programme strengthens participants’ capacity to engage with them openly and respectfully, encouraging dialogue beyond the group itself.
The “Analytical Third”: From “I” vs. “U” to “We”
Building on Jessica Benjamin’s understanding of the “analytical third”, some more light can be shed on Let’s Talk Music and the roles of music in promoting processes of dialogue and expansion. Initially, the concept of the “analytical third” was developed by Jessica Benjamin, to describe a relational space that emerges between analyst and patient during psychoanalysis. It represents a shared intersubjective field—a co-created psychological space where both participants contribute to meaning-making. However, Benjamin (2016) also referred to this concept in the social context of intercultural relations. In this context, when two opposing cultures clash, they are called to find an “analytical third”, which is usually a point of view which can contain both opposites, thus enabling them the space to exist, to explore, and to dialogue.
In Let’s Talk Music this desirable movement to finding the “analytical third” (referred to as the movement from “I” vs. “U”, to an integrated “We”), is done in different ways which can be understood through and manifested by music.2 One way, which is termed “intervals”, takes from the musical idea that when two notes are played together, a third entity, the interval, emerges. This, of course, is also metaphoric: When two opposing cultures or people, or musical styles, let’s refer to them as “I” and “U”, play out together – nonetheless, being aware of
each other – they form a third entity, a “We”, which has its own life and form, and which can thereafter be visited and explored by both “I” and “U”. In Let’s Talk Music this is practiced, among other ways, when drumming together and feeling how it is to play one rhythmical pattern while listening to another, enjoying the musical synergy, and ultimately, taking it as a metaphor for life.
Another way to transform an opposing “I” vs. “U” dynamics into an integrated “We”, is termed “Microtones”. Here, awareness is focused on the fact that between any two points, between any “I” and “U”, lies an infinite number of points, forming a rich continuum of shades. In music, this is clear when one plays all the semitones, and microtones between two notes. Culturally speaking, this can be translated to the different shades and possibilities that exist between the culture of one person and the culture of the other. In Let’s Talk Music, there are many musical activities that provide opportunities for participants to explore their identities, especially by contrasting them with opposing cultures. For instance, when an Arab and a Jew are working on creating a joint musical presentation, they are inevitably looking at each other as points of reference and then exploring different cultural and musical shades that lie in between. It then might strike them that “I” and “U” is partly an illusion.
Discussion
The experiences described here have led me to suggest that the effectiveness of the Let’s Talk Music model derives not from music alone, but from the structured process through which participants explore their own musical identities while encountering those of others. Music provides a medium for attentive listening, reflection, and dialogue, allowing cultural differences to be explored without requiring agreement or consensus.
The model also shows that musical identity is dynamic rather than fixed. As participants become familiar with previously unknown or rejected music, they often reconsider assumptions about themselves and others. This process does not replace existing identities but broadens the range of musical experiences that can be understood, appreciated, or respected. In this sense, expanding musical identity may also encourage greater flexibility in social relationships (DeNora, 2000).
Unlike approaches based primarily on verbal discussion, Let’s Talk Music begins with shared musical experience. Music enables participants to express personal and cultural meanings that may be difficult to articulate in words, creating a basis for dialogue that is later deepened through reflection and conversation. Music also offers possibilities of “singing” two different identities together and being mindful of the interval, the “third” that evolves from that. Music also enables one to explore the infinite musical shades (i.e., musical cultures and styles) that can exist between any two musical identities, be they as far and contrasting as they are. Finally, musical activities can bring forth the commonalities that contrasting musical identities might have, especially when listening beyond the obvious, and noticing that different musical styles and cultures, are sometimes surprisingly similar in shape, form, texture, or pattern. Indeed, throughout the programme, the emphasis remains on listening, mutual recognition, and openness to different perspectives so that musical identities might be expanded, and acceptance of others and self can be broadened.
Conclusion
In this article I have argued that music can contribute to intercultural communication. The answer does not lie in viewing music as a universal language that eliminates differences, but in its
capacity to create a structured space where differences can be expressed, explored, and negotiated with curiosity and respect. At the same time, the social power of music may foster both
inclusion and exclusion, depending on how musical identities are enacted (Garofalo, 2010).
Through musical presentations, attentive listening, discussion, and shared musical experiences, participants examine their own musical identities while encountering those of others. Rather than promoting consensus or replacing one identity with another, the model encourages recognition of multiple perspectives and a broader understanding of what music means across cultures.
These processes also reflect the philosophical perspectives of Charles Taylor who argues that identity develops through dialogue and that mutual recognition is essential to individual and collective well-being (Taylor, 1994). Let’s Talk Music translates these ideas into practice by encouraging participants to question habitual ways of listening, encounter alternative perspectives, and recognise the legitimacy of different musical identities. In a psychoanalytical stance, Jessica Benjamin’s social approach to “the analytical third” can be adopted. When “I” and “U” manage to form a third perspective – they turn controversy and duality into a meeting point for dialogue and growth.
Ultimately, the model does not seek to resolve cultural differences but to strengthen participants’ capacity to engage with them constructively. The listening, recognition, and dialogical skills developed within the group may extend beyond it, contributing to more open, respectful, and constructive relationships in everyday life.
References
Benjamin, J. (2016). Moving beyond violence: What we learn from two former combatants about the transition from aggression to recognition. In P. Gobodo-Madikizela (Ed.), Breaking intergenerational cycles of repetition: A global dialogue on historical trauma and memory (pp. 71–89). Barbara Budrich Publishers. https://doi.org/10.3224/84740613.
DeNora, T. (2000). Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Garofalo, R. (2010). Politics, mediation, social context and public use. In J. Shepherd, D. Horn, D. Laing, P. Oliver, & P. Wicke (Eds.), Handbook of Music and Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gilboa, A. (2016). Let’s Talk Music: A Model for Enhancing Intercultural Communication: Trying to Understand Why and How Music Helps. Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 16(1).
Taylor, C. (1994). The Politics of Recognition. In A. Gutmann (Ed.), Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (pp. 25–73). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.