Dialectical Polarities
Toward a Theory of Oscillation in Sound Healing
This is the first post in a series where I explore the phenomenon of oscillation—the movement between poles—as a felt sense, a contemplative method, and a theoretical foundation for sound healing. My intention is to bring more clarity, direction, and intellectual rigor to a field that often lacks grounding, while deepening our understanding of how sound can become a vehicle for transformation.
Today, I begin with a thinker whose work brilliantly articulates the inner tensions of improvisation, embodiment, and relational experience: the Norwegian pianist, composer, and improviser Tord Gustavsen.
Dialectical Polarities
To probe the relational challenges and opportunities of musicking, Gustavsen juxtaposes a set of dialectical tensions found in child development, sexuality, and musical improvisation. He uses these to articulate what he calls the “dialectical eroticism of improvisation” (Gustavsen, 2008).
The polarities include:
Moment vs. duration
Difference vs. sameness
Gratification vs. frustration
Stability vs. stimulation
Closeness vs. distance
These oppositions illuminate the dynamic tensions that shape human relating and creative expression. Each polarity can generate dynamic flow—a living interplay of forces within time—or can become frozen, locked in uncreative opposition.
Gustavsen writes:
“…each polarity or dilemma comes with a set of dynamic potential, and a set of dangers. Dangers threaten when dialectics are frozen—that is, when there is no creative movement, when the flow of relations (or the flow of music) is stalled in repetitive conflict. Dialectical potential, on the other hand, lies in dynamic resolution of conflict, and in fruitful integration of opposing forces. And—importantly—we are not aiming here for the dullness of a ‘middle way’… You need to really embrace and explore each side of every paradox, but in ways that don’t bring about the frozenness and the repetitive conflicts.” (p. 3)
This perspective reframes improvisation. Instead of imagining musical improvisation as a quest for unity, transcendence, or oneness, Gustavsen directs us toward process: the living practice of holding tension between opposites, moment by moment, in relationship.
Improvisation as Contemplative Inquiry
Seeing free improvisation through this dialectical lens allows us to recognize it as a form of contemplative inquiry—a practice that reveals the dynamics of relationship, identity, and presence.
One polarity Gustavsen explores is difference vs. sameness:
“Coming to terms with being separate and being connected… developing dialectical ways of being fulfilled in individuality through tight connections, and being relaxed in connected belonging through the acquisition of secure separateness—these are basic challenges for the infant’s forming of a self.” (pp. 7–8)
In improvisation, this tension becomes palpable.
The improviser must feel a sense of unity or oneness with the music while simultaneously perceiving it as something outside the self. Each musician must hold her own intentions, strategies, and aesthetic commitments—her difference—while also surrendering to something larger.
Gustavsen describes this as a simultaneous pull toward:
individuation—challenging the material, generating new pathways, attending to detail
symbiosis—a childlike devotion to the music, to other bodies, to the sonic environment
This oscillation resonates not just with musical experience, but with inner, relational, and transpersonal domains of life. It asks us to become conscious of the Other—of our projections, our separateness—while also inviting us to explore our shared consciousness and the co-creation of being in-the-moment and in-the-world.
Stierlin (quoted in Gustavsen, 2008) writes:
“Through this work we transcend the narcissism that keeps us from recognizing in the other anything but what is already known and familiar… This work makes us capable of incorporating the other’s difference in us… We become more complex, gaining greater opportunities for developing the relationship and our psychological understanding.” (pp. 8–9)
To improvise with true presence is to practice this dialectical movement.
To work musically with tension is to learn how to work with tension in life.
Improvisation-as-Inquiry for Sound Healing
Gustavsen’s psychological approach to improvisation shines light on the dialectical potentials inherent in all forms of improvisation-as-inquiry—from clinical music therapy to informal jams to sound healing ceremonies.
Through this lens, musicking becomes:
a practice of relational intelligence
a way of recognizing and integrating polarity
a training ground for emotional and spiritual maturation
a vehicle for transformation that mirrors developmental processes
When we understand improvisation in terms of dialectical dilemmas, the creative process reveals itself as a model for human development: dynamic, oscillatory, precarious, and full of opportunities for integration.
This is where I hope to take this series—toward a deeper articulation of oscillation as both felt experience and theoretical foundation for sound healing practice. Toward seeing sound not as a technique, but as a living process of re-patterning, presence, and relational awakening.
More soon.
Great article 👏