The 2020 Cabinet Office survey on 'Trends in Well-being in Japan' revealed little convincing information beyond the finding that younger generations reported lower 'life satisfaction. ' This highlights the challenge of defining well-being, as it is a state denoted by the '-ing' suffix, making it as elusive to define as 'music. ' To gain a deeper understanding of well-being, I explored the concept of human existence in the 'here and now. ' My investigation revealed that humans live by continuously progressing from past to present to future, experiencing, thinking, choosing, self-determining, and expressing themselves in the intervals between. This process necessitates individual will, with education and learning serving as the arena for these experiences. In this paper, I examined episodes from music therapy to explore the importance of actively living between dichotomies such as pleasure/displeasure and good/bad, drawing on various theories of developmental psychology. While I was unable to reach a definitive conclusion about well-being, the findings suggest the importance of existing in the space between 'well' and 'ill,' holding universal values necessary for living in the present, and actively pursuing well-being to connect with future generations.

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In recent years, participatory art has emerged as a significant form of cultural policy practice, often linked to social benefits. In the field of contemporary art, much discussion has taken place regarding the role of participatory art, including critiques that it reflects instrumentalism within cultural policy. However, the discourse surrounding participatory music remains underdeveloped. This paper explores the genealogy of participatory practices in cultural policy and examines how audience participation is understood within participatory music. First, this study confirms that participation in cultural policy is understood in a multi-dimensional manner, encompassing both broad and narrow forms of engagement. Broad participation includes activities such as volunteering, while narrow participation refers to audience or performer involvement in events like concerts or performances. This dual understanding highlights the layered nature of cultural participation. In this discussion, further perspectives on audience participation have been identified, including those that perceive the audience and the act of listening as passive, as well as those that view participation as a means of transforming these into active experiences. Additionally, a perspective that sees the act of listening itself as active—considering it a form of participation through listening —has also been recognized. Furthermore, concepts like 'musicking' have emerged, challenging the traditional dichotomy between performing and listening, positioning music as a more inclusive practice and serving as a basis for contemporary discussions. Finally, the paper argues that the current participatory practices in the arts, which aim to foster active audience engagement, should be approached with careful consideration. Drawing on Rancière’s notion of the emancipated spectator and Sontag’s critique of over-interpretation, it is emphasized that more nuanced discussions are necessary to develop participatory art practices that embrace diverse forms of audience participation. The paper concludes that further exploration of these practices is essential for broadening the scope of audience engagement in participatory music.

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This study explored whether words generated in a setting where individuals from diverse backgrounds discuss their favorite music could constitute a form of art and whether this activity could contribute to the participants’ well-being. Based on the records of the “Café Music of Philosophy,” workshops that were held in March and October 2023, we analyzed the creativity of the space where words are exchanged by voice, focusing on the actual interactions, discussions, and atmosphere that took place at the workshop, through literature review. Based on the results, we further discussed whether workshop activities lead to participants' well-being, mainly in terms of opportunities to deepen connections with others and in terms of functioning as a place for self-expression. We conducted the research at a workshop in Hirosaki City, aimed at creating a music community and organized by three graduate students, each focusing on a distinct theme. At the “Café Music of Philosophy,” attendees presented their favorite music and endeavored to share it through verbal expression. Modern Western aesthetics typically overlooks the language that ordinary audiences use to describe music, leading to a dichotomy between “form” and “content.” The discussion also touched on the historical development of subtexts from Plato, Aristotle, the Enlightenment, Marx, and Freud, described as “the revenge of the intellect on the arts.” Arguing for the potential of words as forms that approach the event itself, the workshop emphasized everyday discussions about music. Participants of varying ages, occupations, and nationalities transcended their usual roles, engaging with unfamiliar music, which sparked new insights and philosophical dialogues that challenged conventional “answers.” These interactions, previously uncommon in their daily lives, allowed participants to encounter new music and gain fresh perspectives. An analysis of the conversation flow, atmosphere, and shared moments concluded that the event offered a unique “verbal experience,” paralleling oral traditions in cultures where words are shared as voices, thus establishing the site as a venue for artistic creation. Furthermore, the workshop fostered connections between participants and the collaborative creation of dialogue, suggesting its potential to contribute to the realization of well-being.

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This paper reexamines the act of “listening” from the perspective of sound amplification through field recording practicesgrounded in Marshall McLuhan's (1987) principle of bodily extension in media theory and his perspective on human “sensory numbness.” It attempts to explore the act of “listening” through the bodily sensory perceptions confirmed in this process. For example, the speaker, in the sense that it extends the human voice, is a medium as McLuhan would describe it. Here, the extension of the voice simultaneously involves detaching one's own voice from one's own body, extending oneself into something that is not oneself. In other words, it externalizes one's own sensory perception and seeks a new equilibrium by substituting the voice from the speaker for one's own body. At that moment, the amplified voice is perceived as a metaphor and embracing it generates a new physical equilibrium. This metaphorical interpretation obscures the very change the speaker brings about: the change of making the voice resonate loudly. Drawing on these perspectives, I conducted field recordings in familiar environments. Through the practice of capturing the relationship between amplified sound and the sound perceived by my own body, I confirmed aspects of what McLuhan described as “sensory paralysis.” While a microphone is a device that converts air vibrations of sound into electrical signals and amplifies them, it also introduces sounds and directionality typically inaudible to the human ear. Among all sound phenomena, the physical sensations brought by amplified sound manifest as a kind of strangeness in field recordings when juxtaposed with the everyday act of “listening.” By attending to what is lost and transformed through processes of amplification, this study reveals listening not merely as passive auditory reception but as an embodied and expressive act of negotiating sensory equilibrium between the self, technology, and environment. From this perspective, well-being can be reconsidered not simply as psychological comfort or subjective happiness, but as a dynamic process of rebalancing bodily perception within mediated sonic environments. Through field recording practices, the study ultimately explores how renewed awareness of sensory numbness may open possibilities for more reflective and relational forms of listening in contemporary soundscapes.

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The purpose of this study is to examine the possibility of improving students’ well-being through music education using the perspective of “sound education” proposed by R. M. Schafer. The term “well-being” has been essential to our collective understanding of health. The term “well-being” was first used by the World Health Organization (WHO) in its definition of health in 1946: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Similarly, contemporary organizations continue to emphasize this point, as exemplified by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which highlights individual and collective well-being in its OECD Learning Compass 2030 project. According to the OECD, well-being is a common destination shared by children, teachers, families, and communities. Improvements in one’s quality of life, as indicated by aspects such as social connections and environmental quality, are essential to well-being. In this context, the well-being that children need is not simply the acquisition of knowledge and skills through the memorization of textbooks; rather, it emerges from children being allowed to think about and develop better social connections and improve the quality of their environment in collaboration with their teachers, families, and communities. Therefore, this study focuses on the sounds surrounding the environment before music is relativized and trivialized using words. Sound education classes in junior high schools in Japan were analyzed using ethnography, and their usefulness and effectiveness in improving student well-being were discussed. Based on our analysis, the following two conclusions were drawn: first, sound education was found to lead to improvements in aspects of quality of life, including social connections and environmental quality; second, our findings indicate that addressing the issues within music education, such as students becoming discouraged because of technical complexity or music being isolated from other subjects, leads to an increase in students’ well-being. In other words, sound education is one way of pursuing the betterment of the students’ well-being in music education, focusing on their connection with society and the quality of the environment.

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In today’s data-driven society, as digital spaces continue to gain prominence, opportunities for face-to-face communication are increasingly being lost, particularly within local communities. The philosopher Richard Rorty argued that a sense of “we” is necessary in order to sustain and preserve community. How, then, might such a sense become possible today? Drawing on Rorty’s metaphor of the “bazaar and the club,” which distinguishes between the roles of public and private spaces and emphasizes that both are necessary for fostering rich forms of “conversation” within society, this keynote lecture examines these contemporary challenges.

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In this dialogue, building on the perspectives of “we-us” and “conversation” presented in Heechul Ju’s keynote lecture, we will examine the relationship between schools and local communities in regions experiencing extreme population decline. In particular, we will address the weakening of ties between schools and communities caused by school consolidation and closures, as well as the difficulty young teachers face in settling into their workplaces and local areas and consider how these issues affect well-being. By rethinking schools not merely as public institutions but as spaces in which human relationships can be reconfigured and renewed, this discussion seeks to explore the possibility of recovering a sense of “we” within local communities.

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In today’s data-driven society, as digital spaces continue to gain prominence, opportunities for face-to-face communication are increasingly being lost, particularly within local communities. The philosopher Richard Rorty argued that a sense of “we” is necessary in order to sustain and preserve community. How, then, might such a sense become possible today? Drawing on Rorty’s metaphor of the “bazaar and the club,” which distinguishes between the roles of public and private spaces and emphasizes that both are necessary for fostering rich forms of “conversation” within society, this keynote lecture examines these contemporary challenges.

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