Synthesis Sunday

Here we go again - time to change the Sunday post focus.

(I tend to get bored with my Sunday topics much more frequently than the Tuesday or Friday topics for some reason. It's curious to me, but I can't figure out why this happens.)

I've been spending time reading my music therapy textbooks - both new and old. I take notes when I do this, because I am a visual learner with touches of kinesthetic learning - if I read it and then write it, it gets into my brain twice. I am able to remember it pretty well. 

Anyway.

I have several notebooks full of notes and thoughts and assimilations and ideas. So, why not use them on these Sundays.

Now, I haven't really transferred this into reading the music therapy journals, but I should. If you are interested in journal-type discussions, head over to Janice Lindstrom's BlogTalkRadio. She and Meganne Masko spend some time talking about current research on a regular basis. This month's podcast is about Music Therapy Perspectives, and I highly recommend their discussions (as well as everything else that Janice presents on her podcast).

Again. Anyway.

So, today I will kick off this new series with some of my thoughts about A Comprehensive Guide to Music Therapy: Theory, Clinical Practice, Research and Training by Tony Wigram, Inge Nygaard Pedersen, and Lars Ole Bonde. This book was published in 2004 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. The entire APA reference is included at the end of this post.

I started reading this text in May 2014 when I was thinking quite a bit about how much "Stuff" we music therapists need to know about music, about humans, and about how music and humans interact. I chose this book because I find that I really enjoy readings from Tony Wigram. I find his writings easy to understand and apply to my own clinical practice. Here are the thoughts that I found particularly relevant to me.

page 11 - "music therapy has developed as a clinically applied treatment administered by trained professionals where the development of graduate and post-graduate level training and clinical practice has resulted in qualified and recognized practitioners."

When I look at this statement, I start to see parts of a definition of music therapy emerge. "Music therapy is a clinically applied treatment administered by trained practitioners..."

page 11 - "the therapist is actively using music-making through the medium of clinical improvisation in order to establish a musical relationship with the patients through which he or she will be able to help them understand the nature of their problem."

This part of the conversation seems to focus more on the therapist than on the client. I'm not comfortable with that as part of the definition, but it is an interesting take on our profession.

All of this is just from the introduction. We haven't even started into the chapters yet.

Synthesis: I am interested in how we define ourselves. For me, the idea about a definition of music therapy always starts and stops with the writings of Kenneth Bruscia. I'll save his book for a later post. It seems that we all want a definition of music therapy that is easy to say, easy to understand, and easy to explain to others. The issue that we have is that our job is not easy to define. How can we find the words that encompass both a music therapist who is using music for sound-assisted childbirth and a music therapist who is doing community music therapy? As such, our definitions - the words we can all agree on about what we do and who we do it with - are often unsatisfying. Our definitions do not offer satisfaction. They just increase our quest for a definition.

Now, I don't think that Wigram, Nygaard Pedersen, and Bonde meant to offer parts of a definition, but that's how I perceived those particular statements. (At the time, I was looking for a universal definition of music therapy. It's interesting that our own needs often provide the filter for how we read and synthesize information. I bet I would think a bit differently about this right now.)

Has anyone else read this book? Any comments that you have about the introduction? Please share with me! 


Wigram, T., Nygaard Pedersen, I., & Bonde, L. O. (2004). A comprehensive guide to music therapy: Theory, clinical practice, research and training. London: Jessica Kingsley.

Comments

  1. Thanks for opening this conversation. Trying to find a singular definition of our profession across all settings and populations is highly unlikely. For me, defining what it is in the settings where I work is key.

    Given the diverse definitions of "music" and the composers who have attempted to stretch the boundaries, I'm ok with our diverse definitions.

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    Replies
    1. I agree that it is unlikely that we can find a good definition for what we all do in our various locations, settings, populations, and theoretical formats, yet we continue to try. We also tend to debate this on a cyclical basis - every two or three years the idea comes back up.

      Do you think we could ever come to a beginning definition - something that we all do, believe, use? Is there something that defines us all regardless of our personal settings? I wonder...

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