Synthesis Sunday: Pavlicevic and Music Therapy Improvisation

I jumped the gun a bit last week - if I had only looked at the chapter after this one, I would have found that there was a natural synthesis break, but I didn't look, so I got in an early synthesis post. Never fear, though, I won't take another synthesis break next week.

This week is dedicated to Chapter Six: In Concert: Improvisation, Cognition and Music Therapy. I have lots of new people to look up from this chapter - Aldridge, Brandt, Sloboda, Davidson, Howe, Meyer, Ansdell, Pressing, Clarke, Cook, West, Howell, Cross, Brown, Serafine, Hargreaves, Sundberg, Lindstrom, and Lee.

This chapter focused on the basics of improvisation from a musical aspect and then from a music therapy aspect - something less tied to music theory and more tied to therapeutic intervention and relationship. I think I finally know why I am so comfortable improvising with my clients and so much less comfortable improvising in jazz band.

One of the things that I like about this book is that Ms. Pavlicevic includes clinical examples of what she is discussing during the chapter. For this chapter, there was an example of a client who could not move from a specific way of playing when presented with music from the therapist. When the therapist shifted her musical style, the client was able to move into meaningful improvisation rather than the set pattern of before. Wow. This is relevant to my own life as a music therapist and my attempts at building relationships with my clients over the years.

For the purposes of this blog, I can't really figure out how to write more about this chapter. It was a bit more technical when it came to discussing elements of improvisation than previous chapters.

I think this chapter boils down to several quotations.

From Sloboda, Davidson, and Howe (1994):

"most members of a culture evolve receptive musical skills through casual exposure to the music of their culture" (p.74) - So members of the culture know musical form even when they haven't learned about how to make that music.

"Musical form comes from 'emotional and relational dictates of the jointly created, therapeutic improvisation' " (p.75).

"Pressing suggests that when there are no agreed upon referents between the players, they are playing in co-existing streams rather than interacting musically" (p.76).

The therapist is "accommodating the client's musical utterances" while the client adds "personal flexibility in being 'interpersonally available' " (p.79).

"Also, in therapeutic improvisation, the therapist is not exclusively in 'musician' mode, so that musical events that make musical sense become redundant in the interests of the therapeutic process" (p.79).

"we perceive not an arbitrary sequence of sounds but hierarchical levels of rhythmic and melodic units" (p. 81)

"The client's cues act as a musical 'trigger' for the therapist, who then weaves the client's offerings, creating and developing a musical style that is the most appropriate and the most congruent with the client's playing" (p.88).

One of the most important thoughts that came out of this chapter for me was that we, music therapists, don't listen or work within music the same way that our clients do or that other musicians do. That isn't a new idea for me, but it is nice to know that someone else sees that we don't do music the same way that others do.

This chapter, more than the other so far, has reinforced some of the thoughts that I have about music therapists and music therapy training. I know that my form of improvisation is much more clinical than theory-based. I found a more formal definition of what I mean when I tell others that I "shape the music around the client." (That's the first quote above from page 79.) 

I am glad that I am going through this book. I like knowing that some of the ideas that I have about all things music therapy are not new - they have been written by others. Then, I start to wonder if my ideas are new at all. I guess they are not, but I know that I have never read this text before, so I haven't received my ideas from Pavlicevic. It is interesting to see that others think the same things that I think...

I am looking forward to Part Two and Chapter Seven - both due next week!

Happy Fall Back Sunday (for those of us in the USA)! Happy Sunday, everyone else!




Pavlicevic, M. (1997). Music therapy in context: Music, meaning and relationship. London: Jessica Kingsley.