Now What? Sinking Into More Thoughts About the Future of Music Therapy

After I finished my stint as a moderator at the MAR AMTA conference yesterday, I had to get away from my computer for a while, so I went back to my bedroom and did some writing. If you've been reading this blog over the past couple of months, I've been working on a vision of the future of music therapy education (Look for Persephone in the labels). It is completely based on nothing other than some articles and thoughts that are out there in the world and then my own imaginings, but it is a bit of an exercise to identify the things that I wish we did and taught in the course of music therapy education and clinical training.

Unfortunately, I am kinda stuck in my creative writing right now. I have my protagonist situated into her initial music therapy education process, but I don't know what I should be writing about to get her to her final role in my music therapy future. I do know who she will be in the larger story, but she has to get there somehow. I am flitting back and forth between Persephone's story and the bigger tale that is rattling around in my brain.

Yesterday, I sat down and started to outline some of the things and courses and experiences that I think will inform Persephone's journey from music therapy graduate student to her final role in my bigger universe.

(One of the best things about writing fiction is that you can design worlds - places, people, things - that aren't present here and now,)

The first thing that I have already established is Persephone's first semester of classes. She is currently taking the following courses:

1. The Continuum of Music and Humanity
2. Building Repertoire: Music From the Turn of the Century - Hip-Hop, Country, Pop, and Rock - Music for Older Adults
3. Beginning Clinical Musicianship - Guitar, Keyboard, and Holographic Transmission
4. Clinical Observation - Holographic Therapy Practicum Observation

I have decided that four courses per semester would be more than enough, especially since these courses are not just an hour of contact per week. Each course is (in my brain) between 3-4 credit hours per semester. Each class meets two times per week with two classes per day - one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Classes are split between large lectures, smaller lectures, and laboratory interactions. I know that I want clinical musicianship and clinic to play a major part in the education of these music therapy learners. As well, I am trying to figure out what sort of prerequisites are part of this new educational format. Persephone has an undergraduate degree in Music Psychology, so I am making the decision that she doesn't need to focus on building musicianship, music theory knowledge, or her general liberal arts requirements.

Once you can strip away the "other" things that are part of a higher education (by assuming that they have been completed), you can focus on the profession-specific knowledge that has to be learned.

So, what do I want Persephone to learn? For this, I am going to be looking to the current AMTA professional competencies and the advanced competencies. I will also be researching what WFMT has to say about education and clinical training to inform my own thoughts. I want this to be a bit based in the reality of now, but I also want to dream big for our profession. I foresee that electronic therapy will become more prevalent in our music therapy practices, so the competencies will evolve to accommodate those changes.

So, the other courses that I have developed include Neuroscience of Music, Kinesiology of Musical Behavior; Music In Therapy, and Music As Therapy. The Continuum of Music and Humanity will be expanded into two courses - parts one and two. There will be five clinic courses (not including the observation course of this first semester), and population-specific lectures for the next five semesters as well. The last year is an apprenticeship - off-site and under the supervision of a music therapist. The apprenticeship includes food and board and a small salary, and it lasts for an entire year. The apprenticeship has to be completed before the degree and title can be conferred upon the learner.

One of the things that I hope for the future music therapists is that we can come to a set list of competencies that we want all music therapists in the world to demonstrate in their education before they go off to their clinical training internship and a set list of competencies that we want all interns to demonstrate before they go out into the world to be music therapists. I want skills as competencies, not opinions or philosophies (other than encouraging students to have those things).

Perhaps my next step is to dive back into the competencies that we have now and making them my own.

For the record, I have wanted to be part of the competency committee - the group of people who talk about these competencies and suggests revisions - for a very long time, so this is completely something that I love to do. The best thing about writing fiction is that I do not have to do anything by committee, I can make up my own mind and make that universe a reality for my future music therapists.

Here's your chance to chime in - if you have made it to the end of this post, would you leave a comment about what course title you think my future music therapy program HAS to include? After that, tell me the name of the professor that would teach that course. Thanks!