TME Tuesday: Music as a Therapeutic Element for the Music Therapist

I am not a music therapist who rushes to the car to fill it up with music. I just do not. When I am finished with my job, I am finished with most music. I would rather listen to a television show or a movie than a song of any type.

This is something that gives me some sort of shame - as a music therapist. Should (GOBLIN!) I listen to music all the time? Shouldn't music play a HUGE role in my non-work life? Ah, bring on the goblins. I often spend most of the time trying to avoid placing shame on myself for this particular fact, but that's just something that is part of me.

I love music - I really do, but I do not feel the need to immerse myself in music 24/7. I just don't want to have to spend most of my relaxation time listening to music because I just don't listen. I analyze. 

When I am listening to music, I usually have a part of my brain going through some classification processes. What is the chord structure? Is this song something that my clients would respond to? Does the lyric structure work with some of the goals that my clients bring to me? It is very hard to separate myself from my life as a music therapist.

As a result, I tend to limit my music listening to times when I really need it or when I can listen to songs that have deep personal meaning to me - separate from my experiences with my clients. I just do not find it possible to relax to music.

So, I don't.

I tend to respond better to musical elements that are not pitch-related (well, as much as melody and harmonic structures are linked to pitch). I would rather have the rhythms of speech, the pitch of speech, and the patterns of communication around me. I find the sounds of human conversation more relaxing than music. My brain relaxes into sleep when I put on a familiar television show - it has to be familiar to me, though. New shows are not relaxing - they demand my attention!

I love thinking about how the brain sorts through various stimuli to determine what is the most important. When I am trying to relax, the sounds of speech and conversation and interstitial music to enhance the conversation are something to focus on and to keep my brain occupied as I fall into repose. The familiar sounds help me brain stop ruminating on situations that keep me awake at night. I can switch my attention from thoughts about my family or about work or about my near and faraway futures to listening to the ramblings of entertainment.

That is how I relax.

...and, I am constantly trying to be okay with that fact.