The Old School Music Therapist

I am an old music therapist. I am getting ready to retire from my full-time job as a school-based music therapist in a psychiatric treatment facility and associated day school after almost 30 years there. I have been around a long time.

My music therapy heroes are starting to pass away.

Barbara Wheeler was one of those music therapy heroes who left this world this week. After a long career in academia, she "retired" and started more music therapy programs and acted as a consultant for programs around the world. She seemed to spend more time with other music therapists than she did at home, and that is the type of music therapy life that I am striving for myself.

Another music therapy pioneer passed away. Dr. Roy Grant, a music therapist from Georgia, also left our world on January 24th. His music therapy legacy comes in training students and expanding music therapy services for the people in the vicinity of the University of Georgia. Coming to the profession of music therapy after studying church music, Dr. Grant appears to have become a music therapist at the same time he was earning his Ph.D.

I wonder how many of us have kept in touch with our music therapy mentors. I haven't, mainly because I have grown away from the types of things that they seemed to feel that I should do rather than what I wanted and continue to want for my life. That's okay. It is fine to grow beyond what others think for you.

I have music therapy heroes, and they are starting to leave us. 

It is important to get as much of their wisdom, knowledge, and history as possible as there will be times when we are the heroes.

Will we be able to continue their legacies?

Will we want to continue their legacies?

Lots of questions on this quiet, cold Wednesday morning. Be careful out there, folks, and think about your music therapy heroes.

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