Do You use Music Therapy?

LanaBanana · Mar 2, 2006

Oooh! I wanted to be a music therapist all through high school! I would think kids would be more responsive to it than the adults.

spaniel · Mar 3, 2006

You might try contacting the American Music Therapy Association or the Arts in Therapy Network. I know that in NY State, there is now a credential (license) for those with an approved master's in certain creative arts fields. Isn't that great!Frankly, it's this type of work that makes for a good psych facility.

When I did inpatient work I also incorporated the use of drawing murals while listening to music. Good luck. I wish more psychiatric places would foster nurses' work in the creative arts.

romie · Apr 2, 2006

I posted the following in another thread:

I studied music therapy at the graduate level. Perhaps I can shed some light on this highly misunderstood allied healthcare field. According to the American Music Therapy Association:

Music Therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program.

In order to call yourself a music therapist, you have to complete at minimum fours years of college at an accredited music therapy school. The course work is very intense- you have to take lots of music theory classes, music history classes, music literature classes. You need to audition on your major instrument, whether it is voice, winds, piano, strings, etc. You need to learn how to play every orchestral instrument and demonstrate proficency on them, including piano and guitar. You need to be able to sight-sing, which is a complex skill in which you sing on sight and command an unfamiliar piece of music. You need to be able to hear a piece of music and write down all of the pitches and rhythms on a score. In addition to course work in which you master all of these skills, you have a weekly clinical in which you conduct music sessions in a group setting. Each session plan takes at least 8 hours to prepare and has to be approved by your clinical supervisor. Finally, after completing your course work, you are required to complete a 6 month, full time and usually unpaid internship. The internship sites are very limited an almost always require students to relocate to the other side of the country. Finally, after the internship you sit for a national exam and earn you earn the following credential: MT-BC (music therapist, board certified). Only then can you call yourself a music therapist.

There are so many uninformed people and organizations out there calling themselves music therapist and what they do music therapy. If you do not hold the MT-BC credential but call yourself a music therapist, you are slapping the face of every music therapist who spent years in school, thousands of dollars on tuition, instruments and spent all that unpaid time in clinicals and internships. Please do not do it. I know of plenty of organizations that falsely market themselves as providing music therapy when all they really have is an unlicensed assistive person with a boom box and elevator music. Think about how hard you worked for your nursing credentials and be sure to give the same respect to your allied healthcare professionals. This information holds true for Art Therapists, Dance Therapists and other creative arts therapists.

CharlieRN · Apr 7, 2006

Romie, Thankyou for the info. If I had not seen it I would have answered, "Sure we do music therapy." The h*ll we do. We have some tapes of relaxing music and a few tape players pts can use.

Where is music therapy done? And what is treated with it? Seems like an awful amt of training for an auxilliary therapy. After you do all that you should be getting big bucks. I know a bit about the use of art therapy as a dx told in cases of repressed trauma memories but what do you do with music tx? It must be more than just help people relax.

romie · Apr 9, 2006

The applications of music therapy vary widely according to your patient goals and your techniques. It is important to illicit musical behaviors from your patients in the course of treatments or sessions. Musical behaviors are specific. The following is a sample list of musical behaviors.

Playing a musical instrument by striking a membrane, plucking or bowing a string, focusing a column of air through a tube, or pressing a key.

Writing song lyrics or song text or composing a score.

Singing

Listening carefully to discriminate between high pitched sounds and low pitched sounds.

Familiar or preferred music can serve as an excellent motivator. Instead of punishing someone in the course of behavior modification, music can be removed if it is a pleasing stimulus and reapplied when the negative behavior stops.

Ever attend an aerobic’s class without music? Some music with a lively beat and compelling rhythm can help coordinate physical movements. Why more physical therapists don’t use music in their treatment is beyond me. Pleasing waltzes can motivate and help elderly patients coordinate their movements better in their exercise classes.

There is a wonderful music therapy technology called "Sound Beam" that uses infrared beams to create an invisible instrument in the air. Simply waving a body part, be it a floppy head of a child with poor neck muscle control or the paralyzed arm of a stroke patient, will create pitches and rhythms. Since it is attached to a MIDI, you can input any sound into it. I’ve seen amazing work done with stroke victims who were motivated by this invisible instrument.

Playing wind instruments including the clarinet, recorder or harmonica can be excellent treatments for people with respiratory problems. Wind instruments will increase your lung capacity and improve breath control. Being able to play a favorite melody on a wind instrument is excellent feedback and gives great incentives. Since the harmonica can be played by sucking in air, it might actually replace an incentive spirometer.

Some people who have been victimized– survivors of rape or violence, survivors of child abuse or domestic violence– can sometimes find it easier to express their feelings by writing their own lyrics to familiar songs. The process of putting down words on paper about your abuse experience and then learning to sing those lyrics and then finally sharing it with your therapy group and having them clap for you afterwards can be a tremendously affirming experience. Song writing can accomplish more in two sessions then months of talk therapy, in some cases.

There are many populations that have been served well by music therapy, including children, infants in neonatal care, individuals with developmental disabilities, psych patients, the elderly and many others. Most music therapist are employed by schools, long term care centers, and programs for people with developmental disabilities.

Unfortunately, the pay for music therapist is very low. The average national salary, according to the American Music Therapy Source Book, is $42,000. There aren’t a lot of music therapy jobs out there.