The Music of Music Therapy

Tambourine held between child and music therapist

The Music of Music Therapy

Dates: 26 - 27 February 2010
Times: 13.00 (Friday) - 17.30 (Saturday)
Venue: Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge

Keynote speakers: Rachel Darnley-Smith, University of Durham; Mercédès Pavlicevic PhD, Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy

Discussions of the clinical process in music therapy have in common their recognition of the value of music as part, or all, of the means of emotional communication and therapeutic exchange. On that basis, music therapists have turned in addition to theoretical ideas drawn from, or held in common with, other therapeutic traditions, such as psychoanalysis or developmental psychology, or from theories related to specific pathologies or client groups.

At this conference we turned our attention to the nature of the music itself:

What is the place of the therapist's own musical 'history' in her work?
What influences the therapist's choice of instruments made available for the therapy?
Are we drawing in our music upon recognisable stylistic conventions? If so, what and why?
How does the client's musical 'history' affect the development of the musical language of the work?
How can we think about the musical nature of an improvisatory encounter in ways which help our overall understanding of the therapeutic process?
What is the place of pre-composed music and other receptive methods?
What is the place of co-composition?
How do musicological, aesthetic and other theories inform the way we think and speak about the meaning of the music?