What is Music Therapy?

“So what is music therapy exactly?”  I must’ve answered this question 1,000 times.  You see, in the bubble of Berklee College of Music in Boston everybody knew exactly what I was studying, but back home in Seattle it seemed like everyone had some misguided assumptions about the nature of my major.  The oldest university programs for music therapists are all on the east coast.  There’s a structure that supports those students with board-certified music therapists in every major hospital, every special needs classroom, and in all of the long term care facilities to provide hands-on training as they complete their degree programs.  There are internship sites aplenty back east!  Doctors, principles, teachers, administrators; they all already have an understanding of what music therapy is in theory and in practice.  It was a rude awakening when I discovered that the beacon of progressive policies, and alternative medicine that is Seattle didn’t even have a school offering a music therapy major until 2009.

I knew that choosing to move back home meant I would need to answer that question, “What is music therapy” a whole lot more than I was used to.  I practiced it in the mirror and with my parents, “Music therapy is the therapeutic use of music by a board-certified music therapist within a therapeutic relationship to accomplish non-musical goals.” Ugh!  It felt so stiff and clinical… but then, if my definition was too “hippy dippy” nobody would take me, a baby-faced and petite woman, seriously as a healthcare professional.  And I wasn’t only selling myself as a professional, I was also selling the entire field of music therapy as a legitimate and evidence-based practice.  No pressure!

Then people would say, “Give me your elevator pitch.”  I cannot think of a worse torture than trying to summarize something I’ve spent tens of thousands of hours studying in the time in 30 seconds or less - never mind the anxiety-inducing countdown of the floors passing by as you’re trying to sound concise and intelligent.  My professors’ voices would play in my head, “Remember your audience!  Your elevator pitch would be different for a parent of a special needs child versus a hospital administrator.”  It was impossible to rehearse or plan for; which for a type-A like me is the worst case scenario.  Plus, if I did just regurgitate the textbook definition it would miss so much nuance, and besides, people don’t really “get it” from that.  The only way that I know to help people really “get it” is to show them.

So that’s what I did.  When I moved home I made cold calls to all sorts of places offering a “free sample session” of music therapy for anyone who wouldn’t hang up on me after the first few seconds.  Those calls were fun…  “Hi, I was wondering if your facility would be interested in learning more about music therapy!”  “Oh, yeah… no thanks, we have music therapy.  There’s a harpist who comes in once a week -click-” 

But people do like free stuff so I would be able to do a sample session.  I would come in with my guitar on my back, a drum over one shoulder, and a rolling back of assorted instruments (the Christmas during my internship I had only asked for instruments I’d be able to use for my new career).  They’d see me, 5’1” and looking fresh out of high school and make their assumptions.  I probably oversold my background in psychology just to counter their expectations based on my appearance.  But I always knew once I hit that first chord and started in on my “Hello Song” I’d have them in the palm of my hand.  I lived for the chance to show them what I could really do.

And then it happened.  Before their eyes they would see what I saw when I picked music therapy as my major - the transformational power of music.  I reveled in the opportunity to prove them wrong when they’d warn me about certain clients.  “Oh, that’s Doris, she’s just kind of in her own world.  She probably won’t even know you’re here.”  And every time whoever their “Doris” was would come alive.  Lifting their head to the sound of my voice, looking at me with bright, clear eyes, smiling and even singing!  I knew jaws were dropping all around me, but I’d keep my eyes locked on Doris until it was just us and the music.  It was always “Doris,” sometimes it was “Harold.”  “Oh, yeah he hasn’t spoken in years so he’s not gonna sing with you.  I mean, you can try.”  Then I’d see all the heads popping in the doorway when Harold was singing with perfect lyrical fluency just moments after I arrived.

THIS.  This is what made people “believers.”  It wasn’t my explanation of how music is processed in the brain, explaining neural plasticity, or rattling off statistics from decades of research studies.  It wasn’t trying to sound smart or leaning into my credentials either.  Really, it was the people who were moved by music in a way that defied expectations.  It was showing skeptics how music therapy methods can tap into parts of their patients that had been locked away by their disease.  It was watching it in real time and seeing it with their own eyes.

And yes, music therapy IS the therapeutic use of music by a board-certified music therapists within a therapeutic relationship to accomplish non-musical goals, but it’s also so much more than that.  Music therapy is finding that song that unlocks a memory you thought was lost long ago.  Music therapy is seeing a shuffled and stifled walk turn into dancing and gliding around the room with ease.  Music therapy is softly singing as you hold the hand of someone experiencing their last moments on this earth to give them a graceful goodbye.  Music therapy is tapping into the deepest parts of our humanity, the parts that have been taken by disease or old age and saying “I see you in there… come sing with me.”