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Entries
a capella
From the Italian, meaning âin the manner of the chapelâ, this phrase refers to unaccompanied choral singing. A capella may be used by an mt when attempting to communicate with a client in an individual session when singing in a lullaby or to create an intimate ambience. A capella is also used in vocal psychotherapy and in vocal improvisation (Austin, 2009). Toning, typically done without accompaniment and therefore a form of a capella, is an MT centring practice that can be performed individually in a clientâtherapist dyad or in a group (Keyes, 1973). Participant(s) sing extemporaneously, using various tones that are usually not predetermined. (Lillian Eyre)
acknowledgement
A powerful, simple way of reaching clients, including those in institutional settings, acknowledgement involves saying a client's name, making eye contact and offering a short greeting at each and every encounter in and out of sessions. It may take months to develop rapport but acknowledgement is often a key component of this connection. (Jeremie Tucker)
acoustic ecology
Sound's capacity to reveal information as a means of understanding the world. What we hear gives insight into cultural, social and technological aspects of place and time. R. Murray Schafer (in Goff, 2012), Canadian composer and educator, proposes an ecological lens to examine the growing problems of noise and its impact on environmental design. Acoustic ecology examines how living things create or affect their aural environment and how, in turn, that environment influences living things. (Kevin Kirkland)
acoustic scene analysis
The process of perceptual organization that takes place in the brain to derive meaning out of complex sound environments (Bregman, 1990). This mental representation proceeds with gestalt principles that are at in good part innate and are similar to those found in the visual modality. The global mass of sounds is segregated into acoustic units that share similarity and/or proximity, thus tending to originate from the same location or auditory source. In acoustic scene analysis, auditory streams emerge from the horizontality and verticality of music. For example, sequential grouping generates rhythms and melodic form while simultaneous sounds create the sensory experience of timbre and degree of consonance. This phenomenon is at the base of musical competencies generally observed in non-musicians. Such competencies may include memorizing melodies, anticipating harmonic resolutions or moving coherently to specific metrics. These same perceptual rules that influence acoustic scene analysis also prevail in the processing of psychoacoustic parameters in speech. (Marianne Bargiel)
action research
Action research refers to a variety of collaborative research practices with goals ranging from practical problem solving to societal transformation. Action-research projects often entail the use of qualitative research methods but quantitative methods are feasible, depending on situational needs and interests. Action research typically involves team work in âactionâreflection cyclesâ (Reason and Bradbury, 2006) where various steps of the research process are seen in relation to real-world problems. A specific tradition of action research stressing anti-oppressive processes is called participatory action research (PAR). Central elements in this tradition are: active lay participation in the research process; empowerment of participants; sociocultural change as part of the research agenda; linkage of theory, practice and research; and application of a broad conception of knowledge (Stige, 2005). Processes and results are not evaluated in cognitive terms only but also as emerging and embodied processes of change in context. Action research is highly relevant in MT, both because of the practical and aesthetic basis of the discipline and profession and because of societal challenges such as marginalization facing many clients and participants. (Brynjulf Stige)
active group music therapy (AGMT)
Based on the use of musical instruments and/or voice in therapeutic group work. Clients are involved in improvisational, interpretative or compositional activities (Bruscia, 1987b; Wigram, 2004), including free or referential instrumental or voice improvisations, song writing, musical role playing, structured musical activities and musical productions. AGMT can be applied to several functional areas such as social skills, management of emotions, self-awareness, coping skills, gross and fine motor skills, speech/language skills and self-expression, recreation skills, creativity development, teamwork and effective communication improvement. AGMT can be used on all levels of ability or disability and with individuals in all ages (e.g. groups for psychiatric clients; groups for children or adults with developmental, learning or neurological disabilities; groups for elderly people; groups for traumatized refugees; self-development groups; institutional teamwork). Interventions focus on needs and objectives of the particular target group. The most evolved MT methods that include AGMT techniques are analytical MT (Priestley, 1975, 1994) used within the boundaries of music psychotherapy and NordoffâRobbins' creative MT (Nordoff and Robbins, 2004, 2007) habitually used for children and adolescents with learning disabilities such as autism. (Alice Pehk)
active music listening
Listening to music is considered to be an enacted exploration of the world. It embraces spatial and locational orientations of sounds and experiences of temporally patterned sounds as dynamic forms of vitality. Rhythmic, corporeal reactions to music already shown in infants indicate that active music listening is not merely based on an enacted mental process but rather on its embodiment. In infant MT, rhythmically coordinated synchronization between the lullaby sung by the caregiver and the infant's corporeal reactions is conceived of as a phenomenon that emerges through the infant's exploration of interpersonal communication. (Jin Hyun Kim)
active music therapy
A client's active musical engagement in the therapeutic process. Often this engagement is improvisation based. The improvisation may be thematic or not and may be played on the client's instrument of choice. The mt may accompany the improvisation with therapeutic intention based on the client's needs. The client's engagement with and response to music are symbolic of how that individual handles new situations, challenges, stressors, subconscious conflicts, and interactions. Active MT may be considered the musical version of free association. (Kevin Kirkland)
activity therapy
Traditionally used to engage even the most vulnerable clients in activities such as cooking, exercise, craft, artwork and music making (Montgomery, 2002). Activity therapy was introduced as group therapy for children by Slavson and Schiffer (1975) and is particularly useful with latency-aged children in an MT group (Goodman, 2007). Within the context of adult psychotherapy, activity therapy has been linked to a product-oriented group (Wolberg, 1977). (Karen Goodman)
adapted instruments
Usually refers to modifications that facilitate accessible music making with non-symphonic instruments for persons who have physical limitations. The modifications are designed by an mt, often in collaboration with an occupational or physical therapist, and are uniquely constructed to suit the client's physical capabilities and treatment objectives. Adaptive devices include but are not limited to straps, gloves, stands, positional aids, grips/handles and suspension frames. Clients who benefit from adapted instruments are those who have cerebral palsy, neurologic disorders, missing limbs, brain injury or other motor impairment (Clark and Chadwick, 1980). (Donna Chadwick)
adapting lyrics
Familiar songs are often (partly) rewritten to become personalized reflections of clients and/or their families. This technique can be used with all ages of clients. Highly familiar songs with patterned structures are often preferred, as they allow patients to easily and spontaneously create their own verses and, in this process, identify themselves, their dreams, memories and hopes. (Monique van Bruggen-Rufi)
advance music directive (AMD)
An advance healthcare planning document completed by a client in consultation with an mt while the client is well. Introduced by Chadwick and Wacks (2005), the AMD is the only music-specific healthcare directive. It serves those who consider music essential to their quality of life. As in all advance directives (healthcare proxy, power of attorney, living will), the words in the AMD are the writer's voice in the event that a client is rendered unable to speak or to make decisions at a future time. In the AMD, the writer may choose particular genres, titles and artists of music selections and specify how to use them. Music that relaxes or energizes is often requested. Most likely, a person's AMD will be called into use during a health crisis. The mt ensures that the directive is applied accurately and thoughtfully, in keeping with a client's wishes. (Donna Chadwick)
aesthetic music therapy (AeMT)
A model that considers clinical focus from a musicological and compositional perspective. It is primarily an improvisational approach that views musical dialogue between client and therapist as the primary evaluation and assessment tool. Interpretation comes from an understanding of musical structures and how they are balanced with the non-musical foci of aims, objectives and outcomes. Integrating the development of clinical musicianship and musical science are essential to AeMT. Elements of this development include: listening; applications of aesthetics, music analysis and musicology; musical form and clinical form; understanding of seminal works; therapeutic relationship and aesthetics (Lee, 2003). Central to AeMT is the idea of analyzing pre-composed music with the aim of extracting components and styles for advancing the range and aesthetic quality of clinical improvisation (Lee and Houde, 2011). AeMT defines all that is musical in MT and advocates that therapists consider the quality of music they bring to their work, whatever their theoretical or clinical backgrounds, with the greatest respect of care. (Colin Andrew Lee)
aesthetic sensitivity
Reimer (1970: 82) describes aesthetic sensitivity as the capacity to have aesthetic experiences, to be able to perceive aesthetically and react aesthetically. In MT, this perception and reaction may be a primary function of therapy related to the cultivation of beauty and NordoffâRobbin's âmusic childâ concept (Nordoff and Robbins, 2007). Reimer (1970) argues that we need âto develop the aesthetic sensitivity to music of all people regardless of their individual levels of musical talent, for their own personal benefit, for the benefit of society which needs an active cultural life, for the benefit of the art of musicâ (p. 112). (Kevin Kirkland)
affect
An important concept in psychoanalysis first mentioned in Freud's early writing dated 1892 (Stein, 1991). In the psychoanalytic view, affect has been referred to the expression of the id's drive, whether it is inhibited or not. Lerner (1998) defines affect as being a passive immediate and direct state of pleasure or displeasure that escapes from conscious ego function. In psychiatry, the concept has evolved to an observable response that is the direct expression of an emotion or mood (Andreasen and Black, 1995). Affect is therefore perceived and interpreted by others through the client's facial, vocal or verbal apparatus. In a clinical assessment, the mt typically attends to whatever discrepancies, lack of coherences or congruences appear between musical and verbal content and facial/vocal affect. (Marianne Bargiel)
affect regulation in music therapy
A skill that develops in the earliest phases of infant life. One view is that, when a caregiver of an infant fails to contain (Winnicott, 1969) and regulate an infant's emotions, especially when rooted in early childhood trauma, one result may be psychopathology or substance abuse (Bradley, 2000; Omaha, 2004; Baker, Gleadhill, and Dingle, 2007). MT can approach these emotions in a safe, therapeutic relationship. Music improvisation may offer support, expression, reflection and regulation of overwhelming or unconscious emotions through mutual musical communication and sometimes verbal processing. This containing may lead to an ability to regulate the emotions for the client and is vital preparation for work with other possible trauma (Omaha, 2004.) (Auli Lipponen)
affordance
Applied to MT, affordance refers to how musical objects, activities, and situations offer a person some possibilities for action. The term affordance was coined in the 1970s by James J. Gibson, who developed an ecological perspective on perception: âThe affordances of the environment are what it offers the a...
