What is music therapy?

This is the most common question I get from people asking what I do. In fact, it is not an easy task to define what music therapy is, as it's equally hard to define music. So let me make a bold attempt and try to explain it in my own words:

I would first invite you to think from a place of wellness, instead of deficiency, which is the common model used by the education and healthcare systems. Wellness would mean different things to different people, but let’s say it encompasses health, wholeness, happiness and connections. My one liner will be: Music therapy is the use of music in a safe space to promote wellness.

If wellness means the ability to communicate, music is a universal language. If wellness means confidence, music could help to promote self awareness. If wellness means attention building, music could help to increase focus span. Wellness could simply mean relaxation to most people! There are more facets to what wellness mean depending on the person, so that is why music therapy is always tailor made.

Music therapy is renowned in having the practice based on research findings and so each action in a session has a rationale behind. We might get into this to discover some interesting findings in the future!

Have a Good Friday!