Sing4Change

Meta calendar says today is the National Relaxation Day in the USA. Whilst, from my experience, life in the USA is far from relaxing, I appreciate this excuse to pause - or at least slow down - and reflect on what the relationship between relaxation and music really is. To gently celebrate, I am releasing into open access this track of Native American flute improvisation with a guiding narrative (in English). Providing deep relaxation through improvised music - voice, flute, specially tuned steel tongue drum - has been central to my music therapy work with vulnerable adults in medical, palliative and mental health settings. I have improvised similar music many times, in various situations - usually tuning into my client's breathing pattern, matching it. The flute patterns you will hear on this track hold the memory and breaths of many beautiful human beings I was privileged to work with. I think of this as a collaboration, for which I am forever grateful. It is certainly not a univ...

So, what is music therapy? Well, it is pretty much what it sounds like: music being used for therapy purposes. And, at the same time, it is so much more. And sometimes what one believes to be music therapy is, actually, not music therapy at all. Confused? Good. Let us dive in.   Music therapy elevator pitch The best 10-second pitch on music therapy I have arrived to after practising for nearly 15 years sounds as follows: Music therapy is the professional use of live and recorded music and its elements (rhythm is one example) with the goal to improve health, wellbeing and social connectedness of people and communities. Music therapy is a vast and powerful field (as you can easily gather from these music therapy definitions offered by professional associations from around the world ). If we went for a cup of coffee together, I could easily go on for a couple of hours telling you about all the wonders and secrets of the music therapy profession. Luckily, you are safe from my enthusias...