Improvisation in Music Therapy Training: Experiencing Music in Improvisation
 

Author:
Dr. Peter Hoffmann
 

Abstract:
In music therapy, music is the area where therapist and client meet. Clients’ needs and potentials are addressed in and through music, changes are stimulated and encouraged, so that clients develop new ways of coping with themselves and their environment. Seen against this background, the musical education of music therapists requires more than training in a flexibly applicable range of musical skills. Music therapy requires practical knowledge of mechanisms and correlations of musical activity and methods in order to employ improvisational skills in a therapist-client relationship for the client’s benefit.

Does it matter which musical elements therapists choose to accompany their clients in improvised play? Which are the effects of a therapist’s varied modes of play and his changes in music on the musical experience of the client?
How can we demonstrate the effects of musical improvisation on the persons involved to students of music therapy, and how can we impart knowledge on relations between music or specific musical components and the specific experience of the player?

This paper addresses the correlation between the musical material offered in improvisation and the experience of the musical partner due to the specific type of accompaniment. It describes training objectives and methods in music therapy which permit individual perception of improvisational situations, stimulate a feeling for relations between music and what the player perceives, and thus provide the basis for careful employment of musical material in therapeutic settings.

The paper is based on the training concept of Witten/Herdecke that comprises various interconnected issues and subjects addressed in improvisation with a specific focus on aspects of musical self-perception as a core element of training. The main objective of training is not to teach supposed effects and correlations but

·         a sensibility and growing awareness of mechanisms and correlations in musical activities in the context of a therapeutic relation,

·         a growing sensibility for musical parameters and their flexible and considered use in the therapeutic relation,

·         and thereby increasing competences of perception, description and action in musical contexts and polarities.
 

Audio examples from training sessions will be used for illustration.

Biographical details:

Peter Hoffmann, Dr.rer.medic., music teacher, certified music therapist. Director of the Institute of Music Therapy, University Witten/Herdecke. Long-standing experience in music therapy with adult patients of psychiatry and internal medicine as well as with children. Doctoral thesis on the analysis of music therapy improvisations with a specific focus on aspects of temporal organization and meaningful phrasing.