Voices ResourcesA website for the worldwide community around the journal Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy

I recently had the opportunity to have several GIM (Guided Imagery and Music) sessions. In them I began to re-examine my relationship to music. Revisiting my lifelong connection to music has prompted me reflect on my first experiences with music and how my relationship to music has grown and changed over the years.

As I calculate it I have been a musician now for some 40 years. I remember as a child of about 5, receiving a wooden toy piano as a gift. The black keys weren't real, but were simply painted on the existing white keys. I remember being fascinated by this instrument and worked very hard to plunk out tunes. Soon after that, my parents rented a piano and my formal lessons began.

I grew up on a military base in the "Deep South" in the US, where music was very much a part of my life. My parents, although not musicians, always had a radio on in the house and in the car. My dad loved traditional country music and given that he was a bit hard of hearing, he always had the radio on full blast! More than once I remember getting in the car with him and being startled by the volume the radio was set on.

In what is called middle school in the US (grades 6, 7, and 8) I began playing clarinet. Although I continued my piano lessons, the social aspect of playing clarinet in the school band brought me the connection to others that I really enjoyed. I played in both the concert band and the marching band and have fond memories of marching in Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans as well as many local events.

In college I found ways to make social connections through playing the piano as well. I served as the rehearsal pianist and pit orchestra pianist for college musicals. I enjoyed the intensity of rehearsals, working with actors who sometimes had little musical training, preparing for performances and then the actual performances themselves. I loved being a crucial aspect to a successful performance without having to be directly in the spotlight.

After college I worked for a year in the dinner theatre circuit in the Midwestern US. Dinner theatre is just what it implies, dinner is served and then followed by usually an upbeat musical or play. While performing the same play night after night for months at times became tedious, it was nonetheless fun to be able to make a living as a musician.

Through a chain of events in 1979 I ended up in an unlikely spot for a young woman from Georgia - New York City. Thoroughly unprepared for such the culture shock of moving from the rural south to the big city, it was there that I began the quest for graduate school. I knew there was something I wanted to do with my life that involved music and I knew I hadn't found it yet. In 1980, while searching through various college catalogues, I came across a program in music therapy at New York University. Never having heard of it, I called and inquired. At some point in the conversation I asked if music therapists worked with people who had terminal illnesses. When the answer was yes, I had one of the few moments of true clarity I have ever had. It was if my entire body began to resonate and I knew without a doubt that I wanted to be a music therapist!

I had long had an interest in death and dying. My military roots had indeed exposed me to death and dying a young age. In the early 1960s I remember getting the phone call telling our family that a dear friend had been killed in the Vietnam War. As the war continued we would know many others that died. In southern culture it is customary to bring food to families when someone dies and I remember many occasions of visiting a family and witnessing the depth of grief that death bestows on survivors. It was no surprise that I wanted to become a music therapist working with people and families facing a terminal illness.

In 1981 I began my journey of becoming a music therapist and was exposed to new kinds of music. I moved away from my classical training and work in musical theatre toward folk songs, kids songs and eventually improvisation.

My relationship to music continued to grow as I became a music therapist. Somehow as a pianist and instrumentalist I had never had to use my voice so it was quite challenging to have to learn to sing and lead others in singing. I also learned to play the guitar. Both of these new skills brought depth to my relationship to music. I was further stretched by learning improvisation. In an effort to continue to develop my musical skills I took a course on improvisation for educators offered at the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Center in New York City in the summer of 1998. This course was a real challenge for me. While I was very nervous, often felt inadequate, and ineffective I also found it rewarding. Meeting this challenge helped develop new dimensions in my relationship to music.

My work as a music therapist in hospice was some of the most meaningful clinical work that I have ever done. Sharing music with clients and their families at this poignant time often filled me with a sense of awe as I witnessed the power of music. One of the most remarkable experiences was that of improvising for a client who was actively dying. Playing for someone who was in the process of leaving this realm of existence and being present for that transition was a defining moment for me both personally and professionally and music was at the core of this experience.

In my current role as a music therapy educator and not a clinician I have found more changes in my relationship to music. At my university I oversee the graduate students working on their masters theses. This past year a student did a phenomenological study of music therapists and their relationships to music. It was quite insightful and gave me the opportunity to think about how my relationship to music has changed since becoming a music therapist. I have found that I am really sensitized to music, so much so that it is difficult to listen to music while doing anything else. While I do play music with my family at home frequently, they complain that I never have music on the stereo. The problem is that if music is on I am compelled to listen to it. My children would like me to work on this, so I have begun trying to let music function as background sound!

Much of the music in my life at this point is focused in my teaching at the university or at home with my children. Last weekend with my three children and several of the neighborhood children, we were in the music room reenacting scenes from "The Sound of Music" with me in the role of Maria and the children as the various Von Trapp children. Even as I write this, my oldest daughter is making props of cardboard instruments for each of the children so that the next time they are over we can have a full orchestra.

Music has always been a central force in my life, in fact I don't remember life before playing an instrument. As I look back I see that music gave me a way to relate to others and helped me find my place in the world. I am curious how this relationship will continue to unfold in the coming years.

How to cite this page

Forinash, Michelle (2001) On my Changing Relationship to Music. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 11, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=fortnightly-columns/2001-my-changing-relationship-music