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

Back from Oxford in the second week (I'm writing this column in the second week of August) the impressions of that very exciting world congress are still in my mind. First of all I want to say thank you to Nigel Hartley and all British music therapists, who organized this very important event and this really very special "Oxford experience" in a complete sunny week on the British Island.

One special wind, which touched me in that complete "stormless" week (there was wonderful weather in U.K. that time), was the wind of community music therapy. A special keynote forum was chaired by Mércèdes Pavlicevic under the title "Toward community music therapy". Even the "Gestalt" of that keynote forum was quite different to other keynotes in Oxford. Not only special papers of specialists were presented. All the audience joined in that keynote. In "communicate-able" groups they discussed community music therapy and presented their results and questions in posters. This way it was really community-based and didn't follow the usual one-way-communication of listening in the papers, which is also the most important communication-principle of music in every-day-life in modernism and post modernism. But in my mind there blew four winds, visiting this keynote forum on community music therapy.

The north wind came in my mind as the pluralism of community music therapy. There seems to be a wide field of defining community music therapy (CMT). There are the cultural dimension especially western cultural dimension of CMT, the opposite of psychotherapy stressed music therapy paradigm dimension (of the individual?), the organizational dimension for better music therapist community in music therapy practice etc. etc. This north wind first of all gives "magnetic" orientation and polarization for the question: What are we speaking about when using the word CMT? But at the same time this north wind also seems to be a kernel of CMT. The pluralism of CMT-dimensions is possible and no one in that keynote said "these or that is no CMT." So CMT seems to be in its basics really communicative and non strictly determined. Especially this acknowledged pluralism was a very strong wind, which was felt by the participants as a very strong freedom and a lightening. So CMT could really be an important force or model for music therapy in 21st century and in the music therapy bases it seems to have a lot of friends. From my (German) point of view a little question is: Could CMT become a too much light model of music therapy? The semantic structure of it, its acknowledged pluralism, should become an example for all music therapy. The content of it shouldn't become too much light or animation-orientated. But in no contribution of the speakers in that keynote forum I heard such tendencies in Oxford.

The west wind, which blew in my mind about CMT, was the cultural dimension. In western culture of post modernism there we got the imagination of being very individual. But you can see the opposite. E.g. what is the best fast food all over the western world? It's Mc Donald - in every city you can look for it and you can find it. What are the best known movies for children all over the western world? It's Mickey Mouse and their friends. How individual are the buildings in the new centre of Berlin - the Potsdam-Place? It was bought by Mercedes Benz, which company gave a central structure to all buildings of that place etc. etc. The social dimension in our life seems to become stronger then ever before, even in socialism, it was not to be seen. Sociologists like Foucault (1980), Lipowatz (1982) and Zizek (1993) wrote about it. Despite of that a secret longing to be an individual seems to be a strong power in every western human being. I know that also from my practice of teaching music therapy. In the first hours of experiential training in active group music therapy for other study courses students want to have a structure, a model and an example for their play. But within only two days (16 hours, after years of learning social structures) they reach the position of individual improvisation and they want very strong to go on in it. These cultural dimension could give community music therapy the position of the individual while working in social units, communities and strengthens the longing and position of the individual within little communities.

This west wind I know also as an east wind. In 1996 an east German music therapist, Christoph Schwabe, had a paper at the world congress in Hamburg with the title "Music therapy between scientific demands and social needs". He pointed out, that the social dimension is very strong connected with the individual dimension of human being. There is no hermit in the world and there are also no individual spaces in the world without having inner or outer contact to other individuals. With this the individual needs communities and can develop IN communities, in groups and - I say - in cultures. Later Schwabe developed the term of Social illness as an indication for social music therapy (1998). The question between west and east wind is: Can CMT become a therapeutic dimension, which leaves the individual in hospitals and fights for the individual in all society or community? Will we reach with CMT a sociological practiced dimension of music therapy after the psychological one? Is such a therapy of society possible or will it every time be based in very small communities and the possible individual dimension? I think, a better society we can't realize. We only can give space for individual experiences with acknowledgment of the individual meaning of a group, a community or a culture.

Last but not least the south wind turns me back to the recent music therapy with the CMT-project of Leslie Bunt. Two very competent music therapists presented the first results of that project. I emphasize the competence of Beccy Read and Eleanor Tingle because I thought, that their community of music therapists in practice is a reason for looking so competent. A lot of German music therapists are "Solo fighters". They are the only one music therapist in a hospital, in a nursing home or a special school. The knowledge of their work they can't share with other colleagues of the same profession. Having questions or if they want to exchange cases they have to leave their working place - may be once a month, may be once a year - for meeting other colleagues. And they must fight for their space in their hospital etc. alone. The CMT-Centres, which are established in U.K. together with Leslie Bunt and a lot of music therapists, bring the power of community, in my opinion, first of all to music therapists, which is very good. Together they look for music therapy work in their community. Together they can organize supervision, colleague-meetings like case-conferences, can organize advertisement and further education in music therapy. Of course, riding by car from one house to another with a lot of instruments is a problem. But with CMT-Centres in the community the acknowledgement for music therapy can be much more better then 10 music therapy "Solo fighters" which see each other only twice a year can reach. Also the social and the individual dimension is possible for working with music therapy in CMT-Centres (new working fields for music therapy are predicted for these centres).

Questions, statements and new perspectives blew in my mind with the four winds and dimensions of community music therapy. One point is the community of music therapists, which seems to be a longing also for music therapists. If pluralism is one kernel of CMT, so the music therapist in hospital is possible and also the music therapist in CMT-Centres. May be, the Centres can also develop a new communication forum for all music therapists of their community. The special social needs or better individual needs of our time can discover new working fields for music therapy - also with CMT. If pluralism is one kernel of CMT, so also the sociological and the psychological dimension of music therapy practice can coexist and may be, can learn from each other. I think, it's very worth a try.

How to cite this page

Wosch, Thomas (2002). Four Thoughts About Community Music Therapy. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 10, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=fortnightly-columns/2002-four-thoughts-about-community-music-therapy