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

My last weeks and months were full of very new experiences and perspectives. First of all, we welcomed a newborn son. The things we did with him for the first time - the first time bathing him, the first walk outside - were exciting experiences. Even though we have done these things a thousand or millions of times in our life, doing it for the first time with him changed our perspectives and perception in a unique way. When the magic of such moments touch my family and I, we are thankful for it by being fully present and by pausing time. This could be also the origin of pauses in music, where everything stops for a moment, where everything is possible and where everything is encompassed by the music.

The night before, an international guest teacher, Tony Wigram, came to Wuerzburg for the first time. This visit changed the perspectives of my students, myself and of some of my colleagues. Dr. Wigram came to teach improvisational skills in music therapy. My students had learned the first steps of these skills during one of my seminars. However, working on this again with the author of the Music Therapy Improvisation text book brought to them lots of new learning, and new perspectives and competencies. Here as well, the magic of the moment was very strong and seemed to intensify time. In addition, when our team at Wuerzburg worked with him to develope future teaching plans, new and important ideas came up in our team. Also Tony was very interested in the wonderful old city of Wuerzburg and the very special landscape here.

The month before, I stayed with Brynjulf Stige in Ukraine where we participated in the first Ukrainian conference of music therapy (see also Wosch 2001, 2002, 2004, Ivannikova 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, Ivannikova & Wosch 2002 and Svatyeva 2004 in Voices). For the first time, Ukrainian teachers, psychologists, sport scientists and artists, working with elements of music therapy, presented their work. I experienced a real difference. The work changed from pedagogical models for all to individually orientated work. Also experiencing this together with Brynjulf Stige, who knows very well the beginning of music therapy in Norway, changed some of my perspectives. I come from a country with a very long and broad tradition of music therapy. I belong to the third or fourth generation of music therapists in Germany. Brynjulf experienced himself the very beginning of music therapy in his country. Because of these experiences, he had different views about the beginning of this field in present day Europe, which were very important for our future plans in Ukraine.

The season before, in the summer, I participated and contributed to the last World Congress of music therapy in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Katrina McFerran wrote about this in her column of September (Dancing the Tango: A Dynamic Interplay of Power Relations). The culture of Buenos Aires and all international papers, talks and plans over there greatly widened all my thoughts and brought lots of benefits to ongoing developments.

Widening horizons, enjoying the moment and becoming young in every new experience, seems to be the magic of the basic emotion of curiosity (or intention, or interest). In my clinical work especially this emotion seemed to be gone in nearly all in-patients. In music therapy, we had to find ways of coming in touch with this. The power of this basic element of learning, of change and of development, is something we can experience lifelong. With our clients and students, we can share it again and again. It seems to be indeed the very beginning of a new life, the very beginning of all ongoing life and the very beginning of enjoyment.

How to cite this page

Wosch, Thomas (2008). The Power and Magic of Curiosity and Change. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 09, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=fortnightly-columns/2008-power-and-magic-curiosity-and-change