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

On 18 July 2013, South Africans exuberantly celebrated the 95th birthday of our "Tata" (father) Nelson Mandela, reminiscing stories of the greatness of this man and his contemporaries and all the "miracles" they achieved towards enabling the freedom of all South Africans. My 4 year old son rushed home from school saying, "Mommy, mommy, we all singed Happy Birthday to Mandela, and I singed so loudly that maybe he even heard me." The magic of our nation continues to touch us all. And yet, these celebrations are awkwardly juxtaposed with the current reality of a hospitalised, frail, ill Mandela, hinting at the inevitability of death and endings (Nandipha, 2013). Our thoughts are drawn to the current recession and continual politicking that has decayed a sense of faith in our leaders for so many. We wonder: what now? Where are we going? The future of our country is no longer held by Mandela and his contemporaries. Now we need to keep their legacy alive – ideas highlighted through movements like "67 minutes", where South Africans were encouraged to give up 67 minutes of our time towards building, restoring or healing our communities in honour of the 67 years of service offered by Mandela. This leads to a further question: what meaning could I have to offer this country here and now?

In the process of becoming a music therapist, this was an important question relating particularly to this profession. I remember critiquing, continually turning over in my mind what this music therapy thing we were doing was really all about. My music therapy masters dissertation (Krige, 2005) begins as follows:

In my first year of music therapy study, I became a little disillusioned. I felt as if I was preparing for what appeared to be a "disaster" scene, armed with a guitar and some drums shouting, "Don't worry. I can help." (p3)

What value could music therapy possibly hold, when juxtaposed with informal settlements, poverty, illness, crime and violence that punctuated my experiences of South Africa?

Throughout my professional career this question continues to repeat itself in different ways: What does music therapy mean here, now, as I am the carer, or the facilitator of a myriad of different groups – some labelled as therapy, others just as music or teaching? What does music therapy mean as I witness stories and lives of diverse clients and participants, and of their families and communities? What does it mean as our music therapy organisation debates issues of funding, advocacy and ethics? What does it mean for my friends and the homeless man who pops past every now and then for a cup of coffee and a sandwich? Now, for the first time, I have had to ask the question on a new level: What does music therapy mean for me as the patient struggling to hold the confusion and largeness of my own difficult medical prognosis? What use could I have now for a proud little djembe drum...other than to kick it over from sheer frustration?

From a new viewpoint I perceive the groups of demoralised, regretful parents and young, aggressive or withdrawn children referred to the diversion programme where I work. I see anew their disbelief when, rather contrary to their expectations, I appear, with a bunch of jingling instruments.

When I introduce the concept of music therapy to these groups and their parents or guardians, I offer only my name – then hand around djembe drums. We play first. Then we talk. It’s much easier that way. The "music therapy" (or, "what on earth will my child be doing with this strange lady") talk makes far more sense (translated as more nodding and fewer blank stares) if it’s generated by our experiences of what we’ve played. After all, music therapy is about "playing" – playing music, playing ourselves, playing with ideas and future possibilities, all accompanied by a therapist who, as is the case in this "mini" drumming experience, ensures that we are able to participate (which, in some cases means making no mention of drums at all and rather plugging my phone into an amp, ready for a music listening exercise). This "playing" exercise in general has promoted far more support and interest in music therapy than my previous attempts at clever wording ever did. It just makes sense.

In clinical work, it’s also in the "playing" that the meaning of music therapy is able to emerge. When working with a 13 year old boy referred for inappropriately touching other children, how would we have known that he would find meaning when participating in a keyboard duet with me, enabling him to experience from the music the holding and nurturing he so desperately longed for? How could another young man, used only to listening to rap music know that re-creating a story ("Ah, this is just a story", he said) of the possibilities for his life would help him to face and make changes in his current reality, all done whilst guided by some "classical" music? In my own experiences of personal music therapy, I am still awed by how the musical experiences within a session moved the deepest parts of me and flowed into my daily life, bringing change and wholeness on so many levels.

On a broader level, music therapists in South Africa are playing. There are therapists working in conjunction with drama and art therapists, developing combined creative arts programmes to utilise and draw from the greatest strengths of a range of different approaches to bring healing and wholeness. Others are developing training courses to offer skills from music therapy that related practitioners such as social workers, teachers or psychologists can incorporate into their own work. Still others are beginning to take techniques they have learnt and acquired and expand these, or mould them together with other techniques to create new and insightful ways of working. I participate in a lively multidisciplinary group, together with drama therapists, music therapists and educational psychologists where we debate, discuss and formulate how our professions should look, what we need to hold in place, what can be put aside in order to build meaningful relationships with clients, so dreaming up future possibilities for our professions together.

At an uncertain time – for our profession and country, we have begun to play. And it is our playing that will keep us alive and take us forward, no matter what may come. I look forward to all that is about to emerge.

References:

Nandipha, K. (2013). SA Celebrates Improvement in Mandela’s Health on His Birthday. Mail and Guardian Online. Accessed on 21/07/2013 from http://mg.co.za/article/2013-07-18-sa-celebrates-improvement-in-mandelas...

Krige, H. (2005). From Music Therapy to Community "Musicking": Addressing Social Issues and Potential within a Culturally Diverse Context. Pretoria: Unpublished Masters Mini-Dissertation: University of Pretoria

How to cite this page

Oosthuizen, Helen (2013). The Meaning of Music Therapy Here Now. Voices Resources. Retrieved January 12, 2015, from http://testvoices.uib.no/community/?q=fortnightly-columns/2013-meaning-music-therapy-here-now