Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy
A New Avenue for Communication Among Music Therapy Communities
(Oscar Wilde)
Vision
Welcome to the inaugural issue of a new international music therapy journal, electronically published and with free access. We're sure you have noticed the growing interest in the field of music therapy. The number of music therapists around the world is increasing every year. Diverse contexts for music therapy work grow too. Though music has been practiced as a healing art in Indigenous societies for hundreds of years, contemporary professional music therapy has grown from a Western enterprise to one with a very broad foundation of approaches internationally. Music is deeply rooted in culture. We therefore believe that it is important that each region has an opportunity to develop its own traditions of music therapy based upon local knowledge and the cultural and social history in that region. At the same time it is important that music therapy as a discipline does not become fragmented and disjointed. International communication is therefore more important than ever. In order to meet this challenge, we are launching a free online journal, which we have named Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy.
The word "voices" has several connotations that we hope will be descriptive to this new journal. Voice, music and music therapy are related to personal and emotional communication, as well as to culture and sharing. We also think of "voice" as utterance and the right to voice one's opinions and choices. We want Voices to be an avenue for that kind of expression. We are especially interested in creating possibilities for communication between emerging and established cultures of music therapy, and in providing space for multi-voiced and polyphonic dialogues.
In this introduction we want to share with you our ideas and answer some of the questions you may already have: Why a new journal? Why international? Why electronic? Why free access? Let us start with our vision statement:
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy intends to support the discursive practices of music therapists around the world by producing a free online international journal of outstanding quality. This publication will encourage participation from every continent and will nurture the development of music therapy practice, theory, and research through creative writing, discussion and debate. Because culture has an important role in music and music therapy, we will encourage contributions that find their source in the cultural influences of each continental region. Voices seeks to nurture the profile of music therapy as a global enterprise that is inclusive and has a broad range of influences in the international arena. The journal is particularly interested in encouraging the growth of music therapy in developing countries and intends to foster an exchange between Western and Eastern as well as Northern and Southern approaches to the art and science of music therapy.
This vision is shared by an international editorial board, with one editor from each continent: African Editor: Mercedes Pavlicevic (South Africa), Asian Editor: Rika Ikuno (Japan), Australasian Editor: Morva Croxson (New Zealand), European Editor: Dorit Amir (Israel), North-American Editor: Lisa Summer (USA), and South-American Editor: Lia Rejane Barcellos (Brazil). Discussion editor is Barbara Wheeler and Editors-in-chief are Carolyn Kenny (USA/Canada) and Brynjulf Stige (Norway). We share a vision and hope that you and many other readers will join in, participate and contribute in the dialogue and development of Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy.
Heritage and Prospective
North American music therapists celebrated their 50th anniversary last year. In most countries contemporary professional music therapy is just a few decades old. In many countries it is still in the process of being born, and in some countries the seed is not yet in the soil. In other words the modern history of music therapy as a discipline and profession is quite short. Many music therapists, scholars and researchers feel that they do not have time and energy to communicate across cultures and regions. While such attitudes often are understandable given practical realities and pressures, we strongly believe international and cross-cultural communication are important elements in a sound development of the discipline.
At the 9th World Congress of Music Therapy in Washington in November 1999, five international models were put into focus: Analytical Music Therapy, Behavioral Music Therapy, Benenzon Music Therapy, Creative Music Therapy and Guided Imagery and Music. A panel of founders, such as Johannes Eschen/Benedikte Bart Scheiby (representing Mary Priestley), Clifford Madsen, Rolando Benenzon, Clive Robbins, and Helen Bonny was gathered to share experiences in a plenary session. The conference also offered several other interesting panels on these five models, each having a specific focus such as the role of music, theory, clinical practice and research. We feel that to honor these pioneers and their traditions is important and that our awareness about the heritage that we carry as music therapists will increase. But we also think that the discipline is too young to settle into a small number of founding fathers and mothers. The five pioneers mentioned are of European, North American, and South American origin. The discipline is still growing and changing. And we may have new things to learn from African, Asian and Australasian fathers and mothers to come.
Thinking it over, "music therapy" is not so new. There is a tradition of Indigenous music healing and folk music therapy going back for millenniums in all cultures. In many countries music has been part of medicine, of hospital care, of special education, if not always in professional clothing. We will not diminish the importance of professional training in music therapy, or the role of theory and research, but we want to point to the relevance of the knowledge embedded in all health related practices of music. For the discipline of music therapy to grow and develop, we believe isolation and rejection of related traditions is not necessarily the best approach. Instead we encourage cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural dialogue. This approach will encourage vigorous debate and will create a multi-voiced choir of music therapy possibilities. Voices will encourage publication of ethnographic perspectives on music and health in different cultures and societies, as well as more traditional papers on music therapy.
There is also another heritage to which we will pay homage: In the late 1980's and early 90's the American Association of Music Therapy (AAMT) published the Music Therapy International Report (MTIR). Lisa Summer, our present North American editor, served as one of the editors of this publication. We appreciate the efforts of AAMT in creating an arena for international dialogue, and we hope to be able to continue to develop the best elements of that heritage. We will be able to take advantage of the new possibilities given us by the Internet technology, possibilities AAMT did not have at that time.
Local initiative as well as worldwide communication is essential for the future of music therapy, and will also be important aspects of this journal. Voices is owned and hosted by a small college in Western Norway, in affiliation with the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy and in collaboration with the World Federation of Music Therapy (WFMT). Hopefully this practical collaboration between a local, a regional and a global organization may be symbolic for the dialogues to come, exploring local, regional and global perspectives.
We hope it will be a journal for everybody interested in the relationships between music, health, culture, and society. No pure or simple truths exist for such issues. One could do worse than striving for a dialogic and emerging discourse, and we hope this will be what Voices will be about. To paraphrase WFMT's President Denise Grocke in her introduction to this inaugural issue: Voices will create a network of ideas rather than a linear representation of ideas, and the forum will create a vehicle for music therapists to be connected rather than isolated.
Since the vision for this new online publication is broad and inclusive and will specifically focus on nurturing emerging cultures of music therapy, it is particularly important that the publication is offered free of charge. Sogn of Fjordane College in Norway and Simon Fraser University in Canada has provided funding together with our sponsors (see the main page and the sections of the web-site).
Cultural Perspectives and Language
While music therapy in the 20th century to a large degree was considered a "modern" enterprise in Western countries, with little contact with traditions of music healing in other cultural contexts, there is a growing awareness about the problems of culturally biased perspectives. Practices of music therapy are situated in historical and cultural contexts. Since contemporary professional music therapy now is growing on "new" continents, like the Asian and the African continents, the idea of transplanting American or European music therapy to these countries has been questioned.
Our vision is a culturally sensitive music therapy. In some societies experimentation in joining Indigenous healing practices and modern medicine or music therapy has been successful. This approach has the advantage of bringing the best of all worlds to those who are suffering. This situation creates the need for an international forum where discussions and dialogues on music therapy in a cultural perspective may be voiced. How are concepts of health, music, and therapy shaped by cultural contexts? How does this influence clinical practice, theory, and research? Which formats and approaches are relevant in which contexts? What is the role of music therapy in community and society? Are some principles shared worldwide? These - and hopefully many other - questions will be discussed in the journal as well as more traditional presentations of clinical practice, theoretical ideas and new research.
We understand fully the importance of "language" in the communication of the beauty and precision of cultural practices including music therapy. The awareness of the importance of language is a full-scale international discussion around the world. For the sake of communication, in these early stages, English will be the primary language for the journal. However, our policy is to gradually increase the variety of languages presented over time. The next stage of our development will see the translation of abstracts for articles into the language of the authors. Eventually, we hope to rotate the presentation of articles in diverse languages. This language policy will depend on the submission of articles in diverse languages and the in-kind translation services of music therapy associations. We will offer language help to those for whom English is the second, third or fourth language. Texts submitted to the journal will be edited for language and authors will receive help in the process of writing texts in English. Visit our main page for more information on our language policy.
For years the contemporary work of professional music therapy has been growing through the efforts of many music therapists around the world. The stage has been set. In fact, there is such a security in the foundation of the stage that music therapy is even strong enough to embrace older traditions of the healing arts through interest in the Indigenous healing practices of ancient cultures and a genuine interweaving of a myriad of traditional folk arts into our practices. This healthy development needs the complement of a worldwide communication network in which communities of music therapy can come together and share ideas, to critique and question, to describe, to ponder and reflect. The editors and staff of Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy hope to provide a vehicle for this kind of sharing and to make the exchange of ideas accessible to a wide range of people interested in music therapy. We hope you will participate in this vision. And we hope that you will participate in Voices. Welcome to our Inaugural Issue, Volume I, Number 1, 2001!
