Music-centered Music Therapy

Contributions for the Present and Future of Music Therapy[1]

By André Brandalise

In 1985, Helen Bonny said:

The carefully researched and discrete paradigms underlying medical science daily practiced and accepted by our society are not truth per se but one of a number of explanations...Like the adventurer who searches the world for treasure and finds it in his own backyard, we may find the diamonds we seek in our own house. (As cited in Hesser, 1996, p. 14)

In addition, the music therapist Barbara Hesser stated, in the year of 1988, one year before the 2nd World Symposium on Music Therapy (New York):

It is now our challenge to strengthen our own identity as a separate and distinct discipline. It is our time to focus on developing our own theoretical foundation using the language and forms of research best suited to our unique experience of music as therapy. It is time to synthesize and integrate all we have learned from others into our own body of knowledge.(As cited in Hesser, 1996, p. 13)

Those are serious statements in my opinion. In addition, more, I would say: I can hear them as serious demands for my generation for us to become those kinds of adventurers who believe that Music contains its own diamonds. Bonny´s generation let us know some of the places where they can be found. Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins as well. The inspired book Healing Heritage (Clive Robbins and Carol Robbins) that is the edited version of Paul Nordoff´s "Talks on Music" (a series of lectures given in 1974), is an enormous example of a rich place...full of diamonds. It is interesting to look at the numbers of this book. It is composed by 18 Explorations with 168 musical examples composed by 19 recognized composers of the world (from the XVIIth to XXth century) with 67 examples of their musical work in order to illustrate Paul Nordoff´s proposals along the course entitled Nordoff-Robbins Preliminary Training Course in Music Therapy. Healing Heritage is just an example of one of our "diamond beds" and, diamonds definitely require effort to be found, require good tools and lenses to be found.

However, today we do know that they are in our house. Our house is no other house than music therapy. As professionals, despite our cultural differences, we all live in this house. It will be our task to develop the contents already presented by Nordoff´s generation and to bring up others not mentioned by them. What would be the lessons for music therapy we can take from Schoenberg´s music, Philip Glass´ minimalism? What about different rhythmic patterns (Brazilian Olodum and Timbalada) in a therapeutic process? Wouldn’t it be necessary for us to begin thinking and researching more about timbre in music therapy? Does a guitar, with an overdrive pedal, make someone feel the harmony played differently? In addition, technology, how can we use it in music therapy? We have a lot of work to do.

In 2001, I published my first book in Brazil entitled Musicoterapia Músico-centrada. With the publishing of this book, I shared with the community my desire to contribute in my way to our house. I described some theoretical and philosophical proposals about viewing Music-centered Music Therapy as a Model for Music Therapy. The idea began to be well accepted which made me propose, in 2003, the 1st Brazilian Conference on Music-centered Music Therapy[2] with lectures by local music-centered colleagues. This conference made us publish the second book on Music-centered Music Therapy in Brazil, which has received the same name as the conference itself. In the same year, my esteemed colleague Gregório Pereira de Queiroz published a book called Aspectos da Musicalidade e da Música de Paul Nordoff e suas Implicações na Prática Clínica Musicoterapêutica [Aspects of Paul Nordoff´s Musicality and Music and its Implications for the Music Therapy Clinical Practice]. Finally, in 2008, the NGO institution Qairoz and the Centro Gaúcho de Musicoterapia organized the 2nd Brazilian Conference on Music-centered Music Therapy with opening presentations from our dear colleagues Dr. Kenneth Bruscia and Dr. Kenneth Aigen, from the USA, and the music therapist Edgar Blanco, from Colombia.

The Second Conference on Music-centered Music Therapy took place in the city of São Paulo (Brazil)[3], in October 18 and 19th, 2008. The Conference chair, the music therapist Gregório Queiroz defined the title for the event: Music-centeredness in action. This title made me think: to be a music-centered music therapist implies being able to activate music-centeredness. It implies being a professional who therapeutically related to someone else, is able to activate the power of the tones facilitating the search of someone for health through encounters in and with the music. To be a music-centered music therapist implies being able to have your clinical musicality prepared to listen and to make the necessary musical interventions, which someone, in a Music Therapy process, is asking for.

To be able to put music-centered Music Therapy into action requires thinking about the Music Therapy practice in the world and to think about music; this has to do with the thinking about its clinical use and its consequences. Again, paths that were already anticipated for our generation by music therapists as Clive Robbins, Paul Nordoff and Helen Bonny.

Music-centered Music Therapy, I believe, is one of the possible developments of their legacies and, in Brazil,[4] it is presented nowadays, in a synthesized description, having:

• ORIGIN: the so-called "music-centered" clinical practices (I specifically make a reference of the works of the music therapists Clive Robbins, Paul Nordoff[5] and Helen Bonny[6]). Nordoff and Robbins developed a theoretical model (Creative Music Therapy – Nordoff-Robbins approach) different from Helen Bonny´s, who was pioneer of GIM;
• A QUESTION (as a motivation): the topic, proposed by a group of international music therapists that met in New York in the year of 1982, was the guide for the 2nd World Symposium on Music Therapy which the title was: Music in the Life of Man. The question: "what is unique about the experience with music that makes it important for therapy?"
• SOME DEMANDS/REQUIRED NEEDS FOR THE FIELD: I point out the statements of the music therapists Helen Bonny and Barbara Hesser (in 1985 and in 1988 respectively, both from the USA) quoted on the beginning of this article, that called the attention for the development of the field and "asked" for an inner theory for Music Therapy;
• A STRONG PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS (coming from the Philosophy of Music): the philosopher of music Victor Zuckerkandl (1896-1965) is a significant influence for the clinical, philosophical and theoretical work of the Music-centered Music Therapy in Brazil;

Zuckerkandl says that "succession of tones are motions not in respect to an order based on pitches but in respect to an order based on the forces in tones"(1956, p. 95).

Paul Nordoff, when talking about a Mozart piano sonata (K. 545) said: "there is a force in each one of these tones" (As cited in Robbins & Robbins, 1998, p. 7). We, as musicians and music therapists, deal with tones organized in a context: the SCALE. Therefore, we can think about the musical scale as the CONTEXT for the potential of each tone to appear. This potential of the tone Zuckerkandl called dynamic quality and, for him, "The dynamic quality of a tone is a statement about its incompleteness, its will to completion" (1956, p. 136). The tones have will.

• A CONSIDERATION ABOUT MAN: I view Homo sapiens as HOMO MUSICUS (a being that does not live without music);

Zuckerkandl defines this as "the being that requires music to realize itself fully"(1973, p. 2). According to him, "music rests upon an inherent quality of existence: MUSICALITY (1973, p. 351).

Musicality is not a gift, but one of manÂ’s basic attributes; manÂ’s very nature predisposes him to music. In music, man does not give expression to something (his feelings, for example), nor does he build autonomous formal structures: he invents himself. In music, the law by which he knows himself to be alive is realized in its purest form (1973, p. 350).

• SOME METHODOLOGIES OF ANALYSIS: just to give some examples of analysis: Clinical Recording on audio and video (Nordoff-Robbins and Brandalise as published examples), timing reports (Nordoff-Robbins and Brandalise, as published examples), musical analysis which include score writing (several authors, Colin Lee as an example[7]).
• RESULTS: the music-centered literature presents clinical cases with significant outcomes such as Audrey, Terry and Edward[8];

As mentioned in the beginning of the article, we presently witness how a legacy that was left for us by music therapists as Helen Bonny, Clive Robbins and Paul Nordoff, is becoming a movement in several parts of the world through the actions of various professionals.

I see us thinking, doing and practicing music-centered music therapies (in the plural – since it is a plural movement being built up by different professionals in the world). There are differences and I think they are fundamental for the growth of the work. However, also there are similarities. And what we find in common among music-centered music therapists can be objectively understood through one of Aigen´s statements: according to him "(...) being music-centered means placing ideas about music at the core of music therapy theory" (2005, p. 31). That means that is time for us to investigate deeper aspects of the human being linked to musicality and in connection with the lives of the tones, of the intervals. We, as music therapists, need to be researching and better understanding the clinical use of the intervals, of the inversions, of different chords and harmonies, and of the idioms. And we will be tremendously engaged, hand in hand, with the demands asked/needs observed for our generation of music therapists, by our colleagues Barbara Hesser and Helen Bonny: to develop our own theoretical foundation.

Notes

[1]I know that there are many other music therapy scholars who address similar issues. The ones I have chosen for this article are the ones who resonate the most with my clinical approach.

[2]In the city of Porto Alegre, southern Brazil.

[3]The first Brazilian Conference on Music-centered Music Therapy took place in the city of Porto Alegre (southern Brazil), in 2003.

[4]Lecture presented during the second Brazilian Conference on Music-centered Music Therapy (TABLE 1) by the author of this article.

[5]Period: mid 60´s.

[6]Period: late 70´s.

[7]The example mentioned the book Music at the Edge: the Music Therapy Experiences of a Musician with AIDS: Routledge, London and New York (both in 1996).

[8]The intention is to mention successful clinical cases that belong to Nordoff-Robbins literature (which is a music-centered literature). They are well known by the music therapy community. The reader can find more details about them in the books Creative Music Therapy (Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins, 1977) and Paths of Development in Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy (Kenneth Aigen, 1998).

References

Aigen, Kenneth (2005). Music-centered Music Therapy. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers.

Brandalise, André (2001). Musicoterapia Músico-centrada. São Paulo: Apontamentos.

Hesser, Barbara (1996). An Evolving Theory for Music Therapy. New York: Unpublished manuscript.

Queiroz, Gregório José Pereira de (2003). Aspectos da Musicalidade e da Música de Paul Nordoff e suas Implicações na Prática Clínica Musicoterapêutica. São Paulo: Apontamentos.

Robbins, Clive; Robbins, Carol (1998). Healing Heritage: Paul Nordoff Exploring the Tonal Language of Music. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona Publishers.

Zuckerkandl, Victor (1956). Sound and Symbol: Music and the external world. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Zuckerkandl, Victor (1973). Sound and Symbol. Vol. 2: Man the Musician. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.