Voices: Continuing the Celebration

By Carolyn Kenny

Welcome to the March 1, 2010 issue of Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy! As you read in our last issue, it is now 10 years since we started developing this forum (which was launched in April 2001). In this issue, we continue to highlight some of the important aspects of our Voices work. This is our 28th issue of the journal. And there are so many other sections to explore – Discussions, Country of the Month, Fortnightly columns, and our newest section, Resources. There are many interviews. And now these interviews are published within the context of the journal issues three times a year. Each week, Voices has 1,600 visitors to our website! And we are very happy about that. Brynjulf, Rune, and I just completed our yearly Voices meetings in Bergen, Norway, and we are also initiating some pretty exciting new ideas in the coming months. You’ll be reading about those in subsequent issues.

A celebration of success must begin by offering our sincere gratitude to our sponsors: GC Rieber Fondene, Uni Health, Norway; The Grieg Academy at the University of Bergen, Norway; and Antioch University Ph.D. in Leadership and Change. Without their support, it would not be possible to continue our Voices work.

We could not have such a successful initiative without the tireless and dedicated commitment of our editors. So we want to thank our amazing editors from around the world. They are Helen Oosthuizen, Hyun Ju Chong, Rika Ikuno, Daphne Rickson, Katrina McFerran, Jane Edwards, Gabriella Giordanella Perilli, Brian Abrams, Guylaine Vaillancourt, Lia Rejane Barcellos, Susanne Bauer, Leslie Bunt, Krzysztof Stachyra, Barbara Wheeler, Kana Okazaki-Sakaue, Martin Howard, Sarah Hoskyns, Joke Bradt, Thomas Wosch, Tor Olav Heldal, and Diego Schapira. These are extraordinary people who are also extraordinarily busy. So it is particularly important that we express our gratitude to them.

We also want to express our sincere appreciation to Michelle Forinash, who recently retired after ten years of service to Voices. Michelle was with us from the beginning and continues to support Voices in many ways. Brian Abrams will replace Michelle as Co-editor for the North American region alongside Guylaine Vaillancourt. Also, we want to thank Andeline Dos Santos, who recently retired from our Voices Editorial Staff, as well. Andeline has been a very dedicated editor for several years now.

All of these editors serve as volunteers in our Voices work. They gather information, encourage the submission of texts, conduct formal reviews of articles, submit fortnightly columns, and conduct a host of other informal activities that help to connect music therapists and others interested in music therapy all over the world. Whenever possible, our editors attend Voices retreats and present in panels at Music Therapy conferences around the world. Many editors participated in just such activities at the World Congress of Music Therapy in Buenos Aires last year. In addition to their many duties, our Editorial Staff helps to organize these events. Diego Schapira did a great job in organizing our meetings and presentations in Buenos Aires. We are planning our next editorial gathering -- a one-day Voices retreat for editors. We will also submit a proposal for a Voices panel for the American Music Therapy Association Conference in Cleveland, Ohio in November 2010.

Sometimes we invite Music Therapists who are not in our group of Voices Editors to review articles for the journal. And, of course, we want to thank all of our outside reviewers, as well.

Brynjulf, Rune, and I are always working on Voices, too. There will be a slight change in our roles in the coming months. Brynjulf will become an Associate Editor and in this role, he will have many in-house duties. Of course Brynjulf and Rune have offices just down the hall from each other. So Brynulf and Rune will continue to work closely together on every aspect of the Voices website. Brynjulf also has a big responsibility to keep up the good will and funding our Voices. He is in close touch with our Norwegian sponsors, and is responsible for providing updates about our work. In addition, he will continue to submit a fortnightly column in our rotation system, participate in our retreats and panel presentations around the world, and continue to participate in the general development of both our technology and our mission. Some of you may not know that Brynjulf and I meet once a month on SKYPE to discuss our Voices work. In addition, we meet in person once a year to go over everything thoroughly, discuss new initiatives, and reflect on how Voices continues to fulfill our mission. Starting with our July 1st, 2010 issue, Brynjulf will also be conducting a pilot study to try a new way of evaluating the research articles, though other genres will maintain existing criteria for now.

And where would we be without Rune Rolvsjord, our Managing Editor? Holy Moly! Rune is a wizard when it comes to technology. And he works closely with the university technology departments to get the best services. Certainly, the incorporation of the Open Journal System, described by Brynjulf in our last issue, was a major effort. Rune helps each and every one of us in our various learning curves about how to use this technology. He is the one who puts each journal issue “to bed”, as we say in the journalism trade insider language, as well as mounting all of the other sections with new material on a regular basis. Rune has an important “voice” in Voices policies, and like Brynjulf and I, cares a great deal about the quality and open access of Voices. So the three of us together make pretty good guardians of the Voices vision and mission, checking with each other constantly to be sure we are on track!

Now for my new role. I’ll be taking on the role of Editor-in-Chief, as Brynjulf switches to Associate Editor. I will be primarily responsible for the journal issues – to receive texts through the Open Journal System, to assign reviewers, to communicate with authors about revisions and acceptances, to generally communicate with all parties. Of course I’ll also be adding my two cents when its my turn to submit a Fortnightly Column, meeting with Brynjulf on SKYPE once a month, meeting with Rune and Brynjulf in person once a year, participating in our Voices presentations and retreats when possible.

So that’s a lot of news!

Now I’d like to spend some time encouraging you to participate in some of the special Voices sections. As a “forum”, or place for dialogue, we would like to see much more dialogue in our Discussion section. And we encourage dialogue from students, music therapy practitioners, professors in a variety of disciplines, related health professionals, and a host of people who might be interested in our discourses and general ideas. We also want to direct you to our newly constructed Resource area, which is under construction by Diego. This is turning out to be a very useful offering in Voices. And if you have any news or events you would like to post, please send those along to Diego(). Please send along your ideas for Country of the Month to Martin and Sarah (;). We know there are always new developments in countries around the world. And we want to be sure to update developments when those changes occur. Already, we have posted news from over 50 countries. But some of those postings are now a few years old. And I’m sure there are many new things happening that we would like to report!

And last, but not least, we want to encourage two special aspects of Voices that are so important. Please submit texts in two languages whenever possible. We believe so much in the “access” principle. And one of the most valuable aspects of our Voices publication is the sharing of ideas across languages. Because we are an electronic culture, we also want to encourage you to include media enhancements in your submission. These might be video or audio clips, photographs, and hyperlinks to related sites.