An introduction to music therapy
Discover how music therapy combines various disciplines to support health and wellbeing. Explore the impact of music on health and learn different methods used in music therapy practice. This course is for anyone interested in using music to improve their own wellbeing and understanding the field of music therapy.
What you’ll learn
- Students will learn about how music therapy is a melding of different disciplines such as arts, health/medicine, psychology, sociology, anthropology, education.
- Student will explore how different types and genres of music are utilized to support health and wellbeing.
- Students will learn how music and its elements influences and impacts health.
- Students will learn the various ways methods utilized in music therapy practice (receptive, recreative, composition, and improvisation).
- Students will examine research surrounding the use of music and music therapy to improve health and wellbeing.
- Students will engage in different methods and ways to use music to foster their health and wellbeing.
This introductory course explores the use of music to foster health and wellbeing by examining historical uses of music in healing practices and how this lead to the evolution of the music therapy profession.
In fact, there are evidences abound of music being used in our daily lives and as healing rituals as early as Neolithic times, with ancient cave carvings and bone flutes all seeming to tell us just how key music was to human lives.
The course will review the various ways that music is utilized in music therapy practice to engage a wide array of clients across the lifespan in using music to support their healing. Clinical cases will demonstrate how listening to music, singing and playing music, composition and improvising music are utilized with clients in different clinical settings. These cases demonstrate how the music therapist adapts the method to meet the unique needs and interests of clients.
Experiential experiences are integrated into the course to allow students to engage with music to support their own health and wellbeing. Recent research literature is also integrated into the course to help students understand how music is impacting healthcare and community wellbeing in the 21st century across the globe.
Who this course is for:
- This course is designed for anyone who is interested in discovering and learning how music can be utilized to improve your health and wellbeing. It is designed for individuals that are interested in learning and experiencing how to use music in their own life and developing a great understanding of music therapy.
