Must-have Musical Skills for Student Music Therapists to Develop

My primary responsibility in my current academic position is to train future music therapists. The vast majority of my more traditional teaching load is geared towards the preprofessional music therapist—introduction to music therapy, two music therapy methods courses, and pre-practicum, a course where students learn foundational elements of how to “do” music therapy (assessment, goals and objectives, etc.). As Clinical Training Director I oversee student fieldwork experiences, from placements to assignments to clinical supervision.

Suffice it to say I’ve spent a fair amount of time and energy over the past 7 years thinking about what’s needed to be an effective music therapist (more, really, since I started teaching and supervising students about 12 years ago now).

This post focuses on the musical skills I aim to nurture and help develop in my students. More specifically, I’m focusing here on the live musical skills needed to effectively facilitate therapeutic music experiences, whether they be recreative, receptive, improvisational, or compositional (with a nod to Bruscia (2014) for his description of music-based methods). There are other aspects of music therapy treatment that go beyond live music of course (recorded music, anyone?), but let’s stick with this idea of live musical skills for now.

On the AMTA end, the Standards for Education and Clinical Training (2018) state that training programs should help students develop “competencies in functional keyboard, guitar, voice, percussion, and improvisation.” The AMTA Professional Competencies (2013) document is a bit more detailed, listing specific (and arguably basic) music, conducting, and compositional skills a professional music therapist should be able to complete, with a focus on guitar, piano, voice, and percussion. The most detailed is the CBMT Board Certification Domains (2020), which under section III.A.5 lists 34 distinct mostly-musical skills a board certified music therapist should be able to demonstrate to achieve therapeutic goals.

For me, when I take a step back and consider what I see as integral to contemporary music therapy practice, the musical skills I aim to help my students develop are intended to promote authenticity, adaptability, holistic musicianship, and/or healthy practice. What do I mean by these?

“Authenticity” means you have the technical and aural skills to be able to learn and play music in a way that’s stylistically…well, authentic. Given the rich diversity of musical traditions, there is no way to “teach them all” within the time constraints of a college degree. Rather, I aim to help my students develop skills they can use to listen to music in order to learn and play it for clients in a way that’s authentic to (or reflective of) the intended style.

“Adaptability” means you have the technical and aural skills to be able to change the music. Sometimes this happens during the planning stage. I often tell my students that part of the “fun” of being a music therapist is we have permission to take a song and change it to meet an intended therapeutic purpose. Other times this adaptability occurs on-the-spot in response to what you observe in the client. Maybe we need to musically redirect a client or aim to shift them to a different state of physiologic arousal. In either case we need to have certain musical skills in place in order to change the music we provide to meet client needs. 

“Holistic musicianship” means you have skills beyond singing and playing music, you must be able to compose and improvise music as well. This is often closely tied to music theory—we need to have an understanding of the structure of music (including form, harmony, melody, texture, and more) in order to create music…and by extension help clients create music.

“Healthy practice” means you perform music in a way that protects your vocal and musculoskeletal health. This means working to maintain healthy back, shoulder, and wrist alignment, keeping space for breathing and breath support, and singing with resonance. It’s a major shift to go from facilitating one session a week to multiple sessions a day, so I aim to help my students develop healthy habits and abilities before sending them off to internship. 

Within these areas there are of course certain technical skills that need to be rehearsed and solidified before any of the authenticity, adaptability, and holistic musicianship can come to fruition. These include things like:

• Singing on pitch with appropriate breath support and resonance, both a capella and with accompaniment.
• Smoothly playing and transitioning between different chords/chord shapes on various harmonic accompaniment instruments. (Although in the US the transitions between chords will most likely start with traditional Western harmonic progressions, we need not be limited to this.)   
• Applying different accompaniment patterns. On stringed accompaniment instruments (typically guitar and ukulele) this includes strumming and fingerpicking patterns, as well as percussive effects such as stops. On keyboard instruments this includes at minimum playing the bass note in the left hand (or variations such as bass and fifth, bass and octave, or bass, fifth, and octave) with chords in the right hand, as well as effective use of the sustaining pedal.
• Leading a musical experience, including the ability to prep and cue an entrance in time, as well as incorporate a musical introduction that establishes tempo and tonality.
• Transposing between keys, which on the guitar includes accurate use of the capo. 
• Understanding and executing appropriate playing techniques, which can be for the purposes of resonance as well as proper (i.e., healthy) technique. This can apply to vocal placement, how you play different percussion and drum instruments, and knowing, for example, where to strum on a ukulele (which is different than on a guitar).

This is not intended as an all-inclusive list—there are myriad other musical skills that can encompass a music therapist’s practice. But when I reflect on what to me are the foundational skills to nurture (and why), this is where I land. I share my thoughts here with the understanding that others have thoughts on this topic too. In that spirit, I welcome your thoughts, comments, questions, and suggestions below.

References

American Music Therapy Association. (2013). Professional competencies. https://www.musictherapy.org/about/competencies/

American Music Therapy Association. (2018). Standards for education and clinical training. https://www.musictherapy.org/members/edctstan/

Bruscia, K. (2014). Defining music therapy (3rd ed.). Barcelona Publishers.

Certification Board for Music Therapists. (2020). Music therapy board certification: Board certification domains—2020. https://www.cbmt.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/CBMT_Board_Certification_Domains_2020.pdf