“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.”-Plato

What is Music Therapy?

There are many different ideas of what music therapy is. The American Music Therapy Association defines music therapy as “the clinical and evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program”. What does this mean? It means that music therapy is the use of music to help reach a variety of goals including but not limited to, increasing quality of life, physical needs, emotional needs, cognitive needs, educational needs, and psychosocial needs. Although the medium is music, it is also an evidence-based practice, which means that there is research and science showing that music therapy is an effective therapeutic approach.

Who are Board Certified Music Therapists?

Not everyone is qualified to be a music therapist. Because music therapy is an evidence based therapy, there are many steps that need to be completed in order to become a board certified music therapist (MT-BC), which include completing a bachelors in music therapy from a college that has an approved program by the American Music Therapy Association, completing a clinical internship which consists of 1,200 hours of clinical training in the field, and passing the Music Therapist-Board Certification exam.

Through our training, we as board certified music therapists are trained to provide music therapy as well as adaptive music lessons. There is no one learning style that fits all, so we are trained to give music lessons in a variety of forms based on which learning style is the most appropriate. Adaptive music lessons also provide different ways to help individuals with a variety of needs learn music.