Catherine's Therapeutic Music

Blog 1-What is Therapeutic Music?

            Welcome everyone to my blog series. I am going to talk about Therapeutic Music this week. I’ll be going over the basics of Therapeutic Music as well as the benefits of the service. I will also go over what Therapeutic Music is not.

            What is Therapeutic Music?

            Therapeutic Music is live music that can be played on an instrument or sung while focusing on a patient’s immediate needs. It is an art based of the science of sound. A certified therapeutic musician (CTM) or a certified music practitioner (CMP) can use Therapeutic Music to enhance the patient’s environment. The intention is to promote healing for the patient, not curing. Therapeutic Music heals patients by bringing the mind, body, and spirit into balance. It is a holistic, complementary benefit that helps patients with four aspects of their lives: Physical, Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual. Therapeutic Music is usually done on a one-on-one basis, however, I have sung to groups of patients before.

            What Therapeutic Music Is Not

            First, I want to emphasize that Therapeutic Music is not entertainment. A certified therapeutic musician plays or sings familiar or unfamiliar music based on their patient’s conditions. Sometimes, therapeutic musicians improvise based on rhythmic or non-rhythmic patterns. They tend to match the mood of the patients when playing or singing. It is not a performance.

            Second, Therapeutic Music is not Music Therapy. Music Therapy requires a 4-year degree and is prescriptive to patients. Music therapists focus on the patient’s nonmusical goals. Therapeutic Music requires a certification and I will go over where you can be trained as a therapeutic musician in a later blog. The biggest difference between Music Therapy and Therapeutic Music is that with Music Therapy, the patient must be engaged, and they must interact with the Music Therapist. With Therapeutic Music, patients can be passive and can even fall asleep while one is playing or singing (NSBTM, 2020).

Benefits of Therapeutic Music

            The benefits of Therapeutic Music according to the National Standards Board for Therapeutic Musicians, (2020) include but are not limited to the following:

• Distraction
• Disassociation from the present situation
• Refocus of Attention
• Altering sense of time
• Reprieve from the present situation
• Relieving anxiety of the critically ill
• Reducing stress and blood pressure of the chronically ill
• Augmenting pain management
• Bridge for communication between loved ones
• Relieving physical and mental tension of the pre-surgery patient
• Accelerating physical healing of post-surgery and injured patients
• Easing the birth delivery process
• Aiding mental focus in Patients with Dementia by lifting and clearing the consciousness
• Assisting the dying by facilitating ease in the transition process

Thank you for taking the time to read about what I do. Next blog we will talk more about where Therapeutic Musicians work and what a session looks like.

Reference

National Standards Board for Therapeutic Musicians, 2020, Therapeutic Music Presentation Planner: Helping you Deliver a High Quality Presentation, [PDF Pages], Purchased from: https://www.nsbtm.org/student-resources