Technology Trends in Music Therapy

Technology is an integral part in todays society. We use technology every day in one way or another, whether it be just to call a friend on the phone or to write a blog post on a laptop. With the instrumental impact technology has on our lives, we would be remiss to exclude it from our music therapy practice.

As a music therapy student, I have only had a couple semesters of clinicals so far, and yet I have used technology so often. Last semester I worked with a group called “Forever Young Choir”. While working with them, in every session I used technology to display the lyrics of the songs we were learning on the projector and during our performance, we used lots of technology with the electric instruments

Katie Myers, a music therapist at Levine Music, talked about how technology is integrated in music therapy with children, in her podcast, Music Therapy: The Intersection of Play and Technology. In may come as no surprise that 71% of music therapists incorporate technology in some way into their interventions on a daily basis (Myers). What I want to know is why and how.

One reason to include technology in music therapy interventions is that technology “capitalizes on a genetic bias that the human brain has towards visually presented information” (Myers), creating a more stimulating experience. However, technology by itself is quite lacking. According to Myers, “…technology can be very passive, lacking in social, emotional, cognitive, and motoral experiences that are crucial to development”. That’s where music therapy comes in. Music therapy is where we can combine “experiential interactive learning” (play) with “visual aural stimulation” (technology). So how do we incorporate technology?

In recent years, several scholarly articles have been published “exploring specific evidence based strategies for integration into music therapy practice” (Myers). A couple examples include “active music making with instruments or singing can be incorporated into digital stories or movies for enhanced attention and sensory stimulation” (Myers). Imagery from movies and other digital stories can “be supported by appropriate musical selections to define the emotional and social context of story content” (Myers). Lastly, “recorded music can be used to facilitate relaxation so that the therapist can assist young children in pairing the music with yoga or stretching for relaxation” (Myers). These interventions are only a few examples, there are so many more ways in which technology can be used in music therapy interventions.

Myers’s closing statement is this, “Music therapy bridges the gap between play and technology by providing the important components of active engagement and sustained attention that are lacking in digital media”. That’s why I believe in the next several years, all music therapists should get accustomed to using technology in their practice in one way or another.

How do you use technology in your music therapy practice?

Myers, K. (2017, September 1). Music Therapy: The Intersection of Play and Technology. Retrieved from www.imagine.musictherapy.biz