Epistemological Foundations of Objectivist and Interpretivist Research

At the heart of music therapy research, as in any field, is a search for knowledge. For centuries, researchers in a remarkable range of disciplines have conducted research and published findings in a vast array of professional journals and books. It therefore seems reasonable to suppose that we ought to know by now how to go about conducting research, and more importantly what it means to have gained knowledge. Yet problems have persisted along the way and have at various times proven quite challenging and even inconvenient for researchers and their claims to knowledge (Kuhn, 2012). Of particular significance are philosophical beliefs regarding what actually constitutes legitimate knowledge and how knowledge can be gained, or in other words beliefs about what can be known and how we can know it (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009; Denzin & Lincoln, 2003; Pascale, 2011). These are questions of ontology and epistemology.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/books/1054/thumbnail.jp

The Impact of Singing Engagement on Food Intake of Individuals with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias: A Multi-site, Repeated Measures Study

Malnutrition among older adults with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) is a serious and long-recognized health concern. Identifying nonpharmacological means for enhancing the volume of nutrition intake is an urgent need. Researchers have explored the use of music and music therapy as nonpharmacological avenues in this regard, but most music-based studies related to food intake focus on receptive interventions wherein participants are exposed to recorded music during meal times. The purpose of the present research is to investigate whether residents with ADRD would significantly increase their volume of food intake during the midday meal immediately following 30 minutes of active singing engagement facilitated by a board-certified music therapist (MT-BC). Results indicated no significant change in food intake for participants with ADRD in three long-term care facilities. However, the unintended finding at two facilities wherein participants’ food intake was greater during baseline weeks versus treatment weeks led to speculation about the impact of serotonin which researchers report is released during enjoyable music engagement episodes, but that has also long been recognized as an appetite suppressant. With this newly interpreted finding, recommendation is offered for monitoring when music therapy is provided for individuals with ADRD and nutritional complications relative to their meal times toward minimizing potential adverse effects

James Hiller: Autobiographical Account of My Evolution as a Music Therapist

Music therapists learn that songs and human life experiences go hand-in-hand. Sure enough, it was through songs that my relationship with music began in the mid-1960s. Spinning tunes from stacks of 45rpm Pop-rock records (I had 5 older siblings!), I 572 played the hi-fi long before ever touching a real instrument. Then at the start of the 1970s when the singer-songwriter genre was hot, and led by Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Carole King, Cat Stevens, Dan Fogelberg and the like, I began to truly listen. I was in the throes of a major developmental phase that largely is about discovering and dealing with new awarenesses—of self, others, and intertwining personal worlds, and the confessional songs of these artists accompanied me into and through my angst and growth. Songs, with their ability to hold a person firmly in a moment, and laced with rich timbres and textures, images, moods, feelings, ideas, stories of relational wounds and consummations, inspire dreams and spark yearnings. In learning my first chords on guitar (the opening sequence of Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie—ironically a song of a Hero’s Journey), I realized that I had something special in my hands; something that made it possible to express significant things that I felt and thought about, and that others might thereby resound with me. Songs and life experiences, I learned then, indeed go hand-in-hand.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/books/1051/thumbnail.jp

Supervision in the Field

The first book in the field to provide a comprehensive examination of the many levels and facets of music therapy supervision, now in its 2nd edition. It contains 26 chapters by leading experts from the USA, Canada, Denmark, Australia, and Israel. Part one provides foundations of supervision. Part two presents principles and techniques for pre-professional supervision (e.g., for students in practicum and internship), while part three deals with ways of supervising professional music therapists. Part four examines the various kinds of supervision used in advanced institute training (e.g., Nordoff-Robbins, Guided Imagery and Music, Analytical Music Therapy).https://ecommons.udayton.edu/books/1050/thumbnail.jp

Aesthetic Foundations of Music Therapy: Music and Emotion

The subject of aesthetic experience as it relates to music embodies a vast and fascinating territory of philosophical thought. Ancient philosophers to modern musicologists have engaged in scholarly debate over the topic from many perspectives (Davies, 2010; Kivy, 1989). Not surprisingly, a similar intrigue surrounds questions regarding the clinical value of aesthetic aspects of music and of music making for health, healing, and human development (Aigen, 1995, 2007). Numerous links between aesthetic experience and therapeutic processes are found in the music therapy literature. In fact, volumes could be filled with theories and philosophical arguments for and against the meaning and/or meaningfulness of aesthetic experiences in healing, such as those found in music therapy treatment processes. However, in this chapter, I delimit our exploration to an assortment of perspectives that address, arguably, one of the most clinically relevant aspects of the aesthetic music experience: that of emotion and its expression in or through music (Eerola & Vuoskoski, 2013). More specifically, I focus on a client\u27s active music-making processes wherein emotions might be ex- pressed in or through music rather than being elicited by music. I consider sources of emotion and where emotions might be located within music-making processes. And finally I explore theories that variously explain how musical expressions of emotions might occur. These theories provide guidance for the music therapist who wishes to understand and respond to the potential emotional meanings of a client\u27s music making. In fact, to gain insights about a client\u27s emotional world via music making is a unique and clinically powerful facet of music therapy

Implications of Embodied Cognition and Schema Theory for Discerning Potential Meanings of Improvised Rhythm

Rhythm is an essential and therefore indispensable aspect of all music. Arguably, rhythmic elements are the most accessible of all the musical elements for clients in music therapy to produce and manipulate expressively (Hiller, 2011). Yet, theoretical understanding of rhythm and its use in musical expression is a neglected area of both music therapy (Bunt, 1994; Daveson & Skewes, 2002) and musicological inquiry (Gabrielsson, 1993; Kramer, 1988; Mead, 1999). However, the area of psychological investigation known as “embodied cognition” or “schema theory,” which has been constructively applied to composed tonal music, may prove fruitful in deepening our understanding of potential meanings of rhythm in music therapy, particularly in clinical improvisation. Aigen (2009) has astutely noted that music therapists must take responsibility for providing theoretical explanations of the therapeutic meanings of all the musical elements used in therapy processes. How do we explain a client’s rhythm? Where do a client’s abilities to use rhythm for self-expression and to relate to others come from? Ansdell (1997) supports the notion that music therapy and musicology can enhance each other’s pursuits of knowledge regarding music. Significantly, Aigen (2005, 2009) has been a leading author in bringing concepts from schema theory to music therapy toward explaining tonal aspects of clinically improvised music. This chapter seeks to shed light on the meaning potentials of rhythm in improvisation from the perspective of schema theory and to briefly highlight implications for improvisational music therapy.https://ecommons.udayton.edu/books/1055/thumbnail.jp