1. What is your current position/job title?

Music Therapist

2. What is your education/background?

Bachelor's degree in Music Therapy from the University of Minnesota

3. Do you have any special skills/experiences relating to music therapy?

I grew up being involved in music, from church choir to band and choir throughout
school. My main instrument in college was voice, and I took guitar classes, piano classes, and a
percussion class during my coursework.

4. How would you define music therapy?

I define music therapy as the therapeutic use of music to address non-musical goals.
Instead of teaching people how to play different instruments like in music education, I use music
to improve social skills, communication, among other non-music based skills.

5. What is an average workday like?

I currently work in a private therapeutic day school that ranges from 2nd grade through
12th grade. Some of our students have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and some of them have
Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. Our school has 13 classrooms and I see all of the
classrooms as whole groups on different rotating schedules. For example, some groups I see
weekly, like the autism classrooms, and others like the EDBD classrooms I see every 3-4 weeks.
I also have an individual caseload of 10 students that I see weekly.

6. What issues can music therapy help with?

Music therapy can be beneficial for anyone from birth through hospice care. Some of the
areas music therapy can address include reducing pain, reducing anxiety, improving social skills,
communication, increasing emotional and self-expression, utilized as a positive coping strategy,
etc.

7. What types of activities or techniques do you use to help these people?

Some examples of interventions I use are active music-making (playing instruments),
preferred music listening, lyric analysis, and songwriting.

8. Why do different types of therapy work better for different people?

For music therapy, in particular, it is patient-preferred, which means it focuses on using
the music the client prefers to listen to, relates to, and enjoys.

9. What is the difference between what I am doing for my senior project and real music therapy?
The difference between your senior project and music therapy is that music therapy is
provided by a board-certified music therapist who has received their board certification and
appropriate training from an accredited program.

10. Do you use music therapy techniques in your own daily life? If so how?
I use music as a positive coping strategy to help reduce stress and anxiety, especially after
a long, busy day. I listen to different genres of music to help improve my mood, such as classical
music after a particularly stressful day.