7

OVERCOMING CHALLENGES AND

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

OVERCOMING CLINICAL CHALLENGES

We have seen the many challenges involved in establishing music

therapists as core members of medical, dental, surgical, and resi-
dential teams. The numbers speak for themselves. There is a huge
shortage of certified music therapists to meet the clinical needs of
the conditions that benefit from music therapy, music medicine and
community music.
I think our challenge is two-fold.
First, we need to educate our healthcare clinicians about the
clinical benefits afforded by music interventions. As I have shown,
music interventions substantially help improve cognitive and
motor functioning, as well as decreasing pain, anxiety, stress, and
loneliness. They also have physiological benefits for our patients.
Furthermore, we need to help our clinicians appreciate that
through mutual recovery and caring for the caregivers, they too
will benefit by decreasing burnout and improving their well-being.

129
130 Music

Music therapy components should be a core part of the burgeoning

programs in well-being for healthcare professionals, including
meditation, yoga, sleep hygiene, nutrition, and exercise. This is a
win-win situation.
But how do we do this? As professionals, we can begin by advo-
cating for music intervention in grand rounds and workshops in
all of our specialties and establishing affiliations between our local
and national music therapy organizations and the national organi-
zations of physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals. We
begin with knowledge, awareness, and connection. At this point in
time, music interventions are not close to being on the radar of our
service chiefs, no less front-line workers.
We also need to educate our hospital officers and healthcare
insurance companies about the cost-savings of music therapy. This
will require more studies of efficacy, as well as cost-benefit and
quality improvement analyses to demonstrate that coverage will
save insurers and hospital systems of care substantial costs.
Second, we need to ally with our patients and members of the
community and lobby for increasing the workforce of music thera-
pists to meet future service needs. I hope that we could expand music
education and music therapy programs from the secondary school
level to college curricula. Music therapists will need education both
as performers as well as healers. I have no doubt that this career track
will be very appealing to many students. This larger workforce would
be beneficial to patients and to caregivers as noted above.

OVERCOMING PERSONAL CHALLENGES

In the last chapter, I noted the many challenges of playing an instru-

ment for the first time, of expanding one’s repertoire by learn-
ing new styles and techniques on an instrument and playing with
others. These personal challenges can be addressed in the following
ways:

1. Practice your first instrument daily, even for a short time, and
keep your expectations low in terms of how quickly you will
become proficient.
Overcoming Challenges and Future Directions 131

2. If you are expanding your repertoire, and are learning new

skills and technique, keep your expectations low and keep
in mind how long it took you to learn the basics of what
you already know. Also, keep up with your old, established
skills, as this will reinforce your self-esteem, improve your
confidence, reduce frustration, and remind you that you have
already mastered material. Play a piece or two of your familiar
tunes when practicing.

3. When playing with a group, whether a beginner or experienced

player, keep the focus off yourself, and use the community
experience to be a part of everyone’s sense of resilient con-
nection and well-being. Remember it is the group experience
that counts, not what you or any single member is doing when
playing together.

4. Listen, listen, listen! Make a playlist of the tunes you want to

learn, and use it as background music, when you are working,
when you drive, or when you are just laying low and relaxing.
It is critical to have the music you want to play in your head as
much as possible. The more you listen to music, the more you
hear – the harmonic movement, the construction of improved
lines, the subtle rhythmic structures, and more.

5. Maintain a close, warm relationship with your teacher. They are

there not only to give you a musical education, but to provide
support, encouragement, and reinforce your joy in learning.

Finally, although this book was designated as Music as part of

the Arts in Health, music need not simply be used for clinical or
one’s personal educational experiences. Music has been cherished
by all cultures and people of all ages as long as we humans (and
perhaps other species) have inhabited this planet. It is our true sal-
vation – healing ourselves and mending others, enriching relation-
ships, enlightening our sense of self and identity in a world with
others, transcending loneliness and isolation, and at times setting
ourselves in rhythmic motion. Beyond simply using music for a
particular purpose in society, sometimes we just want to listen or
play music for its own sake. It is a transcendental experience be a
part of creating or listening to something beautiful.
132 Music

Let me end with this challenge: Enjoy the artists and tunes you
already know, and please experiment with taking in new music.
Feel it, absorb it. It need not serve any other function than to make
you happy.