Music Therapy: Benefits, Techniques, and Applications
Therapy
Definition: A process of systematic intervention in which the therapist helps the patient obtain or improve health through music experiences and the relationships that develop through them as dynamic forces for change.
End:
Music therapy aims to develop potential or restore functions to achieve better intra- and interpersonal integration and consequently a better quality of life through prevention, rehabilitation, and treatment.
What is it?
Music therapy is the use of music and/or its elements (sound, rhythm, melody, and harmony) by a qualified music therapist with a patient or group. It is a process designed to facilitate communication, relationships, learning, movement, and expression. It is a tool based on music, which gives us endless possibilities.
Effects of Music on Behavior
Time: Slow tempos between 60 and 80 beats per minute evoke impressions of dignity, calm, sentimentality, serenity, tenderness, and sadness. Fast tempos from 100 to 150 beats per minute evoke feelings of happiness, excitement, and vigor.
Rhythm: Slow rhythms induce peace and calm; fast rhythms produce motor activation and the need to externalize feelings but can also cause stress.
Harmony: When multiple sounds occur at once, a full set is called a chord. Consonant chords are related to balance, rest, and joy. Dissonant chords are associated with anxiety, desire, and agitation.
Tonality: Major modes tend to be cheerful, lively, and funny, causing extraversion. Minor modes have different connotations, evoking intimacy, melancholy, and sentimentality, favoring introversion.
Height: High notes often act on the nervous system, resulting in increased alertness and reflexes. They also help to wake up and get us out of a state of exhaustion. However, very intense and prolonged high notes can damage the nervous system and even lead to hearing loss. Bass notes often have shadowy effects, evoking pessimism or extreme quietness.
Intensity: This is one of the elements of music that influence behavior. Thus, a soothing sound or music can be irritating if the volume is greater than what a person can endure.
Instrumentation: String instruments tend to evoke feelings with their expressive and penetrating sound. Wind instruments stand out for their cheerful and lively character, giving compositions a brilliant, solemn, or majestic quality. Percussion instruments are characterized by rhythmic power, liberating and stimulating action and movement.
Music therapy can help:
- Children with learning difficulties or behavior problems
- Children with deep-development disorders (autism)
- Children with mental deficiencies
- Individuals with difficulties socializing or low self-esteem
- Individuals with chronic medical conditions and/or degenerative diseases (cancer, heart disease, pain, etc.)
People with:
- Degenerative diseases due to aging (Alzheimer’s and others)
- Problems of drug dependence and substance abuse
- Brain damage due to disease or trauma
- Physical disabilities caused by degenerative diseases or accidents
- Acute or chronic pain due to various conditions (sequelae of accidents, cancer, etc.)
- Terminal illnesses
People without health problems who use music to:
- Reduce stress
- Support the labor process in women
- Increase creativity and problem-solving skills
- Reduce anxiety
- Improve self-esteem
- Manage stress
Benefits
- Increase communication and expression, promoting emotional development
- Improve perception and motor skills
- Embrace the expression of problems, concerns, fears, and blocks, acting as a relief and anxiety diminisher
- Achieve psychophysical and emotional balance
- Improve recorded physiological responses (EEG, galvanic skin reflex, heart rate, respiratory amplitude)
- Improve physical performance and increase cerebral blood flow
- Reach out to children with complex problems such as autism or psychosis
Objectives
- Improve emotions, behavior, perceptual-motor skills, personality, and communication
- Improve psychophysiological functions such as breathing and heart rate, and restore biological rhythms through music
On the Affective, Emotional, and Personality:
- Awareness of aesthetic values of music
- Affective and emotional awareness
- Approaching the sound world, stimulating interest
- Strengthening self-esteem and personality through self-realization
- Development of guidelines for correct behavior
- Development of attention and observation of reality
- Increase self-confidence and self-esteem
- Establish or re-establish relationships
- Integrate the person socially
Instruments Used
Natural Instruments: The body as a sound object, body percussion, voice
Conventional Instruments: Piano, guitar, flute
Percussion Instruments: Indigenous and folk instruments
Handcrafted Instruments: Constructed by the patients themselves
Instruments Made for Therapeutic Purposes: Specific music therapy material, adapted instruments, and sound objects
Electronic Instruments: Computer music equipment
Recording Material: Music of different styles
Psychomotor Material: Mats, wedges, etc.
Benefits of Music Therapy for People with Disabilities
- Increase communication and expression, promoting emotional development
- Improve perception and motor skills
- Embrace the expression of problems, concerns, fears, and blocks, acting as a relief and anxiety diminisher
- Achieve psychophysical and emotional balance
- Improve recorded physiological responses (EEG, galvanic skin reflex, heart rate, respiratory amplitude)
- Improve physical performance and increase cerebral blood flow
- Reach out to children with complex problems such as autism or psychosis