Auroville is an international township, a few kilometers from Pondicherry in the south of India. Warmed throughout the year by an unrelenting Tamilian sun, it is, to paraphrase its charter, a seat of never-ending education and a laboratory of continuous experimentation and growth at all levels in preparation of the ‘neo-man’.
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Although ancient seers and Vedic scholars understood the import of sound and music and its connection with healing and well-being, in contemporary India music therapy is used without being accorded overt recognition. For instance, as a child when Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia suffered from asthma, he was advised by the doctor to take up the flute as an antidotal exercise – something recommended by doctors even today.
Music therapists address a number of non-musical goals including improving communication skills, decreasing inappropriate behaviour, improving academic and motor skills, increasing attention span, strengthening social and leisure skills, pain management and stress reduction.
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Music therapy is the prescribed use of music and musical interventions in order to restore, maintain, and improve emotional, physical, physiological, and spiritual health and well-being. Within this definition are the key elements that define interventions as music therapy.
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Music therapy is an allied health profession in which music is used within a therapeutic relationship to address physical, psychological, cognitive, and social needs of individuals. After assessing the strengths and needs of each client, the qualified music therapist provides the indicated treatment including creating, singing, moving to, and/or listening to music. Through musical involvement in the therapeutic context, the client’s abilities are strengthened and transferred to other areas of his or her life.
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Music therapy benefits everybody irrespective of age, gender, profession or any particular proclivity. You just have to be human to love, enjoy and be moved by music. For that matter, even animals and plants are known to be touched by music.
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The important therapeutic characteristics are:
Music captivates and maintains attention – it stimulates and utilises many parts of the brain;
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Since music therapy isn’t as yet a mainstream healing activity, it is looked at with a few misconceptions. But it is a fast evolving field and all misconceptions and myths are being blown away in the winds of acceptance and new discovery.
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This is primarily directed to the organised music curriculum in the western world. We refer here specifically to the United States and more details will be available at the US Information Services in various Indian cities. Details about courses in other western nations are also available at the respective consulates.
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In the West, music therapists work in psychiatric hospitals, rehabilitative facilities, medical hospitals, outpatient clinics, day-care treatment centres, agencies serving developmentally disabled persons, community mental health centres, drug and alcohol programmes, senior centres, nursing homes, hospice programmes, correctional facilities, halfway houses, schools, and private practice.
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