Every music therapist uses their voice in clinical work whether it is humming to an infant in the NICU or adjusting the timbre and intonation of a speaking voice in verbal processing. Because music therapists do not always receive specific vocal training for using the voice as a clinical instrument, Elizabeth Schwartz found it necessary to create some basic, practical tips and techniques for helping music therapy students find and expand their own clinical voice. She shares some examples in this AMTA-Pro podcast, The A Cappella Voice, in hopes of opening a discussion on the importance of helping all music therapists add specific vocal practices, techniques and understandings to their clinical knowledge and repertoire.

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The A Cappella Voice
Developing, Expanding and Exploring Voice
as Your Primary Therapeutic Tool

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AMTA-Pro Podcast
Elizabeth K. Schwartz LCAT MT-BC
Elizabeth@RaisingHarmony.com

Are you comfortable being able to walk into a session and just start singing? Do you find yourself hiding your voice behind your guitar or the keyboard? Do you get hoarse or vocally tired at the end of a clinical day? Do your clients ever ask you to make the song sound like_______ (fill in the blank with a popular singer)? Do you wonder how to use your voice to make a richer, more engaging clinical atmosphere? Are you a music therapy educator who wants to know how to help your students do more with a song than sing in tune and get the words right?

Every music therapist uses their voice in clinical work whether it is humming to an infant in the NICU or adjusting the timbre and intonation of a speaking voice in verbal processing. As primarily an early childhood music therapist for the last 25 years, I use my voice as my number one therapeutic tool. What I learned from this work is that the voice can be clinically powerful in every area of practice. I frequently use only my voice when working everywhere from middle schools to hospitals. Since my early training was as a singer, I took for granted the knowledge about the voice that I put into practice every day. It wasn’t until I started to educate music therapy students that I began to focus on the details of how to make the voice a clinical instrument. Through teaching, I sought to create some simple and understandable tips and techniques for helping each student find and expand their own clinical voice and I now want to share this information with professional music therapists.

It is my hope that this podcast will open a discussion on the importance of helping all music therapists add vocal health, and specific vocal practices, techniques and understandings to their clinical knowledge and repertoire.

RESOURCES

∗    Austin, D. (2001). In search of the self: The use of vocal holding techniques with adults traumatized as children. Music Therapy Perspectives, 19(1), 22-30.
∗    Baker, F. and Uhlig, S. (Eds.) (2011). Voicework in music therapy: Research and practice. London, U.K.: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
∗    Baker, F. F., Wigram, T. T., & Gold, C. C. (2005). The effects of a song-singing programme on the affective speaking intonation of people with traumatic brain injury. Brain Injury, 19(7), 519-528.
∗    Boyle, S.R. & Engen, R.L. (2008). Are music therapists at risk for voice problems? Raising awareness of vocal health issues? Music Therapy Perspectives, 26 (1), 46-50.
∗    Chong, H. (2010). Do we all enjoy singing? A content analysis of non-vocalists’ attitudes toward singing. Arts In Psychotherapy, 37(2), 120-124.
∗    http://www.uiowa.edu/~shcvoice
∗    Iliya, Y. (2011). Singing for Healing and Hope: Music Therapy Methods that Use the Voice with Individuals Who Are Homeless and Mentally III. Music Therapy Perspectives, 29(1), 14-22.
∗    Juslin, P. J.  and Sloboda, J. A. (Eds.) (2001) Music and emotion: Theory and research. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press.
∗    Loewy, J. V. (1995). The Musical Stages of Speech: A Developmental Model of Pre-verbal Sound Making. Music Therapy, 13(1), 47-73.
∗    Schwartz, E.K. (2012). You and me makes…we:  A growing together songbook. Melrose, MA: The Center for Early Childhood Music Therapy.
∗    Tamplin, J. (2009). The link between singing and respiratory health for people with quadriplegia. Australian Journal Of Music Therapy, 45-55.
∗    Young-Mason, J. (2012). Singing for the Joy of it, Singing for Hope, Singing to Heal: Music and Song Improves Lives of Persons With Parkinson’s Disease. Clinical Nurse Specialist: The Journal For Advanced Nursing Practice, 26(6), 343-344

ABOUT THE PODCAST SPEAKER

Elizabeth K. Schwartz, LCAT, MT-BC, is the senior music therapist at Alternatives for Children in Suffolk County, New York where she specializes in Early Intervention and preschool treatment. Through Alternatives, Beth also provides staff development for local public schools on music therapy, music and special education and music education. She is an adjunct instructor in Music Therapy at Molloy College and a site supervisor for internship and fieldwork students.

Beth is the author of Music, Therapy, and Early Childhood: A Developmental Approach and a contributing author for Effective Clinical Practice in Music Therapy: Early Childhood and School Age Educational Settings; Developments in Music Therapy Practice: Case Study Perspectives and Guidelines for Music Therapy Practice in Developmental Health. She is a frequent contributor to the AMTA early childhood music therapy magazine, Imagine.  Her song book, You and Me Makes…We: A Growing Together Songbook, has 101 newly composed or adapted songs based in therapeutic and developmental music making in early childhood.

Beth has been appointed to the Educational and Training Advisory Board of the American Music Therapy Association and is currently an extended member of the New York State Mental Health Practitioners Board which oversees licensure of Creative Arts Therapists. She is also the former music therapy liaison from MAR/AMTA to the New York State Music Educators Association. In prior years Beth served on the AMTA Task Force on Advanced Competencies and was Chair of the Government Relations Committee for the Mid-Atlantic Region of the American Music Therapy Association.

Beth’s newest venture is as co-founder and education and training director of Raising Harmony: Music Therapy for Young Children which provides training and resources on early childhood music, early childhood music therapy, and early music development. Part of Raising Harmony is Sprouting Melodies TM, a national parent/child music program that focuses on music making in early development. Beth blogs on music therapy and early childhood music at www.Raisingharmony.com and www.SproutingMelodies.com.