January 2011: Music Therapy Advocacy Month!

This is a blog I should have started a long time ago to chronicle the journey that started with one little two-part question in my music therapy research class several years ago: "How many bilingual music therapists are there and are they using their bilingual skills in their practice?"

I asked the question for several reasons:

1) I come from a bilingual family. My dad was born and raised in Memphis, TN. My mom was born in Laredo, TX, grew up in San Antonio, and English is her second language.

I love speaking, singing, and listening to Spanish! I grew up listening to and learning Spanish, as I spent many days with my grandparents in San Antonio and many summers visiting my grandmother's sisters and family in Laredo. I studied Spanish in high school and college, and lived in Spain for two months on a mission trip in my undergraduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

2) I received my Bachelor of Arts in Music at UT and the cool thing about that degree is that one may choose what they want to concentrate their studies in. I bounced around from clarinet performance to music business and recording and after an incredibly intriguing Renaissance music history class (hard to believe, but trust me, my professor was amazing) finally rested on ethnomusicology. Because of the caliber and experience of the professors in the ethno program, I dove into Hindustani music, music of Mexico and the Caribbean, and a couple African American music history classes. I loved learning about how music and culture profoundly effect each other.

3) At the same time as my research class, I was also in a graduate philosophy music therapy class and was challenged to examine my views on music therapy and while I never aligned myself with one particular philosophy, I held Altschuler's isoprinciple very close to heart and started wondering if we as therapists are truly meeting the needs of our patients if they speak one language and we speak another.

All those questions led to a survey study that eventually led to a master's thesis, presentations at regional and national AMTA conferences, and the publishing of a book of Spanish songs that are translated for music therapists to utilize in their sessions. Bilingual music therapy has impacted every step of my music therapy education and training from practicum sessions across client populations, to my internship, and my job as a full time music therapist at a children's hospital.

This being music therapy advocacy month, I decided to start this blog to go back and revisit the foundations of multicultural and bilingual music therapy because the research is rich and there is a strong multicultural current in AMTA right now. In the future I hope this blog will host discussions and be a place where we can all share ideas because odds are if you're a music therapist reading this right now you can think of a client of yours who you know would benefit from bilingual music therapy.

Thanks for reading and I do hope you'll stick around :)