musictherapyacademy.com/blog

 By: Jihyun Sung

As a student of health sciences specializing in child health, as well as an avid disciple of classical music performance, I found myself gravitating toward the field of music therapy during my undergraduate years. It was a perfect intersection between healthcare and music, and led me to do my senior year thesis project on it. The topic of the project, What is the effectiveness of music therapy on pediatric postoperative distress?, encompassed all of my passions; music, healthcare, and child health. Part of my project was conducting a systematic literature review on...

My name is Zachary Brown, and I am a grade 12 student at Sir John A. MacDonald
secondary school as well as an aspiring music therapist. Recently I was able to experience two whole new sides of music therapy that I hadn't been exposed to before.

During one of my visits to a long term care facility that I've been volunteering at, I got to sit in on a one on one session between Laura, the facility's music therapist and one of their residents. I got to see Laura work alongside the physiotherapist that works there as well, while they worked with another resident. Both of these experiences...

To the person who feels stuck in limbo,

This past year I’ve gained an important skill, and that is patience. I would imagine that if you ask anyone what skills a music therapist needs, many would include patience as one of them, as something that is “already a given”, which is something I thought as well. But now the skill of patience has a new meaning. Not only should a person have patience and compassion when working with vulnerable persons but they also need to have that for themselves.

To be patient with yourself is to know that even if you don’t succeed the...

I was first introduced to music therapy in high school. As part of a grade 10 music project, we were asked to choose a career in music and write a report about it. My music teacher suggested I write about music therapy since I was interested in health sciences. I wrote the report and thought that music therapy was cool, but I still really wanted to be a doctor. Over time, I started revisiting music therapy as a potential career choice. After more research and soul searching, I decided music therapy was something I wished to pursue. I completed a co-op with Rachael Finnerty at the music...

My name is Zachary Brown, I am a grade 12 student at Sir John A. MacDonald secondary school, and an aspiring music therapist. Earlier this week I got my first impression of what music therapy in action looks like.

This week I had the incredible opportunity to volunteer at a longterm care facility in Hamilton, Ontario. The music therapist at the long term care facility, graciously allowed me to shadow her as she ran a group session with 10 of the residents. As Laura sang and played her guitar for the residents, they joined in with percussion instruments, their voices, and many smiles. As...