Title: Hear My Music Conference – ‘Embedding equity: Inclusive by design’Dates: 7 June 2025Organiser: Hear My MusicLocation: Glasgow, United Kingdom

This is a review of the book "Navigating landscapes of Dalcroze practice: Histories of music and movement" edited by John Habron-James, Johanna Laakkonen and Selma Landen Odom. Title: Navigating landscapes of Dalcroze practice: Histories of music and movementEditors: John Habron-James, Johanna Laakkonen, Selma Landen OdomPublication year: 2025Publisher: Boydell PressPages: 284ISBN: 978-1783277964

The interest in music therapy assessment arises out of the profession’s need to evidence effectiveness, a priority that has become even more relevant in today’s economic climate. Considerable debate surrounds how best to conduct assessments, reflecting differing epistemological orientations within music therapy. A review of the literature on assessments in the fields of music therapy, research methodology, psychology and international development reveals varying perspectives on what constitutes credible knowledge. Given the author’s background in monitoring and evaluation in international development, this trainee research project seeks to document practitioners’ experience with using or developing assessment measures. Three music therapists with an experience of developing or adapting assessment measures were interviewed, and the data were analysed using thematic analysis. It was found that a wide range of criteria beyond notions of reliability and validity were considered to ensure the tool’s credibility. Faced with pragmatic concerns, therapists were acutely aware that information can be lost during assessment, yet they navigated this creatively to develop a “good enough” tool that aligns with the important values in music therapy. Therapists also reported benefiting from the process, gaining clarity around their work and reflexivity around evidence. This highlights the need for more documentation of practitioners’ experiences with assessment in the field.

The arts therapies are regulated professions in South Africa. Although the Health Professions Council does produce a scope of practice for the profession, there are no guidelines for best practice, particularly for practitioners working outside of private practice and in developing contexts where the scope is broad, the needs pervasive, and practice is extensive. Through six focus group discussions and two in-depth interviews with 20 arts therapists working outside of private practice, we explored how they are working (including the challenges and ethical dilemmas they encounter), how they respond to these challenges and dilemmas, what resources they use, and how they perceive their roles and responsibilities. Through gathering and analysing this data via thematic analysis, we sought to develop guidelines for best practice in these contexts. We propose and discuss eight best practice guidelines for responsive and responsible arts therapies practice-in-context, discussing their rationale and application. These guidelines may be useful for all practitioners seeking to work in ways that are sensitively responsive to context.

The development of music therapy as a profession varies significantly across global contexts, shaped by local education, clinical practice, and research initiatives. Understanding these national and international trajectories is critical to informing the profession’s ongoing evolution. This interview contributes to that understanding by exploring the career and perspectives of Alison Short, a leading Australian music therapy clinician, researcher, and educator. The timing of this interview is particularly significant, aligning with the 50th anniversary of the Australian Music Therapy Association (AMTA) in 2025, a milestone that invites reflection on the profession’s growth and future directions in Australia. The semi-structured interview process of the paper captures Short’s written responses to a series of questions focusing on her diverse professional experiences. These responses were further explored through virtual meetings, enabling deeper discussion and critical reflection. The resulting narrative highlights key themes that have shaped Short’s contributions to music therapy, relating to clinical practice, academia, research, the evolution of music therapy education in Australia, and the broader professional challenges and achievements witnessed over several decades.By exploring and documenting Short’s reflections, this interview offers valuable insights into the development of music therapy in Australia and the interrelationship between individual career trajectories and broader professional growth. These insights are not only relevant for understanding the Australian context but also contribute to global conversations about sustaining and advancing music therapy as a dynamic, evidence-informed, and person-centred profession.

Psychological trauma has recently received increased attention in music therapy, resulting in a dramatic increase in writings about this subject. However, the voice of clinicians and participants is not represented strongly in the literature. This paper is an attempt to begin to fill in this gap, providing examples from practice presented through narratives that illustrate music therapist’s perspective on the work, the clients’ expressions, and relationships. Following case vignettes taken from music therapy sessions, reflections on the work are integrated with relevant literature. The vignettes capture moments where key concepts of trauma-informed practice, such as trust and safety, are being challenged and questioned. They serve as a starting point for connecting theoretical knowledge with lived experiences and are intended to bring awareness to the reader in a way that is intuitive and emotional, as well as intellectual.

Silence is a common experience in music therapy, potentially rich in meaning, however there is limited literature available about silence within improvisational music therapy. This article draws connections between musicological, psychological, phenomenological, and music therapy literature on: typologies of silence, silence as an intersubjective phenomenon, and silence as a space for reflection and processing. The importance of meaning making and silence in improvisational music therapy is explored through semi-structured interview data and Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The IPA interview analysis produced three superordinate themes, developed by the primary author and reviewed by the secondary author, comprised of ten subordinate themes: Anxiety and Tension In, and After, Silence; Silence as a Space; and Clinical Considerations of Silence. Connections are made between the analysis of participant interviews and existing phenomenological, musicological, psychotherapeutic and music therapy literature on silence. The discussion finds that the therapist’s perceived strength of the therapeutic relationship is key to the experience of silence in the therapy environment. It also outlines silence as a space of reflection and self-actualisation, and as a facilitative aspect of clients experiencing empowerment and authenticity. This paper also presents a theory, based on the interview data gathered, providing a grounded theory angle. The theory offers a model of the continuation and cyclical recontextualisation of meaning from the musical, into silence, and beyond. The study identifies implications for practice and further opportunities to solidify existing theory and develop concepts unique to silence within music therapy.

Making meaning of our practice as music therapists is a curious and multi-faceted process. Who we are trying to communicate our ideas to and our motivation for sharing and describing our work can profoundly impact the way we describe therapeutic practices and encounters, shaping the discourse of our field in important ways. With a breadth of influences and intended audiences informing the ideas emerging from our discipline, there is great scope for variety and diversity of thought and action in music therapy. This breadth of perspectives challenges us as a profession to witness and hold space for complexity, which can feel exciting and hopeful, uncertain and unclear, and downright uncomfortable on occasion – as complexity so often does. As I sat down to write this editorial, I noticed my own intention to find commonalities in the many perspectives on music therapy research and practice presented in this issue of Approaches. I felt my desire to seek a shared theme that would neatly ‘bring together’ the concepts presented the articles; to create a common thread between the authors’ ideas that I could present and discuss cohesively in the shared context of music therapy. It felt natural to seek these connections, and I found some. I identified, for example, the different perspectives on relationships explored theoretically by Hadar in their meta-analysis of dyadic improvisation, practically by Christensen and Gattino in their case study with a boy with Down Syndrome, and professionally by Krüger et al. in their reflection on relationship building with other disciplines during student place-based learning. I also noted a theme around novel practice approaches that encompassed the diverse use of sound and vibration in music therapy by both Gal and Elefant and Leandertz and Ala-Ruona, as well as Avery et al.’s and Knight and Blank’s evaluation of online practices with adolescent and early childhood groups respectively, and Margett’s study of a music therapy consultation model. It was satisfying to find these connections or ‘themes’, but deeper reflection prompted me to consider the loss of nuance and important novelty – so critical to a healthy discourse – that can occur when grouping papers in this way. Each of these papers has a unique positioning of ideas that is a novel contribution to our field, and each respond to a different question or perceived knowledge ‘gap’. Finding links that represent common foundations can be a satisfying way to demonstrate cohesion or clarity within our profession, but it is the new ideas that push at the edges, reframe, and sit outside the shared foundations of music therapy that continue to drive our discipline forward. I invite you all to read this issue of Approaches with an eye out for not only the ideas that resonate, but for the ideas that push at the edges of your thinking as well. Our move at Approaches towards a rolling model of publication in 2026 aligns with the notion of approaching each new article as a discrete and novel offering. I hope you enjoy this upcoming transition and the opportunities it presents for discrete and timely access to new knowledge and ideas.

A commentary on “An analysis of caregiver perceptions of early childhood music therapy telehealth groups” (Knight & Blank).