Proceedings, Oxford, UK (2002) - World Federation of Music Therapy

act of playing music together as a challenge to the isolation experienced
by some participants. It was a forum for creating verbal metaphors that
linked the experience of music-making to everyday life and in ways that
emphasised personal agency and problem-solving.
Here was a group that spent time tuning-in to each other’s rhythm each
week and, in playing together, found ways to challenge their ‘stress
rhythms’. A group where you could be heard and understood as members
gave sound to their week in solo improvisations and heard others
respond: ‘your week sounded…hectic…lonely…celebratory’. Here
improvised group narratives offered a way of gaining insight into life
experience. A group where relaxation and visualisation could come
together with improvised music-making to soothe mind and body. Here
metaphor could be used to help make more sense of life. The ‘dead beat’
of an exhausting week could transform into a ‘lively rhythm’ in the
opening music. A carved wooden fish - the focus for a group
improvisation - that appeared to have a different facial expression
depending on where you sat, evoked a metaphor for how music-making
allowed you to look at life stresses from a different viewpoint.
Conclusion
This paper is, in some ways, a tribute to the plurality of music, the fact
that it cannot be pinned down. It has been about the reality that music can
do many things, express many things, mean many things. Music is in its
notes, rhythms and harmonies, the patterns that find a resonance in our
minds and bodies. This is music as psycho-biological phenomenon. It is
also something that we do, something that is part of us whether we are
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