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Derrington 2012 thesis.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

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foreground and we could both hear and begin to acknowledge the lyrics. The<br />

board continued to play an important part in music therapy sessions but,<br />

crucially, had provided her with another way to communicate with me when<br />

her feelings had felt overwhelming and chaotic.<br />

I have found that having a variety of books and magazines about skateboarding,<br />

biking and go-karting can sometimes instigate ideas and themes for conversation,<br />

musical play and songwriting. Working with teenagers is constantly a fine balancing<br />

act between making suggestions and actively enabling them to come up with their<br />

own ideas.<br />

Vignette 4.9<br />

Jacob, a 15 year old student at The Centre School, had very low self-esteem<br />

when he was referred to music therapy. He had suffered neglect and been<br />

moved away from his family. At the time of his weekly session he was often<br />

over-excited and seemed to relish music therapy as a chance to be noisy, leap<br />

about and hit cymbals and cowbells with wooden beaters for maximum<br />

volume. He was moving about in this way one day, hitting as many different<br />

surface areas as he could find with a drumstick, always in time to the heavy<br />

metal music we were listening to, which he had brought along. I followed him<br />

to create moments of interaction, by mirroring his playing or holding brief<br />

conversations through rhythmic patterns. He always moved away from me if I<br />

went near to him and it was difficult to introduce change to this behaviour. It<br />

was loud and quite boisterous but it felt important to keep up with this slightly<br />

frenzied activity and support his mood and, most importantly, react to his<br />

playing.<br />

He then hit upon a children’s book ‘Giraffes Can’t Dance’ (Andreae and<br />

Parker-Rees, 2001) on one of the shelves and was immediately drawn to it. He<br />

stopped playing, took the book and started to read out loud. He continued to<br />

wander around the room as he read but was engrossed in the pictures and<br />

story so I lowered the stereo’s volume, wandered over to the piano and<br />

gradually introduced a musical accompaniment to his reading. Then, like<br />

! "+#!

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