23.7. 1993 Vitoria-Gasteiz / Spain - World Federation of Music Therapy

walk from Nordfjordheimen, the institution for mentally
handicapped were they all live.
Besides Reidar and Gunnar, the group consists of Solveig, Jon,
Knut and Solbj0rg. Reidar was able to play a little on a recorder.
The others had very little or none experience of making music.
But they have an interest of music, and the pictures on the wall
soon awaken their interest further. They see pictures of the local
brass band, with uniforms and horns. After a few minutes we sit
down and talk together.
The atmosphere changes and becomes more relaxed and
confident. Knut asks: May we too play in the brass band?
These few notes from the first lession show that just to
move the lession from the institution to the Community
Music School made an important difference. The
pictures at the wall helped Knut to put to words an old
dream: to play in the brass band. On different
occasions, like the 17th of May (the Norwegian National
957
Day), he had heard and seen the local brass band. And
he had liked it!
When we started to play together, we realised that there
was a big gap between this dream and earlier
experience. The members of the group had never
played together before, and it was not possible to
establish a beat together. Many members of the group
did not have contact with their own beating or the
beating of the others. We therefore changed activity. To
play structured activities together was not possible.
Individual improvisation seemed to be the way to
achieve contact and better communication. We used
the model af Creative Music Therapy (Nordoff &
Robbins, 1977), (Bruscia, 1987) as a startingpoint, but
accomodated it to the groupsituation. This
improvisational way of work we carried on for months.