For example, music therapy can be a powerful tool in opening the flow of communication for special needs kids who have trouble expressing themselves and interacting with others and the world around them. Music therapy comes in the form of singing and playing instruments, writing songs, and other listening exercises under the guidance of trained practitioners. The resources on this page all come from reliable and reputable groups within the worldwide music therapy community.

Music Therapy Information

These sites are operated by non-profit foundations. They are filled with valuable information about music therapy and can help connect you with others in the music therapy industry in different areas of the world.

• American Music Therapy Association – The official site of the AMTA, a non-profit group dedicated to furthering the understanding and practice of music therapy through education.
• World Federation of Music Therapy – The WFMT not-for-profit group is an international community of music therapy users, workers, and enthusiasts.
• Australian Music Therapy Association – Home page for the AMTA, a group of music therapists, parents and teachers of special needs kids, and others who are interested in or passionate about the benefits of music therapy. The AMTA is a member of the WFMT.
• Canada Association for Music Therapy – Non-profit group supporting the music therapy community across Canada.
• American Cancer Society on Music Therapy – This page, from the ACS, explains what music therapy is and how it can be beneficial as part of a treatment plan for cancer patients.

Music Therapy Practitioners and Centers

The sites in this group are all centers that actively practice music therapy. They are all highly respected, long-standing institutions. Most are run from University schools and provide lots of great free sources of information about the field of music therapy. They are a fantastic place to start if you’re seeking treatment for someone you love.

• Institute of Applied Psychomusicology – A group dedicated to sound therapy and treatment through music. Started by a psychologist and musician specializing in psychoeducation, the site offers literature and training for those who want to teach others about the therapeutic benefits of music.
• The Rebecca Center for Music Therapy – Based out of Molloy College in New York, this non-profit music therapy center is renowned for its work in helping to increase function through music therapy in special needs children, teens, and adults. Additionally, they can help you find a reputable center in your area.
• Nordoff Robbins Center at NYU – The center, operating as part of New York University’s Steinhardt School, offers degree programs in music therapy as well as on-site treatment and research. The site is rich with resources for anyone who is curious about music therapy.
• MD Anderson Cancer Center’s Music Therapy Pages – The Anderson Center is a part of the University of Texas Integrative Medicine family of treatment centers. Not only are there resources for those seeking music therapy internships through the center, but you can download and listen to specialized therapeutic music created through the institution.

Careers in Music Therapy

If you’re interested in become a practitioner of music therapy, check out some of these sites with information about educational programs, internship opportunities, and other resources to help you get your foot in the door of the industry.

• Temple University’s Music Therapy FAQ Page – Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance has put together this handy Q&A page to answer all of your basic questions about becoming a music therapist. While the page was created for potential students considering a career in music therapy, it’s a helpful resource for anyone who is curious about the concept.
• California Department of Mental Health Internships – Hospital internships for music therapy students through the Department of Mental Health.
• CSUN Music Therapy FAQs – A Q&A page from California State University at Northridge, outlining the steps it takes to get a music therapy degree as well as how to go about getting yourself certified and ready to work in the field.
• SWOSU Music Therapy Pages – Southwestern Oklahoma State University’s Music Therapy Program offers up this great collection of resources for those interested in pursuing an education and career in music therapy. You’ll find everything from class descriptions to outside links for delving deeper into the world of practical and applied therapeutic music.

Music Therapy Stories

You can read all you want about music therapy as a practice, but there’s nothing like hearing stories from real people who have benefitted from music therapy. This collection of sites and pages will take you to the real-life stories of those who have experienced the healing benefits of music.

• Soundscape Music Stories Page – This page is from the site of a music therapy center in Kentucky, and features links to well-written stories chronicling some of the personal success stories of applied music therapy. You’ll get a peek at actual patients and the therapy techniques used to help them flourish.
• Center for Music Therapy Client Stories – This site includes firsthand testimonials attesting to the value of music therapy. Learn more about some of the specific conditions music therapy can be used to treat and the effects it can have on patients.
• Stories from the Canada Music Therapy Trust – A fantastic collection of stories, told through text and video, of how music therapy has helped people to dramatically improve their quality of life and overcome communication and behavioral issues.
• Success Stories from Pasadena Child Development – Touching stories from real parents who have watched changes in their own children as a result of applied music therapy. The center is a non-profit corporation dedicated to providing music therapy to as many children as possible.

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Drugs And Music

The Influence of the 60s and Psychedelic Music and Culture on Modern Society

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Drugs and music have also long performed the function of bringing people together, either through a sense of recognition based on common interests and experience, or because of the powerful potential of expression that both mediums offer to their users (Fuller, 2000). Borrowing a phrase from Aldous Huxley, both drugs and music ultimately provide access to “‘culturally uncontaminated’ levels of thought,” and they do this not only by creating an entry point into another world, but also by contesting the reality of the world in which we live (in Fuller, 2000, p. 79).

Although many contemporary musicians, their listeners, and cultural critics recognize that there is a close relationship between drugs and music, the long history and the specific quality of that relationship often gets cheapened and obscured in the lyrics and the promotion of modern music. Unfortunately, this confusion has created the widespread misperception that some types of music—namely psychedelic 1960s and 1970s tunes, rap, and grunge rock, among others—promote maladaptive drug use. While it may in fact be the case that the lyrics, the sounds, and even the marketing material used to promote these genres seem to promote illicit drug use, a more plausible explanation is that the relationship between drugs and music is the same as it has been for centuries: music itself serves as a drug, an antidote to the pain and frustration of living in an imperfect world.

The history of the human use of drugs and music, as well as the relationship that has been forged between the two, extends far into the past, and possibly even as early as the dawn of human history itself. Throughout the world, notes Fuller (2000), many cultures that differ from one another in notable ways have all used drugs and music as a means of “altering an individual’s state of consciousness in such a way as to ‘tune’ individuals into an alternate reality” (p. 9). The use of drugs such as peyote, datura, and tobacco among Native American groups has been documented extensively, for instance (Fuller, 2000).

These drugs were used—and, in some cases, are still used—in ritual practices and performances that are intended to “assist individuals in their vision quest” (Fuller, 2000, p. 9). Music, especially drumming and the use of flutes, has also been an important part of that ritualistic process, and performances typically occurred in conjunction with or in the context of drug use. African tribes have also been documented as having maintained a close and companionable relationship between drugs and music, used for many of the same reasons as the Native Americans (Fuller, 2000). The careful maintenance of the relationship between these two aspects of social life served to “provide a specific context in which the resulting ecstasies are understood to have spiritual significance” (Fuller, 2000, p. 9).

In the early days of human history, then, the relationship between music and drugs was rarely a problematic one. Neither was stigmatized; in fact, both were elevated as important components of cultural life and of specific communities, as both music and drugs—often in combination– had a meaningful role to play in the advancement and protection of social beliefs and norms (Fuller, 2000). What is important to emphasize and understand is that these early societies had a clear understanding of why and how both mediums of expression and transcendence were to be used. Furthermore, both drugs and music were administered by specific figures within the culture and the use of each was controlled, not to prevent indulgent excesses, necessarily—that idea would emerge much later in human history—but to demonstrate that these two aspects of social life were so important that they needed to be entrusted to a wise elder figure, or someone who had otherwise been trained or qualified to recognize the power of the mediums and to use them appropriately for the purpose of advancing social values and fostering community identity and cohesion (Fuller, 2000).

Although the true nature of the relationship between drugs and music has remained relatively constant across the course of human history, musical expression itself has evolved considerably, as has drug use, the latter with respect to the variety of drugs available and the increasing diversity of reasons for their use. By examining these evolutions, it is possible to arrive at an understanding of how the relationship between drugs and music has become so misunderstood. In dramatic contrast to the value that drugs and music had in early human societies, over time, both music and drugs would come to be stigmatized, and the closeness of the relationship between the two would become subject to profound suspicions and even paranoia. Music would be accused of fostering drug use and drugs would be fingered as the culprit for the emergence of musical genres that were deemed socially deviant and which seemed to threaten the very foundations of social order.

The music of the 1960s reflected, as music always does, the zeitgeist of the sociohistorical moment, both articulating and exploring the concerns and interests in larger society. Although critics dismissed the psychedelic music of this period as being too loud, too experimental, and, most worryingly, too tied up with the emerging drugs and the drug culture (Whiteley 33, 62), critic and historian Sheila Whiteley contends that psychedelic music was characterized both by its complexity and its paradoxes (i). While psychedelic music was closely aligned with the drugs and the drug culture—and may, in some ways, be understood as a product of that subculture—it was still, like folk music, a genre of protest, but it was a specific form of protest distinct from the lyrically imperative folk music. As Bindas wrote, “The new psychedelic music registered a protest of form rather than substance. [Psychedelic] music was sexual, highly creative, nonconformist, and clearly in protest of white middle class America” (Bindas 6; emphasis added).

While folk singers like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, and Peter, Paul, and Mary were strumming their guitars and singing their calls for social justice, systemic change, and freedom for all, typically appealing to love, human reason, and compassionate concern of the listener for his or her fellow human beings both at home and abroad, psychedelic musicians like Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Cream, and Jefferson Airplane were trying to create a similar sense of freedom, but in a totally different way (Whiteley 33). Many of the iconic psychedelic musicians had at least dabbled in drugs and drug culture, if not immersed themselves fully in it, and had, through drugs, achieved a kind of escape, relief, and freedom that did not seem possible in 1960s society, whether here in the United States or in Britain, where psychedelic music also thrived (Bindas 33). There were lots of reasons to escape. For American musicians, in particular, the specter and shame of the Vietnam War hung heavily upon them (Bindas 33). But the “mood song” came to replace the “message song,” as psychedelic musicians sublimated their anxieties and their angst by attempting to just feel better rather than examine how to create systemic change that would make everyone feel better (Bindas 6).

The psychedelic musicians were indisputably affected by the same kinds of concerns that affected their folk music counterparts, but Bindas suggests that musicians and society as a whole had reached its threshold for message music, and wanted to return to the notion of a music that could transport one away from his or her problems rather than situate him or her directly in those problems and require the listener to examine them. Bindas notes several ways in which psychedelic music responded to the sociohistorical moment it occupied. First, he points out, the psychedelic musicians were still infusing their songs with a political flavor—“if anything,” he writes, “[political] fervor had [actually] increased”—but the key distinction of psychedelic music was that “the lyrics were no longer as important, and they could seldom be heard over the music” (Bindas 6). The music itself, meanwhile, was characterized by its instrumental experimentation, distinguished from other forms by “long improvisatory passages and electronically produced sound effects resonated with stroboscopic lighting to bring about a freedom of feeling” (Whiteley 33).

Whether they were entirely conscious of the fact or not, psychedelic musicians and their insistence upon free-flowing, open-ended, electronically distorted “impure” music was a reaction against the increasing “whitewashed conformity of everyday American life” (Fairbanks 14). The Red Scare and Communist witch hunt of the 1950s had left a lingering negative aura over American society, especially for artists and musicians and other producers of cultural creativity. During that period, artists and musicians who had been deemed a threat to the social order were “blacklisted and pushed to the fringes of the mainstream” (Fairbanks 14). Pushed to the periphery, they did not simply cease creative production, however. Instead, they went underground and gave birth to a subculture that would make psychedelic expression in the United States possible.

Psychedelic music, which Johnson and Stax mark as more or less “beginning” in 1967, would ultimately be a reaction against the conformist messages of the media and, above all, the encouragement to adopt supposedly American values (411). It would permit both its musicians and its listeners to enter a parallel universe, one in which control was neither necessary nor welcome. The looping, seemingly undirected music of the psychedelic artists was coupled with lyrics that often focused on insanity, loss of control, and journeys without fixed destinations; in fact, the journeys were trips of the imagination and consciousness, not literal excursions (Johnson & Stax 411). The psychedelic musicians asserted that it was safe to join them in this limitless sphere, and their music thus gained a wide audience, appealing to a segment of the population that had themselves been marginalized and overlooked.

As the music critic Fairbanks thoughtfully observed, “The artists are the critics of culture and the visionaries that open up possibilities for the future” (14), and they are particularly powerful when they come from the underground as was the case with many of the musicians of the 1960s. By reacting to the events of their day and unique historical conditions using musical and lyrical strategies that were non-conformist, the psychedelic artists opened up new musical possibilities, particularly with respect to the traditionally expected and accepted form and function of songs. Their music was shaped by their sociohistorical moment, but it also, ultimately, would shape that moment, too.

Works Cited

Bindas, Kenneth J. America’s Musical Pulse: Popular Music in Twentieth Century Society. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Fairbanks, Philip. “Gonzo Lives Underground.” Afterimage 31.4 (2004): 14.

Johnson, Ann, and Mike Stax. “From Psychotic to Psychedelic: The Garage Contribution to Psychedelia.” Popular Music and Society 29.4 (2006): 411.

Whiteley, Sheila. The Space Between the Notes: Rock and the Counter-Culture. New York: Routledge, 1992.

An expanding body of social science research substantiates the contention that our musical preferences reflect not simply our musical tastes, but also signal the stage of psychosocial development at which we find ourselves in any given moment (Schwartz & Fouts, 206). Furthermore, research confirms that in general, our musical tastes hint at the salient aspects of our personality and provide insight into the nature of our character formation (Schwartz & Fouts 206). As Schwartz and Fouts reported in their study about the relationship between adolescents’ musical preferences and their developmental characteristics, those individuals who preferred only one type of music, whether “heavy” or “light,” tended to demonstrate more developmental difficulties than individuals whose ranges of musical taste was more eclectic and flexible (210). By evaluating our own music preferences across our life spans, we can begin to develop valuable insights into our own character and development. Far from being background noise in our lives, music says a great deal about the essence of who we are. Using Kolb’s schema of life learning and the insights provided by other developmental theorists, particularly the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson, I will examine my own development through the lens of my musical preferences as they have evolved over the course of time.

“Tell me what you listen to, and I’ll tell you who you are,” wrote Olsson (8). Increasingly, researchers are proving that music is a window into the soul and the psyche. Contemporary music, which is typically comprised of both a tune and lyrics, attracts either our interest and engagement or stimulates a reaction of rejection not only because of stylistic affinities and cues, but also because of profound psychological issues. Oftentimes, the listener is not even consciously aware of the ways in which music reflects and reacts to our complex psychological states at any given moment in our developmental process. It is, in short, and especially for this writer, something that becomes clear only at moments when the act of listening becomes something that can only be described as holy or sacred as the body and soul communicate to one another via sound.

In fact, although far less research has been conducted on the subject of what our avoidance of certain musical genres indicates about our personality or our development than studies about the music to which we are attracted, I would propose that the music that repulses us or which we avoid is a form of what Kristeva described as the phenomenon of abjection (1). Kristeva, a psychoanalyst, described abjection as the reaction formation that individuals develop as a defensive strategy for coping with the aspects of themselves which they abhor and fear (1). Kristeva described abjection vividly in this excerpt from Powers of Horror: “[Abjection is a] violent, dark revolt of being, directed against a threat that seems to emanate from an exorbitant outside or inside, ejected beyond the scope of the possible, the tolerable, the thinkable” (1). Abjection eventually produces rejection, condemnation, defensiveness; in short, the feeling effectively projects one’s anxieties about the self onto another individual or object. It is important to point out, however, that the psychological mechanisms of this phenomenon are typically entirely unconscious to the person who is experiencing them.

Using the insights of Kristeva’s theory of abjection, which are further complemented and elucidated by other psychoanalytic theories about defense mechanisms, we can analyze the significance of the types of songs that we avoid just as meaningfully and productively as we can evaluate what our preferences indicate about our personalities. My own dislike of rap and hip-hop, when considered within the framework of this theoretical schema, become more than mere stylistic dislikes; instead, they become indicators of my own anxieties. By examining these dislikes more carefully, I can engage in the kind of life learning that is implied by Kolb’s model of learning styles and learning skills. This does not mean that I will—or even should—develop a taste for the musical genres and styles I currently dislike. However, the awareness of how musical likes and dislikes signal to psychological issues offers interesting food for thought and may serve as an indicator of areas in which I need to continue developing.

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Works Cited

Boyatzis, Richard E., & David A. Kolb. “From learning styles to learning skills: The executive skills profile.” Journal of Managerial Psychology 10.5 (1994): 3-17.

Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982.

Olsson, Bengt. “A Classic Updated: A Review Essay.” International Journal of Education and the Arts 8.1 (2007): 1-11.

Schwartz, Kelly D., & Gregory T. Fouts. “Music Preferences, Personality Style, and Developmental Issues of Adolescents.”  Journal of Youth and Adolescence 32.3 (2003): 203-215.