In this issue, we have an interesting mix of research on music in daily life and in the context of therapy. Starting with Lars Ole Bonde and colleagues (p. 262; see also commentary by Töres Theorell on p. 259), the relation between musicianship and health is not simple. Reporting from a large-scale population survey in Denmark, they find that whether music is healthy may depend on how you practice it. Whereas amateur musicians benefit from the healthy aspects such as social and emotional involvement and a sense of mastery, professional musicians face health problems related to their profession which may range from worries about income to drug abuse. Belief that music is healthy was most common among those adults who had sung and played music as children. Music therapists try to use the healthy aspects while trying to avoid the unhealthy ones, and that is probably true for their work with their clients as well as for their own mental hygiene.
The article by Bonde and colleagues is also methodologically interesting: It shows a simple way of recruiting large samples with few variables. This reminds me of a now classic quote:
I have so heavily emphasized the desirability of working with few variables and large sample sizes that some of my students have spread the rumor that my idea of the perfect study is one with 10,000 cases and no variables. They go too far. (Cohen, Citation1990)
Another important question related to music in and outside therapy is how music therapists should think about music and aesthetics. According to Ludwika Konieczna-Nowak and Marcin Trzęsiok (p. 283), there is an underappreciated difference between traditional versus modern aesthetics. In modern aesthetics, the aesthetic experience is influenced by the perceiver and the context provided. It is not an inherent characteristic of the piece itself. In spite of some experimental music composers (the notorious John Cage is cited), these concepts are more regularly evident in visual art than in music. The article builds upon, but also challenges earlier writers in the journal, who argued for a more central role of aesthetics but without fully including these concepts (e.g., Aigen, Citation2007).
John Carpente and Gustavo Gattino (p. 297) report on the validation of a music-centered assessment profile specifically developed for the assessment of therapeutic change with clients with autism spectrum disorders. The new instrument adds to a growing number of validated tests for change assessment (Hald, Baker, & Ridder, Citation2017; Ridder, McDermott, & Orrell, Citation2017) or diagnostic purposes (Bergmann, Sappok, Diefenbacher, & Dziobek, Citation2016). As the authors note, specific, well-validated assessments are needed to maintain the “creative tension between artistic and scientific domains” as well as to “provide professional accountability” (p. 309).
Finally, Karette Stensæth (p. 312) provides a report of clinical experiences with new media that were developed in an interdisciplinary project, and how a “technological thing” (p. 312) can change the interactive framework in interesting ways.
References
- Aigen, K. (2007). In defense of beauty: A role for the aesthetic in music therapy theory. Part I. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 16(2), 112–128.
- Bergmann, T., Sappok, T., Diefenbacher, A., & Dziobek, I. (2016). Music in diagnostics: Using musical interactional settings for diagnosing autism in adults with intellectual developmental disabilities. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 25(4), 319–351.
- Cohen, J. (1990). Things I have learned (so far). American Psychologist, 45(12), 1304–1312.
- Hald, S. V., Baker, F. A., & Ridder, H. M. (2017). A preliminary evaluation of the interpersonal music-communication competence scales. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 26(1), 40–61.
- Ridder, H. M., McDermott, O., & Orrell, M. (2017). Translation and adaptation procedures for music therapy outcome instruments. Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, 26(1), 62–78.