"These days there's a lot of attention to New Age philosophies and approaches to life, and drumming circles have become very popular. People get a lot out of that, and for some it's a spiritual experience. They think that's music therapy. But music therapy is scientific in addition to being an artistic endeavor. It's really a structured and formulaic approach to meeting individual needs. Music therapy is the systematic approach to using music to meet the specific need of a person or group. Music has to come so naturally to the therapist that he or she can be totally with the client and tuned in to what he or she needs at the moment, totally empathizing and understanding not only what the person's saying, but what they're feeling.

"I came here to establish a music therapy program that was state of the art. I knew that we could take advantage of research and impressive medical advances here in Boston, which has some of the finest hospitals. I also knew that Berklee itself was the finest institution training contemporary musicians."

"Our students want to use music to change the world. They've often known somebody who's had a disability or is different. Or maybe they themselves had an accident or an illness. They've had personal experience with it, somehow, somewhere. I had a difficult childhood that led me to music therapy, and I also had an accident as an adult. I was already in the field at the time, but both of those things give me insight, I think, into what I do. I think my childhood experience gave me insight into perseverance, resilience. I think a lot of our students come in with such resilience. Somebody in their family or they themselves have conquered something, and they want to help others do the same. And I love that about them.

"Some students come with classical training, but we're using more contemporary music and improvisation. So in music therapy, where the client is the center, people will come with disabilities, with emotional issues, pain of a physical or psychological nature, or cognitive disabilities, and the therapist has to be able to meet whatever comes. To be able to improvise is a critical skill, and not all programs teach that. To mold the method to the client is central to the music at Berklee, and to be able to do that therapeutically is critical. As a result, our students are leaving here able to go out and write their own ticket. The internship programs really want our students. It's live music; it's based on improvisation; it's adaptable; and they love that.

"Students come in wanting to investigate certain areas, and we ask, 'How do you want to do that?' They start their own programs, they develop new ideas, and then take them out and teach others. And that's really exciting. That's the Berklee model: what do you want to do and how can we help you do it?"

"I often say that music is like a diamond; it has many different facets, and I have been interested in studying all those different facets in a variety of ways. I'm very invested in neuroscience as a way of explaining what we do and what we see. So I look at anthropology, I look at neo-natology, I look in every direction I can, and I think that's reflected in the academic work I've chosen.

"The summer between my freshmen and sophomore years [in college], I was working in a residential school for autistic people. Their muscianship absolutely blew me away; it still does. And yet, as a musician, I couldn't seem to bridge my world to theirs with music, but I knew music had power. I spent another year in my studies at conservatory and then somebody mentioned music therapy. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that's who I was. I was immediately drawn to that as my work, and I switched colleges before my junior year. I enrolled in a program that fed my needs to unharness music in service to others.

"For me there's a continuous relationship between being a researcher, being a lecturer, being a performer, and being a clinician. They all feed one another. I'll see something clinically that sparks my interest, and then I wonder why this could be so. That's when I become a researcher. That researcher then becomes somebody who has something to share with others. And it just goes round and round.

"I think there's no higher use of our musical talents than the opportunity to reach somebody across the bridge of pathology; to reach an Alzheimer's patient, to shape the life of a person with autism, to reach somebody who is afraid or in pain. . . . To be able to reach a fetus who's still in the womb is a tremendous example of the power of music. It's a higher purpose for our music making than necessarily just gigs. I mean, I've been to concerts that have changed my life, concerts that have enriched my life tremendously. But to really be able to know how to wield and use that power for the higher good of humanity is a tremendous opportunity for us all."

"Within the American Music Therapy Association, the New England region is the tiniest region, but it's mighty. We seem to collect the pioneers of the field, the visionaries, people who are the giants in the profession. We have many of those people within Massachusetts, and we have several of those people on faculty. There is a wealth of resources. We also have a wide range of people who've trained at different times, so we've got a historical record of how we've developed and changed the field. We've got diversity in the faculty: some of the leading researchers, some of the leading creators and visionaries, and many different styles. We're all hired because we are experts in what we provide.

"Our program is music centered, focused on helping each student develop professionally as a musician as well as develop as a music therapist. We're also relationship centered and we're client centered. We make the focus of the training understanding how to develop an appropriate clinical relationship with the client. We're talking about the student understanding not only different diagnoses and populations, but understanding the person who's diagnosed with said conditions.

"The training's hard. It's not for everybody. You could be the best musician, you could be the nicest, most caring person, and you might not make a good music therapist. There are qualities that you have to possess. Some of these qualities can be taught. Some of these qualities can be learned over time. Some are what you come with from your life experiences. And then there are things that you learn about yourself that you might have to change. You've got to be empathetic. You need a sense of humor. You need to be insightful. You need to have very strong, creative, flexible musicianship. You've got to have a firm foundation when it comes to melody, rhythm, harmony. It would be really great if you played guitar for a year before you showed up. And you've got to be able to use your voice. Not everybody's born a singer, but there's a difference between singing and clinically using your voice. And self-confidence, a sense of self-worth, is essential."

"Over the years teaching at Berklee, I have learned to appreciate the need for expanded cultural competency. Last year I traveled with eight students to Kenya. We worked in orphanages and met musicians from all over; we had master classes and learned about music from an East African context. I began to see that certainly the practice and theory of music therapy can be generalized to different areas, but what that trip really highlighted was the shared exchange and collective global connection. We had something to offer but also a lot to learn. The way music is used in Africa is a wonderful model for music therapy. We look at the elements of music—call and response, polyrhythm—and we look at community and how music is used to bring a community together. That's what we do in music therapy. So it was really great to reconnect with those roots. We as therapists end up working in hospitals and nursing homes with such a diverse group, so it's imperative that we begin to expand our own understanding of how music in other cultures is being used.

"What we learn at Berklee is improvisation, and what we learn in music therapy is how to meet a client or patient in the moment. We say we are prepared to be unprepared. You need to rely on yourself, on the music. There were times in Africa when students would just be paired up spontaneously with children. In one orphanage there were two Berklee students who were working with a group of adolescent girls doing songwriting, and they wrote a song about Mother Nature and their lives. For some of the little kids, it was very interactive, singing songs, teaching songs, learning songs. It was life-affirming and life-changing.

"Any musician at Berklee—whether you're a therapist, performer, or educator—can learn to use their music for compassion. It can be customized for a child in a hospital, or it can be broader, where you're working with thousands of people at a concert. But how can you begin to really use your music to think of another person, to step outside of your own personal needs and issues, to be there? It just takes a little bit of awareness. What's different about what we do is that we learn to customize our music to meet the needs of an individual or a group, but anybody can get it. It's about consciously thinking about another person and how you can help."

"I have been a music therapist for 27 years. For the last 23 of these, I have worked at Kennedy Day School, a program at Franciscan Hospital for Children in Brighton. The school provides educational and clinical services for children ages 3-22 who have multiple intensive special needs. They are students who have intellectual or cognitive disabilities and may also have physical disabilities and/or medical issues.

"How do you use music in ways that will help a child be better at communicating? Music therapists use music to serve the needs of others. One significant way is to help people connect with other people. For a person who is unable to speak or is functioning at a pre-verbal level of development, music may be used to allow for 'conversation.' Using music in clinically directed ways may decrease the isolation often experienced by someone with significant disabilities. Music therapists facilitate these opportunities.

"My first instrument is the flute, but in my music therapy work I rely on piano, guitar, and voice. There are many different ways to approach clinical work. Part of that is directed by the population you are working with. At the Kennedy Day School, a child might come into the music room vocalizing in a certain tonal center. That directs the key selection for the music that will be created. Someone else might have a rhythm expressed in a movement or a vocalization. Music is created from that particular moment in time."

"At Berklee, the Music Therapy Department has developed a strong sense of community among the students and the faculty. Our students really support each other. To be successful, music therapy majors need to be totally committed to their musical development and their academic work. Over four semesters, music therapy majors have the opportunity to gain practical experience in community-based settings. Students work alongside a music therapist in special education, in nursing homes, and with clients in psychiatric and medical settings. In these practicum placements, students take beginning steps in their professional development."