The British Association for Music Therapy (BAMT) say that:
“Music plays an important role in our everyday lives. It can be exciting or calming, joyful or poignant, can stir memories and powerfully resonate with our feelings, helping us to express them and to communicate with others.
“Music therapy uses these qualities and the musical components of rhythm, melody and tonality to provide a means of relating within a therapeutic relationship. In music therapy, people work with a wide range of accessible instruments and their voices to create a musical language which reflects their emotional and physical condition; this enables them to build connections with their inner selves and with others around them.
“Music therapists support the client’s communications with a bespoke combination of improvised or pre-composed instrumental music and voice, either sung or spoken. Individual and group sessions are provided in many settings such as hospitals, schools, hospices and care homes, and the therapist’s approach is informed by different theoretical frameworks, depending on their training and the health needs which are to be met.”
BAMT keep a UK-based, online Register of Surveys, Research and Evaluation Projects (ROSREP).
This register includes both published and unpublished projects (including Masters and PhD dissertations) and aims, amongst other things, to provide an overview of music therapy research activity within the UK.
You can get more information (and optionally download the ROSREP file) from here.
