Music Therapist Interview Preparation Guide

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I think it is important to focus on your strengths. If you love working with the elderly, than specialize in that. If you do your best work with kids, than focus on that population. Once you find your niche, find mentors in the music therapy field and other related fields, and develop deep and long-term relationships with them. The most successful people, no matter what the field, all have mentors to guide them along the way.

I am in private practice and specialize in working with children with special needs. I see clients individually and in groups in the home, clinic and school settings. I also supervise two music therapists and I am a mentor to young music therapists just starting out.

Psychotheraputic is I believe an approach that I can trully relate to and understand as I have seen the powerful tool of music as a mechanism to facilitate therapy- through music studies of various repetiore I have seen music's expressive capacity.

Usually, music therapists are not asked to work with neuro-typical children. But that does not mean typical children can't benefit from music therapy. If I were to work with a typical child, I would find out if she or he had any academic, social or behavioural difficulties and focus my interventions on those areas. We would be using music to work on non-musical goals.

I wrote a song called “Copy My Beat” where a client needs to listen to my drum beat and then repeat what I do. It is a great song for imitation, correspondent counting, sequencing, receptive communication, sustained attention and many other goals. It is also adaptable to different developmental levels by changing the complexity of your rhythmic pattern.

For particular subjects, music therapists can put academic information into a song format to make it easier for a child to remember. It is a similar approach to the one most of us grew up with, such as learning our ABCs with the ABC song.

Music therapists do many things. I personally work with a variety of clients through a music contracting company. I work with children with severe emotional disturbance and also some with developmental handicaps. I also work in a nursing home. Outside of the contract work, I do a kindermusic program - an early childhood music program.

Internationally, I think that music therapy will become an established field of study and profession in many more countries. It is already in more than 70 countries worldwide, but that will increase.

In the US, I think that it will become more commonplace in settings such as hospitals, nursing homes, and schools. We are rapidly growing as a field and there are new positions being created on a weekly basis. There is also more research being done worldwide and this will help guide the work of future music therapists.

I enjoy helping clients reach unattainable goals. Music therapy touches people the way no other therapy does.

Whenever I think about my job as a music therapist, I feel very fortunate. It is such an innovative, engaging and rewarding line of work. Music therapy feeds the souls of my clients, as well as my own. It is truly a symbiotic relationship.

Research has shown that music therapy helps reduce muscle tension, increase self-esteem and decrease anxiety. It also provides a safe place for emotional expression and release.

I use voice, guitar and a variety of percussive instruments. The guitar is great for being face to face with a client and also allowing me to move around freely. The percussive instruments are perfect since they are easy to play. Although piano, guitar, percussion and voice tend to be the most used instruments in the field of music therapy, there are a multitude of other instruments that are also used.

When I spent my study hall in high school in the special education room. There was a student in the room with cerebral palsy and he loved music so much. We would sing together on the karaoke machine and it would benefit him in so many ways including self-confidence, as well as his speech.

I majored in Music Therapy and minored in Psychology to better my understanding of people and why they act the way they do.

I play different styles of music depending on the age and interests of my client. With children, I tend to use children’s music and with adolescents and adults, I use a lot of blues, folk, pop and rock. I do a lot of personalized song-writing for my clients so that I can have songs that address the specific goals they are working on. For example, I might write a song about using eye contact when greeting someone. My style is also very improvisational so I will make up songs in the moment to engage my clients and help them meet their goals.

I wish I would have known how challenging it would be to learn the piano! Music therapists have to pass a profiency exam in piano and guitar. I cruised by with guitar since that is my primary instrument, but I struggled with piano, even after many lessons and much practice.

I see myself helping people through music therapy and furthering my education.

I use research to further expand my knowledge that I then take into a session with my clients. I will generally use research and journal articles when I do not fully understand something related to a client and their diagnosis. For example, when I started working with kiddos and cystic fibrosis, I researched information so I understood more about the disease itself, what challenges need to be overcome by the people who have it, what benefits them, and how I can implement music therapy in their treatments. I did a lot of research when I worked in the rehabilitation setting. There was a lot of information that I was receiving from my site supervisor, but not understanding fully. I had heard the terms and concepts before, but that was about it. An example, I had a client who had a stroke. She had aphasia and I had learned briefly about the aphasias, but I had never experienced it first hand. I learned that she had Broca's aphasia and I researched everything I could because I did not full understand what it mean in comparison to Wernicke's aphasia. I use research a lot when I need to understand concepts and ideas better and to understand how those concepts and ideas are treated, tested, and effective for clients.

The potential hire’s answer will further demonstrate their musical skills.

A couple of years ago, I decided to develop a DVD and music kit for children with special needs. I wanted to build a beautiful site that would feature this product and also educate others on how to use music to help children with special needs. I’m lucky enough to have a very talented brother who is the creative art director and director of design at an amazing ad agency in San Francisco called Hub Strategy. He designed my logo, website and product packaging and helped me in numerous other ways.

Video was always the heart and soul of my music therapy presentations and workshops, so it made sense to use this medium on my website. Starting a video blog was a challenging process, but I’m so glad that I stuck with it. People really need to see music therapy in action to get it. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, then a video’s worth a million!

The applicant will further display their competency in this answer.

With the patient permision I ask the family for help or inform them of progress.

Describe a session plan that did not go well. Why was it not successful and what did you learn from it?

Yes! The American Music Therapy Association has put together some excellent fact sheets about the research on Autism, Alzheimer's, Wiliam's Syndrome, Special Education, Depression, Mental Illness and much more!

Many clients who use music therapy have limited verbal communication skills. The applicant needs to show the ability to communicate effectively and empathetically with these clients.