Music can soothe and calm our nerves, and playing music can also have a powerful emotional impact. Music therapists are trained to use music in therapeutic settings. Last year, Virginia began a new program to license this profession.
Inside a music classroom at Radford University, Milo Wilson played “Someday My Prince Will Come” on the piano. He started his undergraduate at a different college, studying jazz music.
“I was using music as a coping skill,” Wilson said. “I’ve been a highly emotional, up and down child and person. But I hadn’t really thought forward as to what I wanted to do besides self-soothe with my music.”
Then he heard about music therapy. He knew music had helped him many times over the years. Using his talents for something that could help others seemed like a perfect fit.
“It’s cheap. It’s non-invasive. It’s effective,” Wilson said. “It’s very personalizable. And it can be inserted into institutions and situations that are notoriously very dark and difficult. Hospitals. Prison systems. Hospice care. These are all places where music therapy can kind of come in and shine a light.”
Wilson transferred to Radford University, one of the few schools in Virginia that offers an accredited music therapy major. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree, and now works as a music therapist at two nearby hospitals and is also working on his master’s degree.
Music therapists are trained professionals who use music to help treat people with a range of different issues, whether they’re recovering from a stroke, a child with autism, or someone at the end of their life.
To be a client, you don’t need to be a musician, explained Wilson’s professor, Rachel Rotert.
“You really just need to have a love and appreciation for music, which I think most humans do” Rotert said.
Rotert was a practicing music therapist for 17 years, and said doctors have long recognized the therapeutic benefits of music.
“World War I and II is when hospital musicians really started to work with veterans returning from war,” Rotert explained.
Last fall, Virginia began formally licensing qualified music therapists through the state’s board of social work—a step which may help legitimize the profession. Wilson said he hopes this eventually leads insurance companies to pay for it.
“All of these things that we’re looking for now, ways to give people tools to have healing practices that are not necessarily dependent upon a pharmaceutical prescription,” Wilson said.
Radford music students meet together weekly for club meetings, where they talk about different types of interventions that can help clients.
At a recent meeting, junior Cailyn Wilson lead the group of students in a drum circle.
She guided them to add clapping and body percussion to the drumming, and then encourages them to use their voice. One student begins singing lyrics to a rap song and the rest join in.
Throughout their studies, students work with clients out in the community and at a clinic here on campus.
“It’s definitely not something just to take away from the other therapies and modalities,” said senior Ashley Glover. “But truly it’s complimentary to those things.”
Glover said her time working at an assisted living facility showed her the power music can have for people. Often, she uses improvisation to make up songs or change lyrics to a song, adapting the music to a client’s own story.
“If they have a picture on the wall for instance, maybe singing about the person that’s in the picture, because that’s most likely something they’re connected to,” described Glover.
“Even if a client can’t verbally respond and articulate, ‘wow, I like this music.’ Just being able to still sing to them because they’re still there, they’re still a person.”
Glover is graduating this May, and then she’ll go on to work as an intern at a hospice care center. Then she can apply through the national board for certification, and if she passes that, she can apply for the new state license.
