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2018 Summer Reading Book Reviews: Music Therapy Texts

June 29, 2018
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I’m continuing an idea started last summer to churn through multiple work-related books in the “off” summer break. (“Off” in written air quotes as many academics understand the work, particularly the scholarly and creative work, never stops…it just changes tempo.) I begin my 2018 summer reading list with two music therapy-related texts, both of which […]

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Which Came First, the Music or the Musical? A Visual History of MT Language

July 31, 2014
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This morning, my husband—an avid reader of the New York Times—shared with me a tool on the NYT site that got the nerd in me really excited. This tool, called Chronicle, allows you to visually track language usage in the NYT since its launch in 1860. You insert keywords and/or phrases and the program graphs […]

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A Call to Action: Help Preserve our Music Therapy History

December 6, 2013

I’m a sucker for history. My non-professional reading list commonly includes political biographies (just finished Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power), historical fiction (loooove Philippa Gregory), and memoirs (which I’ve blogged about before). Knowing this, it may come as no surprise that I support the American Music Therapy Association’s (AMTA) Archive Project, an initiative spearheaded […]

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[PsychToday] WWI and Istanbul: Using Music to Bind Us

June 29, 2013
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The story goes that on Christmas Eve 1914, in the middle of a brutal WWI battle between the British and the Germans, the sound of gunfire was replaced by singing voices. It happened spontaneously, spreading slowly throughout the troops as the camps sang their favorite Christmas hymns. Sometimes they alternated songs, but . . . […]

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[PsychToday] Musical Medicine and TB: A Q&A with author James Markert

March 28, 2013

I’m a history buff and a music lover . . . so when I first heard about James Markert’s latest novel, A White Wind Blew, I jumped at the opportunity to interview the author! Set in the late 1920s in TB-ridden Louisville, Kentucky, A White Wind Blew follows Wolfgang Pike, a doctor-musician-almost priest, through his […]

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Book Review: A White Wind Blew

March 21, 2013
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Tuberculosis. Prohibition. Segregation. The Great War. The KKK. Faith. Musical medicine. These are many of the themes interwoven in James Markert’s latest novel, A White Wind Blew. Set in the late 1920s in TB-ridden Louisville, Kentucky, A White Wind Blew follows Wolfgang Pike, a doctor-musician-almost priest, through his journey of healing and self-discovery. Markert is […]

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Music Therapy Maven: A Retrospective

July 12, 2012
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I don’t know what’s gotten into me, but I’m feeling a bit nostalgic these days. Perhaps it’s reconnecting with old friends on Facebook, reading books that remind me of my grad school days, or watching my kids grow and thinking of my own childhood experiences. Doesn’t matter…other than I feel in the mood to remember […]

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Do You Know the 80-20 Rule?

February 18, 2010

Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist. His major contributions were related to the study of income distribution and analyzing individuals’ choices. Pareto also played a big part in moving economics from a field of social philosophy to a field science and math. So, why is an American music therapist writing about an Italian economist? Here’s […]

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Remembering Dr. E. Thayor Gaston (Part 3)

December 22, 2009

For the past two weeks, we’ve delved into the “father of music therapy,” Dr. E. Thayor Gaston. Guest writer Anita Louise Steele, music therapy professor at Ohio University, shares her memories of Dr. Gaston the teacher, Dr. Gaston the mentor, and Dr. Gaston the man. This article concludes the three-part series: Remembrances of Dr. E. […]

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