Toward a Notion of Community Music Therapy

Synopsis and contextualization of (parts of): Stige, Brynjulf (2003): Elaborations toward a Notion of Community Music Therapy

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The last few years the term community music therapy increasingly has come into circulation, and with it fresh debates about the relevance and meaning of the term and of the practices it refers to. How could community music therapy be described and defined? What character istics of human nature and late modern culture indicate the relevance of community music therapy? What preliminary descriptors could be developed for community music therapy practice? What are the implications for the discipline and profession of music therapy? These are the research questions addressed in my dissertation Elaborations toward a Notion of Community Music Therapy (Stige, 2003). In the dissertation, available literature resources in four countries are examined as a foundation for the elaboration of a metatheoretical platform from which the history, relevance, and significance of community music therapy could be accounted for. The present article summarizes and contextualizes some of the results of the study. I have chosen to focus upon my reading of three German contributions to relevant literature (Schwabe, Seidel, and Frohne-Hagemann), before I outline aspects of sociocultural contexts for the current developments of community music therapy, and then some of the results of the study, such as a description and defi nition of community music therapy.

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