Music Therapy the Development of Term Paper

This contrast in conjunction with the singer's frequent maniacal laughter summons an astonishingly clear image of a woman trapped within herself. Her laughter is crazed with fear and she repeats the words over and over again, unable to move beyond that singular point in time. Once again, a very complex idea is expressed that as quite transparent to analysis.

The final excerpt, entitled "Oh My Child" seems to be about the singer's mother. The beginning of the song steps up and down in adjacent eleventh chords, the dissonance symbolizing her confusion and doubt regarding her mother. Approximately thirty seconds into the song, the singer becomes very emotional, and over the next minute is often either in tears or close thereto. At two minutes, the singers seems to reach a broken catharsis, purging herself of old resentments. The piano remains extremely unobtrusive throughout this time, indicative of the arduous process of sorting through one's feelings for one's parents.

All three excerpts contain volumes of information that are easily expressed by the singer and easily understood by the therapist. The pianist and the singer work together to create a musical version of an event or feeling in a way that also acts to purge the singer of those emotions and dynamics, and to help them grow emotionally.

The results of a music-therapy session can, however, be drastically different -- as different as two pieces of music can be, in fact. "Scared and Paralyzed" was almost vaudevillian, while "Oh My Child" was a hodgepodge of genre ranging from jazz to acoustic emo. It is the variety of potential expression that makes music therapy such a powerful tool for understanding the human mind.