If you are a interested in music therapy, you do not need to have any musical experience. Your therapist will help you along!

Many people wonder when coming to music therapy if they need to know how to play an instrument. It’s a fair question, especially if they envision the therapist teaching them how to play or asking them to express themselves on an instrument.

But the answer is no. Music therapy clients do not need to know how to play any instruments. In fact, they don’t even need to have a musical background. They just need to be human, because humans respond to music in significant ways–experience or not.

Adjusting instruments to make them “sound good”

In the music therapy session the client will likely have opportunity to create music using various instruments, but part of the skill of the music therapist is to adjust those instruments to make the experience successful for the client.

For example, if a client has never played the guitar but would like to experiment with it, the therapist can adjust the tuning so that anything the client plays will “sound good”. We can do the same thing on other instruments such as the xylophone or glockenspiel, where we remove certain notes that will allow the client to play anything and still “sound good”.

Using Instruments that sound good the first time

There are also many instruments that anyone can learn to play such as hand drums, shakers, bells, and other percussion instruments. We use a wide variety of percussion in music therapy because clients can play without any prior experience, and have a great time doing it.

And of course, with all musical experiences, the music therapist will be there to play right along with you and help provide the musical space.

You don’t need to have the skills to do it on your own.

You’ll play what you are able, and the music therapist will fill in the rest. And all the while, you’ll have opportunity to learn, express, recover, and develop.

That’s the power and flexibility of music therapy!

Curious to see how it will work for you?

Schedule your FREE TRIAL SESSION today and find out!