Editorial

This Edition of the journal has a quality of moving forward, the Editorial Team having said goodbye to fellow Editor Philippa Derrington and having welcomed Emma Millard and Donald Wetherick. We thank Philippa for her hard work and collaborative approach to her Editorial work, and are pleased to introduce our new Editors. Emma Millard is finishing a PhD on ‘The Role of Patient Preferences for the Arts Therapies’ in adult psychiatry at Queen Mary University of London, she is particularly interested in mixed-methods research, with practical clinical implications. Emma is the Research Network Coordinator for British Association for Music Therapy (BAMT), sings and plays the piano, and is a member of the London Philharmonic Choir. Donald Wetherick, well known to many readers as past BAMT Chair, will be joining the Editorial team in the next few months. Donald has considerable experience as a Music Therapist working in education, the third sector and currently in the National Health Service (NHS). Donald teaches at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, is a composer, and is completing his PhD on the musical admissions process for music therapy training.

The addition of 2 Editors will enable us to continue to develop the journal as a voice for British music therapy within the international music therapy conversation. We plan to expand and develop the British Journal of Music Therapy, increasing the number of Editions, including special Editions, alongside other features of the journal.

This Edition includes 3 research articles each of which document diverse and valuable work. First, John Strange reports on a small randomised controlled trial that investigated Triadic Support for Interaction by Improvisation (TSII), an application of music therapy for children with complex needs who are receiving Intensive Interaction. This study suggests the model is feasible in enhancing the work of Intensive Interaction practitioners working with children with complex needs. Strange et al. (2017) has written before about service users being supported in music therapy by significant others, and here he explores this issue through a specific model. Our next article by Demian Kogutek is a single subject multiple baseline design study, which tests the feasibility of delivering Improvised Active Music Therapy (IAMT) for people with Parkinson’s Disease to measure the impact of rhythmic complexity levels on gait performance. This documents an area of clinical work and evidence based intervention in music therapy that has greatly developed over recent years both internationally and in the UK. Third, Tone Steindhardt’s pilot study investigates music therapy in a hospital-at-home setting for children in palliative care in Norway, focusing on parental and nurses experience of music therapy. Linking with John Strange’s exploration of service user support, this article explores the way in which music therapy in palliative care at home can provide a meaningful support to service users, families and colleagues.

We are also pleased to include 3 book reviews; Nina Wollersberger’s review of Living Well with Dementia through Music by Cathy Richards, Eleanor Richards’ review of The Power of Music, Psychoanalytic Explorations by Roger Kennedy and Diana Whelan’s review of Trauma in the Creative and Embodied Therapies: When Words Are Not Enough Edited by Anna Chesner and Sissy Lykou. I am sure that these three excellent reviews will encourage you to read further. We are always interested in hearing about new books for review so please be in touch if you are an author or potential reviewer.

I am writing this Editorial after the British Association for Music Therapy conference, held between 9 and 11 April 2021 ‘Open Ground: Music Therapy in Collaboration and Exchange’. This event provided an online platform, available both live and after the event, for presentation and exploration of over 60 presentations, 15 roundtables, 17 workshops and 30 poster presentations, attended by over 570 delegates. Both keynote speeches addressed issues of concern to contemporary Music Therapists: first Wendy Magee and panel speaking powerfully about ‘the work we have to do’ in relation to equality, diversity and belonging. This keynote speech and panel explored ideas about the need for development and reflectiveness relating to inclusivity and belonging in the work and profession of music therapy. Second Hilary Moss and panel explored the ideas within ‘music, health and wellbeing’ exploring the importance to health of music and the arts, ideas of creativity at the boundaries of music therapy and our improvisational stance as Music Therapists. Both considered issues and work at the heart and limits of our performance of the role of Music Therapist. As part of my own participation as panel member I read a poem in which I had heard echoes of the ambivalence we might feel at these critical points of change of practice, perspectives and beliefs;

‘Come to the edge, he said. And so they came. And he pushed them. And they flew’ (Logue, 1969).

Our development as a journal follows the development of the profession, and we plan for our next journal Edition to document some of the essential and important work that is being undertaken to explore issues relating to access and empowerment, specifically addressing diversity and equality within music therapy research, practice and education. These conversations are necessary, as Ellis (2021) writes, to help us work towards ‘aligning our outer behaviours with our inner human values of liberty and individual freedom’ (p. 268). I stand alongside and borrow from Voices journal editor Susan Hadley (2021) as I add my voice to her wish to ‘go beyond inclusion of voices and perspectives, and work hard to interrogate the ways in which we continue to uphold dominant ideologies in music therapy’. We also look ahead with anticipation to interrogating, disturbing and developing the profession through the international possibilities for exchange provided by the EMTC 2022 conference in June 2022, Edinburgh, Scotland, with the title ‘music therapy in progress: please disturb’. Participation will be blended (online and face to face), offering opportunities for remote and international participation. See more here https://www.qmu.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/emtc-2022/

A wealth of knowledge and experience was shared at BAMT 2021 and will be shared at EMTC 2022; we encourage presenters to consider writing up their ideas for BJMT to document their work and the development of the profession. We look forward to hearing about the disturbance of music therapy, to experiencing the ‘shoogle’ (a Scots word meaning to shake), and to finding ways of moving to the edge with you as authors, to find new possibilities for the profession.