It is becoming increasingly common that music therapists work with clients who are from other countries and cultural backgrounds. Music can play an important role in the culture of every client, so when preparing client-preferred music it’s important to be intentional about honoring different styles, genres, and languages of music that are client preferred in order to connect with your client and be most effective in therapy. This can be daunting at times, since you may not be able to speak the language, you don’t share the same background, or perhaps western instruments are not even capable of producing the same sounds and notes. This is where we have to get creative!

I’m going to be going over some very basic and doable techniques for vocals, guitar and piano that will add some character and authenticity to your music performance. I’m no expert by any means……..but I want to give you some ideas from things that I’ve thought about and link you to teaching resources so that you can take your practice to the next level.

Having a starting point for authenticity is important as we discuss what it means to replicate music. A large portion of the day-to-day study that we do at work is building a repertoire of music. Now, oftentimes your working repertoire is greatly determined by your clients, the setting you’re working in, the approach etc. But often, we need to be equipped with a basic variety of music to appeal to a range of tastes and preferences.