Welcome To Desert Sounds of Wellness
Standing outside the classroom, I leaned on the wall and tried to encourage myself to go inside. I was a sophomore in college, attending a new school and starting a new major. To date, all my focus, work, and ambition had been directed at making it on a Broadway stage, but my family, who were well established in the medical profession, had wanted me to focus on something practical. So, in a nod to their wishes, I had found this little known profession called Music Therapy and decided to add a new major. As I took my seat, I sighed inwardly. I wanted to be singing, acting and dancing, not sitting at this desk with a stack of textbooks in front of me. As the teacher arrived, I resigned myself to a semester, and in fact many semesters, of boring study….and then he spoke. I discovered during that first lecture that Music Therapy is the art and science of using music therapeutically, to effect positive change in a person’s mind, body and spirit. It seemed incredible to me then that this medium that I loved so much could make such an impact on so many areas of life. And, it seems just as incredible today!
Desert Sounds of Wellness offers Music Therapy and music related services. Music Therapy is the enhancement of human capabilities through the planned use of musical influences on brain functioning. A Music Therapist designs musical experiences to target specific areas of the brain in order to elicit predetermined changes in the way those areas of the brain function and govern themselves. All Music Therapy goal-directed interventions are aimed at enhancing the functioning capacity of each client’s brain. -Taylor, 2010
Music Therapy improves the “quality of life for persons who are well and meets the needs of children and adults with disabilities or illness.” Interventions can be designed to: promote wellness, manage stress, alleviate pain, express feelings, enhance memory, improve communication and promote physical rehabilitation. Research in music therapy supports it’s effectiveness in many areas such as: overall physical rehabilitation and facilitating movement, increasing people’s motivation to become engaged in their treatment, providing emotional support for clients and their families, and providing an outlet for expression of feelings. -AMTA, 2007
On this blog, we welcome you to learn more about Music Therapy and the amazing benefits that music has on the mind, body and spirit. We invite you to follow us on our facebook page (www.facebook.com/desertsoundsofwellness) and to learn more about this amazing field on our website, Desert Sounds Of Wellness (www.desertsoundsofwellness.com). We hope you will join us in the future as we share more about the benefits of musical study on both children and adults. We invite you to follow us through this year as our founder once again steps into the public spotlight to continue our mission to educate on Music Therapy, or as our studio’s students entertain and delight those in our community. We hope to bring you valuable information about music and in particular Music Therapy through this blog and look forward to seeing you here (and for those who are local…there…in the Phoenix area)!
