Today is Tuesday, March 3rd, and in this ninth episode we’ll be talking about a particularly fluid and ever-changing topic:
Repertoire: yes or no in music therapy?
Those of you who are paying close attention will certainly have noticed that, if the answer to this question is yes, then the question immediately contains many others.
For example:
Which repertoire?
With what aim?
When do I use it?
How much do I use it?
For whom?
In what key?
What do I play it with?
Which instrument do I use to accompany myself?
Do I sing all the verses?
Who sings?
Who plays?
And so on.
I have made this very long introduction because, of course, my answer is:
Yes to repertoire. One hundred percent.
But I want to underline once again just how fluid this topic is, because repertoire is especially context-dependent and generation-dependent.
Let me explain.
As many of you know, in recent years my work has focused on people living with dementia, whom I meet in different care settings in Lombardy and Veneto.
And I can tell you quite honestly that when I work in the Verona area — my home territory — the local, native quality of my repertoire allows me to connect very quickly with the group of people with whom I am doing music therapy.
Much more quickly than with a repertoire that may be perfectly appropriate in terms of age, but less precise geographically, as can happen when I work in the province of Brescia.
Now imagine what would happen if I moved for work to any other region of Italy.
When I say that repertoire in music therapy is also generation-dependent, I mean that, compared with thirty years ago, there are songs I no longer use today, because the people I work with now simply do not know them.
Those songs are too far away from their generation.
Just imagine yourselves, for a moment, when you are eighty-five years old in a nursing home, and a young music therapy professional, properly trained, tries to create a first sonic-musical contact with you by singing Reginella Campagnola.
By the way — do you know it?
I think these two reflections are enough to help us understand that, when we ask ourselves “repertoire: yes or no in music therapy?”, we can no longer limit ourselves to discussing only the usual topics, such as repertoire versus improvisation.
Nor can we remain trapped in that whole old-fashioned music therapy baggage: the endless chain of debates such as musical competence versus empathic competence, or entertainment versus therapy.
In fact, if we analyse it properly, the topic of repertoire alone could keep us busy for quite some time.
This brings today’s episode to an end.
We’ll meet again on Tuesday, March 10th, with an episode on “Music Therapy and Its Numbers”.
I can already tell you that it will be an episode dedicated to those who, every day, have to navigate the bureaucratic and commercial language that marks a small but vital part of being a music therapy professional.