Today is Tuesday, June 16th, and in this twenty-fourth episode I’d like to share with you some reflections on a topic that is very close to my heart, and that I have already addressed in episodes 12 and 13, where we talked about the piano and the guitar in music therapy.
Today I’ll try to tell you — always from my own point of view — what the list of instruments to buy might be, and above all in what order of priority to buy them.
The concept of priority is essential because, as is easy to understand, none of us — I believe — can afford to buy all the instruments in one single tranche. This is partly for economic reasons, but even more because it is highly likely that the people we work with this year will not be the same people we work with next year.
And not all instruments are necessary with all the people with whom we will do music therapy.
The list I am about to give you is useful both if you are thinking about which instruments to start with in order to create your own kit, and if the institution where you work has decided to invest some money in music therapy and asks you to draw up a list of instruments to buy.
For years I have had a handout sitting in a drawer — my students at the Conservatoires of Verona and Brescia know it well — in which I address the choice of instruments by reflecting on a series of “categories” that can guide us in this far from simple operation.
Today, in this podcast, I’ll go straight to my top ten, taking for granted:
- your instrument of choice: keyboard, guitar, ukulele, accordion, harp, voice, body;
- your specific performance skills on an instrument;
- your compositional and improvisational skills;
- your technological skills;
- your repertoire;
- the model that inspires your practice;
- the technique you are using;
- the functional abilities of the people you work with, from a motor, cognitive, and sensory point of view;
- your goals;
- whether you work with groups or with individuals;
- and I will not be considering playback devices for receptive music therapy.
So the list I am about to give you is meant to be a list that sits above all this: a meta-list.
Good!
Are we ready?
Let’s begin.
I have divided this top ten into ten categories, and within each category I have included several options.
- Tuned percussion
- individual sound plates, for example a diatonic octave kit with beaters
- a set of handbells
- a set of Boomwhackers
- a glockenspiel
- Shaken idiophones
- large maracas
- small maracas
- egg shakers
- shakers
- caxixi
- Membranophones
- three frame drums of different diameters
- one djembe — unless it is your instrument of choice, I do not recommend the more strictly ethnic models
- bongos
- Evocative instruments
- an ocean drum
- a rainstick
- wind chimes
- a vibratone
- a spring drum
- a stirring drum
- a slit drum, such as a tongue drum, teponaztli, or slit drum
- a steel tongue drum
- Wind instruments
- a melodica
- a recorder or flute
- a slide whistle
- a plastic kazoo
- a plastic harmonica
- a didgeridoo
- Scraped idiophones
- a güiro
- a ratchet
- a wooden agogo
- a cricket scraper
- a frog scraper
- Small percussion kit
- castanets
- jingle bells
- claves
- a triangle
- a woodblock
- A kalimba
- A suspended cymbal on a boom stand
- Hunting calls
And perhaps afterwards you can tell me your own list.
I’ll stop here, and I’ll wait for your top ten.
We’ll meet again on Tuesday, June 23rd, with a new episode of A Light-Hearted Journey Through Music Therapy.