Music therapy postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

My interest in music therapy grew out of the gap between what I could do with a cello and what I could do with a room of people. As an undergraduate I trained mainly as a performer, but the module that stayed with me was community music, where we were asked to plan sessions for participants rather than audiences. I noticed that my instinct was always to arrange something in advance, and that the most useful moments came when I let the group decide the tempo, the volume and when to stop.

For my final-year project I set up a weekly singing group in the meeting room of my local library, which cost nothing beyond photocopying and a borrowed keyboard. Eight to twelve adults came, most over sixty, a few living alone. I kept structured observation notes each week and asked participants to complete a short questionnaire at the start and end of the ten weeks. I was careful in my written work not to overstate what I had found: the sample was tiny, self-selected and I was both facilitator and researcher. What I could describe honestly was behaviour I had recorded consistently, such as one man who sang only during familiar hymns for the first month and then began suggesting songs himself, and the way the group's own greeting ritual formed without my involvement. Learning to separate what I observed from what I hoped had happened was the most valuable part of the degree.

Alongside this I read around improvisation-based practice, including Nordoff and Robbins's work on creative music therapy and Mercédès Pavlicevic's writing on musical interaction, which helped me understand that the musical relationship itself is the therapeutic medium rather than a pleasant addition to care. Reading Ansdell on community music therapy also made me think harder about my library group: it was sociable and probably beneficial, but it was not therapy, because I had no assessment, no aims for individuals and no clinical supervision. I would rather be clear about that distinction now than blur it.

My paid work has given me the day-to-day experience I think training requires. For the past eighteen months I have worked three shifts a week as an activities assistant in a residential home, mostly with residents living with dementia. I run reminiscence sessions, help at mealtimes and play piano in the lounge on Thursdays. I have learned to read reluctance without taking it personally, to work in a noisy shared space, and to record what I do in notes that a nurse or family member might read. I have also learned how much of the work is waiting: sitting beside someone for twenty minutes before they are ready to respond at all. My cello teaching, with three beginner pupils aged nine to fourteen, has taught me something narrower but useful about pacing and about giving instructions that a nervous learner can actually follow.

I am aware that training will require me to be a client as well as a practitioner. The idea of personal therapy and of clinical supervision unsettles me a little, particularly examining why I reach for structure when a session feels uncertain, but I would rather examine that with support than carry it into practice unnoticed. I am continuing to develop my second instrument, taking weekly piano lessons to improve my functional accompaniment and my ability to transpose at sight, and I have been working on free improvisation with a friend who plays percussion, recording short sessions and listening back.

I want to train because I have seen, in ordinary settings and without specialist equipment, how reliably music opens a way in. I now want the clinical grounding, theory and supervised practice to use that responsibly.

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