News and Insights
My music therapy guru!
My dear friend and fellow-trainee in Guided Imagery and Music, Erin Montgomery, has interviewed our trainer, Dr. Lisa Summer. Click here to read the excellent interview. It is really a very clear and concise summary of the incredible clinical work that Lisa has pioneered and developed, and the clinical focus that we, her trainees, are […]
Read MoreI Got Life! – Being fully alive in the aesthetic experience
Nina Simone – Ain’t Got No…I’ve Got Life – YouTube. I haven’t been able to get this song out of head since watching this video over the New Year. It’s originally from the musical, “Hair”, and Nina Simone sang and recorded this song many times in her career, each time switching up the words to […]
Read MoreRelationship to Music
John Carpente invited me to write a blog posting. Check it out here: Guest Blogger, Suzannah Scott-Moncrieff writes on Relationship in Music « Dr. John Carpente’s Music & Child Development Blog.
Read MoreClive Robbins and his commitment to beauty
I’m sitting here, processing in music and art, the passing of Clive Robbins. I am more deeply affected by his passing than I might have imagined. He was my teacher for a semester at NYU. He was also a colleague – I stood in and lectured for him at Nordoff-Robbins once, in the same lecture […]
Read MoreA vacation for the ears
On our June vacation last year, to the Pacific Northwest coast of the US, and a weekend spent in Massachusetts, I was delightfully thrown into nature. On a walk through the Hoh Rainforest (part of the Olympic National Forest), I was struck both by the silence and the sounds. The coast gave me the roar […]
Read MorePlaying with being present
Next time you sit down at a piano or pick up an instrument or open your mouth to sing, try this: Play Listen so deeply to the sounds – focus your entire mind on the sounds. Don’t hold on to maintaining one sound or melody or phrase. If the music should lead you somewhere else, […]
Read MoreHelen Bonny – Inspiration
Helen Bonny died on May 25th, 2010. She was a pioneer in the field of music therapy, leading the way in using western classical music to expand explorations of consciousness, through developing Guided Imagery and Music. She was a wonderful example to us all, whatever our calling – following her bliss, unafraid of criticism, and […]
Read MoreMusic: making whole
Last year, whilst in Edinburgh, I had the good fortune to go hear a bunch of fine musicians in the space of about 3 days. (They included Emily Scott, Teitur, Benni Hemm Hemm, Withered Hand, and Alasdair Roberts). Those few days still stand out in my mind – the music connected me to parts of […]
Read MoreThe art of the intervention
Being a therapist is humbling – I love and am challenged daily by the work of being a therapist. No matter how much one thinks one knows from books, training, and mentors, it is only in the doing that one learns. The art of timing the therapeutic intervention is incredibly nuanced. I was reminded of […]
Read MoreMeeting Demeter at the Jiffy Lube
Who knew that a visit to the local Jiffy Lube on the busiest weekend of the year would yield such an energizing meeting with a stranger? I sat in the dingy waiting room with an older, full-statured woman with a walking stick leaning against her chair. We began to make small talk about how seemingly […]
Read More