What is Music Therapy?

Music therapy is a method of treatment used by qualified therapists to help people cope more effectively with their lives and with their difficulties. It is widely used in the assessment and treatment of children and adults.

Music therapists use the power of music to bring creative opportunities to people of all ages with special needs.

The goal of music therapy is to develop the potential of each person involved, rather than to promote musical ability.

Music therapy can empower those with special needs!

Music therapy can indeed make a difference!

Why Use Music?

We all know the power of music – how a song can bring back memories, or lift our mood on a bad day. Music can stimulate communication, relieve stress, provide motivation, and allow for spiritual expression.

It should then be no surprise that music can also help soothe, heal, and renew us when we face illness or disability.

The ability and need to respond to music seems to be innate; it does not depend on musical talent or training, and usually remains unimpaired by mental health problems, physical or mental trauma, or disease. This gives music a power, unique among the therapeutic media, to engage and sustain the attention of people and, in the hands of a trained therapist, to relieve a variety of distress.

We respond to music because we are rhythmic, we make melody, and we strive for harmony.

Who Can Benefit from Music Therapy?

Children with special mental, physical, or emotional needs

Children with communication difficulties

Children with developmental delays

At-risk youth

People with brain injuries

Elderly people, living at home or in special facilities

Adults with mental illness or neurological challenges

Those in palliative or hospice care

People who have been traumatized by life’s events

About the Canadian Music Therapy Trust Fund

The Canadian Music Therapy Trust Fund is a bold, non-profit initiative designed to integrate, educate, celebrate, and promote all facets of music therapy in Canada. We have been fortunate to have many volunteers working to support our endeavours to provide services to those in hospitals, clinics, and special schools.

Since 1996, with the help of the Canadian music industry, the Trust Fund has been able to distribute over 3 million dollars to over 300 projects, from coast to coast.

These projects range from hospices for terminally ill people with cancer or HIV/AIDS, to centres for the aged, to schools for children who are autistic, physically, or mentally challenged, to programs for street kids. The Trust Fund has also enabled programs for people with brain injuries, victims of sexual abuse, suicidal teens, and people who are isolated by psychiatric problems.

Music therapy is not covered by provincial health programs or insurance. While the recognition of the benefits of music therapy grows within the medical community, cuts in healthcare funding mean few facilities are able to offer music therapy programs. As a result, the work of the Canadian Music Therapy Trust Fund is vital.

How You Can Help

A donation of:

$100 provides a home music therapy session for someone isolated or in pain

$150 funds a morning in a home for seniors

$500 enables a child with special needs to participate in a music therapy group or have two weeks at a music therapy camp

$1000 will purchase instruments for a project

$10,000 can put a therapist in a facility for 1 day per week for 1 year

For more information on donations, music therapy, or other opportunities to get involved, please visit our website www.musictherapytrust.ca or contact us at our Toronto office.

“I regard music therapy as a tool of great power in many neurological disorders….Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s …. because of the unique capacity to organize or reorganize cerebral function when it has been damaged.”

- Oliver Sacks, M.D., Professor of Neurology, author of “Awakenings” and “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat”

“Music has been used for entertainment for so long, people forget it’s a powerful medicine.”

-Mick Hart, drummer, the Grateful Dead

“I have personally seen how music can transform and enhance recovery and bring joy on difficult days. As a musician it feels like the logical extension of all that we work for. You work so hard to make a connection with your music and this is music making the most important connection it can possibly make.”

- Craig Northey, The ODDS, Colin James Band

“The Canadian Music Therapy Trust Fund is an amazing cause…I have always been proud to support it.”

– Tom Cochrane