The overarching goal of music therapy is to achieve certain individual objectives, such as improving motor function, social skills, emotions, coordination, self-expression, and personal growth (Therapedia, n.d.).

Common goals in music therapy, as identified by Everyday Harmony (n.d.), are the development of:

• Communication skills (using vocal/verbal sounds and gestures)
• Social skills (making eye contact, turn-taking, initiating interaction, and self-esteem)
• Sensory skills (through touch, listening, and levels of awareness)
• Physical skills (fine and gross motor control and movement)
• Cognitive skills (concentration and attention, imitation, and sequencing)
• Emotional skills (expression of feelings non-verbally)

What Effects Can Music Therapy Have on a Client?

Music can affect a client’s attention, emotion, cognition, behavior, and communication. It can also help bring about relaxation and pleasure. Music also affects perception. Music training promotes an individual’s skills in decoding acoustic features, such as pitch height and frequency modulation. Music has various effects on an extensive range of brain structures. Functional neuroimaging studies have shown that listening to music can affect the core structures of emotional processing (the limbic and paralimbic structures) in both musicians and ‘non-musicians.’

The peripheral physiological effects of listening and making music are still being examined. However, given the impact of emotion on the autonomic nervous system, endocrine system, immune system, and the fact that music has the power to evoke and modulate emotions, Koelsch and colleagues (2009) suggest that music therapy may be used to treat disorders associated with dysfunctions and imbalances within these systems. (Koelsch et al., 2009).

What are the purposes of music therapy?

Research supports the effectiveness of music therapy for a wide range of purposes, as described by The American Music Therapy Association, n.d:

Music therapy can facilitate movement and overall physical rehabilitation and motivate clients to cope with treatment. It can provide emotional support for clients and their families and provide an outlet for expressing feelings.Credentialed music therapists can work with acquired brain injury (AMI) patients. For example, music therapy helped congresswoman Gabby Giffords regain her speech after surviving a bullet wound to her brain. Music therapy can be used to lessen the effects of dementia, reduce asthma episodes in both children and adults and help reduce pain in hospitalized patients.

Music therapy can also be used to help children with autism spectrum disorder improve their communication capabilities. Furthermore, it can help premature infants enhance sleep patterns and increase weight gain. Finally, music therapy can be used to help individuals with Parkinson’s disease improve motor function.

9 Interesting Facts and Statistics

1. 86% of users of the Nordoff-Robbins music therapy services said that music therapy had enabled them to develop social skills and interaction (Nordoff Robbins, n.d.)
2. Your heartbeat changes to mimic the music that you listen to
3. A developing fetus can respond to low-frequency sounds from 22 to 24 weeks. 
4. Listening to happy vs. sad music can affect how you perceive the world around you.
5. An “earworm” is a song that you can’t seem to get out of your head.
6. A ‘brain itch’ needs the brain to fill in the gaps in a song’s rhythm.
7. Music triggers activity in the same part of the brain that releases dopamine (the ‘pleasure chemical’)
8. Music triggers networks of neurons into an organized movement
9. Learning a musical instrument can improve fine motor and reasoning skills.

You might want to consider music therapy after learning these facts. Kita Therapy is a music therapy center in Mascot, Sydney and listed as one of the NDIS-providers, we can help you to achieve the best result, schedule an appointment with us.