Improvisation

Tony Wigram was Professor and Head of PhD Studies in Music Therapy at the University of Aalborg, Denmark, Honorary Research Fellow in the Faculty of Music at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and Reader in Music Therapy at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK. He was Associate Editor of the Nordic Journal of Music Therapy, and a former President of both the European Music Therapy Confederation and the World Federation of Music Therapy. He was also Head Music Therapist at the Harper Children's Service in Hertfordshire, UK, and Research Advisor to Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Trust.

• Foreword, Professor Kenneth Bruscia. 1. Introduction. 2. Basic concepts in improvisation. 3. Musical techniques. 4. Basic therapeutic methods and skills. 5. Advanced musical and therapeutic techniques: Extemporising and frameworking. 6. Transitions: In improvisation and therapy. 7. Thematic Improvisation. 8. Group improvisation. 9. Two different methods for analysing improvised music. 10. Summary and Conclusion. Appendices. Glossary. Index.

In conclusion, this is an impressive book, essential for its exceptional thoroughness and readability as well as for being the only book of its kind. It will be invaluable as a training manual for professional courses, and may also raise other health professionals' awareness of the complex and scientifically grounded skills deployed by a profession so often obliged to defend its research base against accusations of a lack of scientific rigour from those with too narrow a vision of evidence based medicine.