Songwriting

Felicity Baker, PhD is Associate Professor and Australia Research Council Future Fellow based at The School of Music, The University of Queensland. She is co-editor of Song Writing Methods, Techniques and Clinical Applications for Music Therapy Clinicians, Educators and Students and co-author of Music Therapy in Neurorehabilitation: A Clinician's Manual. She reviews for a number of music therapy and interdisciplinary journals and is editor-in-chief for The Australian Journal of Music Therapy. Felicity has a strong interest in recovering the expressive potential of the voice following traumatic brain injury. Amelia Oldfield is a well-known and prestigious music therapist with over 25 years' experience in the field. She works at the Croft Unit for Child and Family Psychiatry and at the Child Development Centre, Addenbrookes. She also lectures at Anglia Polytechnic University, where she co-initiated the MA Music Therapy Training. Amelia has completed four research investigations and a PhD. She has also produced six music therapy training videos. She is married with four children and plays clarinet in local chamber music groups in Cambridge, UK.

• Foreword, Even Ruud. Introduction: Songwriting as therapy, Felicity Baker, The University of Queensland, Australia and Tony Wigram, Aalborg University, Denmark. 1. Improvised Songs and Stories in Music Therapy Diagnostic Assessments at a Unit for Child and Family Psychiatry: A Music Therapist's and a Psychotherapist's Perspective, Amelia Oldfield, The Croft Children's Unit, Cambridge, UK and Christine Franke, Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, Essex University, UK. 2. You Ask Me Why I'm Singing: Song creating with Children and Parents in Child and Family Psychiatry, Emma Davies, The Croft Children's Unit, Cambridge, UK. 3. Teenagers and songwriting: Supporting in a Mainstream Secondary School, Philippa Derrington, Cambridgeshire Instrumental Music Agency, UK. 4. Giving a Voice to Childhood Trauma through Therapeutic Songwriting, Toni Day, The University of Queensland, Australia. 5. Collaborations on Songwriting with Clients with Mental Health Problems, Randi Rolvsjord, Sogn og Fjordane University College, Norway. 6. Songwriting to Explore Identity Change and Sense of Self-concept Following Traumatic Brain Injury, Felicity Baker, Jeanette Kennelly, The Royal Children's Hospital, Australia and Jeanette Tamplin, Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre, Australia. 7. Working with Impairments in Pragmatics through Songwriting with Traumatically Brain Injured People, Felicity Baker. 8. Assisting Children with Malignant Blood Disease - and Their Family - to Create and Perform Their Own Songs, Trygve Aasgaard, Norwegian Academy of Music and Oslo University College, Norway. 9. Songwriting with Adult Patients in Oncology and Clinical Haematology, Emma O'Brien, The Royal Melbourne Hospital, Australia. 10. The Music Therapist as Singer/Songwriter: Applications with Bereaved Teenagers, Robert Krout, Southern Methodist University, Texas, USA. 11. Songwriting with Oncology and Hospice Adult Patients from a Multicultural Perspective, Cheryl Dileo, Temple University, Philadelphia, USA and Lucanne Magill, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA. 12. Songwriting Methods - Similarities and Differences: Developing a Working Model, Tony Wigram. References. Index.

I considered dipping in and out of chapters but ended up reading from cover to cover. I found it interesting and intriguing to progress through the diversity of therapists' orientations, practices and contexts, wondering how it would all come together in the end. There are inspiring ideas and moving case examples expressed in many of the chapters.