Colin Lee (red.) 2024. The Oxford Handbook of Queer and Trans Music Therapy. Oxford University Press.
First, here is a film recommendation for anyone wanting to learn more about undergoing a transition – a transformation from one gender to another. On Netflix, we can now watch the documentary film "Will & Harper," a fantastic and heartbreaking story about how writer Harper Steele and her old friend Will Ferrell (a well-known actor and comedian from Saturday Night Live) take a road trip across the USA for Harper to challenge herself and find strength in her new role as a woman. It’s a film that the New York Times describes as a "must-watch." Feel free to read more about the film and Harper’s transition on Wikipedia.
A Critical Starting Point
As emphasized in my previous discussion about queer music therapy (Part 1), gender diversity has not been adequately addressed in music therapy. Gender diversity has also not been a topic in research, practice, and education until very recently. It is individuals belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community and their allies who are now providing criticism and constructive input regarding this situation.
The new space that this criticism opens up gives hope for the development of music therapy with new values and ways of making music, as well as a new space for research and education. There is a creative potential in incorporating queer and trans voices and sounds into music therapy, recognizing the lives and musical stories of queer and trans composers, in addition to the cross-cultural queerness that is central to such a music philosophy. Here are some more examples taken from the anthology.
Neurodiverse and LGBTQIA+
British music therapist Naomi Rowe (Chapter 12) takes music therapy into a new field by opening her practice to individuals from queer groups who are simultaneously neurodiverse. Primarily, this concerns autistic individuals who often do not receive the same understanding from other therapists. Rowe aims to create the "safe space" that can be difficult for queer and trans individuals to find. Rowe also emphasizes that she herself is queer, which gives her a different understanding of the challenges her clients face. This is a common phenomenon that indicates that the match needed to form a good therapeutic relationship is not always easy to establish. There are many reasons clients may experience distance and perhaps skepticism towards the therapist: class background, education, culture, and ethnicity are some of the variables. Rowe's background in working with individuals on the autism spectrum, along with her psychodynamic expertise, has made her a leading activist and therapist in the field.
Intersectionality
Rowe refers to her work as "intersectional psychodynamic music therapy" (IPMT). Intersectionality is a term used to describe how various social identities and factors, such as gender, race, class, sexuality, disability, and more, interact and influence individuals' experiences of discrimination, privileges, and power. In this case, it pertains to neurodiverse and queer/trans individuals in their interactions with society and the power dynamics in the therapeutic regime.
Rowe writes extensively about the difficulties this group faces in British society. This can include how one can obtain a so-called Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), which is awarded to individuals who have obtained the diagnosis of "gender dysphoria."
Masking
For many in this group, staying in the closet and masking themselves are two sides of the same coin. Masking involves creating a false self that imitates a cisnormativity, becoming the "good girl" or a "real man." Here, it is the therapist's responsibility to help the client find their true self and remove guilt and self-blame for not being able to live up to their own perceptions. This was well illustrated in the film about Will and Harper, where Harper initially saw a therapist who did not understand what it was about and attempted to stop her transformation.
Queer Soundtracks
Rowe presents three case studies from her work. Here, music therapy is not as clearly highlighted, but again improvisation is central. Songs, ambient music, music theater, and queer music artists are also briefly commented on. And indeed, there was a reference to E. Ruud from 1995, where I had written about "soundtrack" and music therapy in the journal YOUNG.
Music Therapy and HIV/AIDS
Some of the most powerful accounts in the book stem from music therapy with gay men living with HIV/AIDS, particularly the stories from New York-based music therapist Joseph Fidelibus (Chapter 3). His journey from classical pianist to music-centered music therapist began after he, as a young gay man in Los Angeles during the 1980s, witnessed all his friends dying from AIDS. He writes poignantly about his horrific experiences that led him to visit the Nordoff-Robbins Center in London. Meeting Colin Lee and Nigel Hartley was crucial for his subsequent career path, first with a master's degree and then a doctoral degree in music therapy at New York University.
Present Moments
From 1996 to 1998, Fidelibus worked at Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) in New York, and it is from those years that he now recalls situations from various case stories that have lingered in memories, body, and emotions. He improvises in duo improvisations on the piano, allows one client to play congas to express his terrible anger and paranoia, while another is met through songs that gradually develop into vocal improvisation. Fidelibus writes very vividly about strong moments, emotional turning points in music therapy where relationships solidify, and something releases for the men living with a looming fear of death. All of this happens without words, except where they discuss the music itself. For me, these were very vivid illustrations of how far one can go in music therapy by trusting music as a means to express life pain and self-insight.
Music is the answer for the music-centered approach. But I also note the adult, warm, accepting, and caring Fidelibus who, with his demeanor, creates a safe and trusting space that invites sharing of emotions.
I think that here in Norway, we have primarily advanced creative music therapy inspired by Nordoff and Robbins in working with children. Reports of music-centered improvisations with adult clients within the Nordoff-Robbins tradition, as we find with Alan Turry or Gary Ansdell, are more rare.
Songwriting in Groups
Jae Swanson has invited a group of LGBTQIA+ youth to participate in music gatherings where they write and perform songs for each other and for a concluding concert (Chapter 10). Swanson does not call it therapy to avoid stigmatization. The participants write songs with lyrics from their own experiences, bring their own instruments, and practice for a concluding concert for invited guests.
An example of adapting new lyrics to a known song can be found with the song "I Am" by artist India Arie. Here it states, "I am more than you see" – which challenges one to specify further:
I am emotionally reckless
I am reinvented completely
I am gay
I am tired
I am still a scared and lonely child
I am lost and dreaming
I am slow to glow and quick to break
I am safe behind the one-way glass
Take me or leave me or love me or hate me
I am too tired for you to change me
Final Concert
For the concluding concert, they wrote a shared "anthem," a song that celebrates community and invites the audience to sing along at the end. The lyrics are as follows:
Who we are, a work of art,
Talented angels, but left in the dark
Let’s not be afraid of who we are
Let our colors shine through
They won’t understand our mosaic
But let our quilt be creative
Let our colors shine through
Chorus:
Be beautiful, be creative, be outrageous, be courageous
Let our colors shine through
Be weird, be free, be happy, be unique
Let our colors shine through
(Repeat)
The audience was given a list of words that they could choose to use in the chorus: Be...
Fantastic, outstanding, love, queer, strong, brave, bold, cool, amazing, calm, colorful, real, present, musical, artistic, relax.
The concert had a segment with an ‘open mic.’ Here, the young participants could choose to open up through music and text, sharing stories from their own lives.
Undefining Music Therapy
Simon Gilbertson has contributed an original piece in the form of a play, with a commenting chorus, like in a Greek tragedy (Chapter 18). Here it truly revolves around a queering of music therapy, who we are, and how we wish to present ourselves. Simon's alienation is filled with references to post-structural literature and allows us to remain in uncertainty, which is arguably the intention.
As for the research aspect of this new field, we desire concrete analyses and knowledge expansions. Gilbertson suggests "diffraction" as a possible path, as indicated by Karen Barad's "agential realism." So far, we have seen less of this in music therapy. Here, music educators in Norway have made progress, including Mari Ystanes Fjeldstad's doctoral dissertation from The Norwegian Academy of Music as a good example.
Research
Michele Forinash and Natasha Thomas provide a solid dose of criticism regarding qualitative research in this field of music therapy (Chapter 27). First and foremost, we need more research in the field. But at the same time, such research must be attentive to the categories, themes, and meanings that researchers read into the data. Several important questions must be asked — does the research seek transformations, does it reject the status quo, does it protect vulnerable members of society, and is it desirable to implement any actions, if so with the consent of affected groups? Autoethnography is highlighted as a good way to bring forth new knowledge, and there are also good examples of this.
The authors go on to seek a re-conceptualization of the ontologies and epistemologies that guide research. The world can appear quite different from a queer perspective. The reality we imagine is not as fixed and unambiguous but is in flux. We must also ask what can be considered evidence, what can count as knowledge: “Queering epistemology means that knowledge must be co-constructed with an awareness of the power dynamics in the research relationship,” the authors state. The methods can also be re-conceptualized; not least, extensive reflexivity is required.
Kommentare