Studies concerning music and identity have shown that the music which an individual values
as important tells stories about the subjective reality of the individual (Lehtonen & Niemelä
1997; Baker & Wigram 2004). Through the use of individualized meaningful music in music
therapy, a possibility for raising and evaluating processes connected with identity can be created
(Magee & Davidson 2004b). Even recent brain studies have shown these connections. When
meaningful music is used activity is observed within deep parts of the brain, suggesting a connection
between contextualized meaningful music and activity in the brain where the pleasure
and the autobiographical memory centers exist (Burunat et al. 2016). The most important music
for an individual often is the music listened to while young (Rubin et al. 1998). Additionally, the
use of meaningful music from the past for an elderly population through group sing-a-longs
facilitates meaningful and emotional interaction with othe
rs (Clair, 2000).
This qualitative study examines the possibilities for elderly people with relatively good
cognitive and psycho-social abilities in expressing, sharing, understanding and changing to explore
identity through the music therapy process within a peer group context. Subjects for the
study were identified by care providers from a home for disabled veterans, Sotainvalidien Sairaskoti,
in the Kypärämäki area of Jyväskylä, Finland. The music therapy process was linked to
the ideas and values of the nursing home, taking place as part of a multi-professional whole care
concept and connected to everyday social situations (e.g. DeNora 2008, pp. 62-74). A series of audio
recordings (18 recordings x 45 minutes each) were collected, transcribed and divided into
thematically meaningful units using content analysis, with the main aim of the analysis emphasizing
the finding of meanings between music and identity. Clarification of the data discoveries was
created through mutual understandings determined between the therapist and the client through
a reciprocal process connected to cyclical and layered meanings of past, present and future.
The core result of this study is the discovery of the effective use of a model which could
be called the “HEP!” model, “HEP!” being a term used in Finnish which could be translated as
“GO!” in the musical English understanding of the command, “one, two, three, GO!”. The model
is structured on the basis of three elements, the holistic picture of human beings (H), the ecological
structures on which musical meanings are based (E), and the potentialities that are being
enabled and exercised within a music therapy group (P). The model has helped the music therapist
researcher, and hopefully will also help other music therapists, in understanding and conceptualizing
the multidimensional meanings of music therapy processes at both the level of
theory as well as of practice. The results can be situated in connection with the growing tendencies
in many branches of science for seeing narration as a valuable method for exploration in
research. This study is also connected to community music therapy practices and theory, which
see music as a way to advance wellbeing in everyday life situations. Finally, the results are
strongly connected to issues of empowerment and a new definition of rehabilitation and music
therapy where the elderly, as their own actors, take control over matters concerning their lives.
Let us allow the client to “write the script” for their own rehabilitation!
...
