Music Therapy Pedagogy: Teaching Functional Percussion Skills

The most recent version of the Professional Competencies established by the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) denotes a separate section devoted to percussion skills (AMTA, 2010). This increased specificity demands a deeper discussion in the literature about how to teach percussion skills in general and how to impart the documented AMTA percussion competencies to music therapy students. While not defined strictly in the previous or current competencies, "percussion" in this paper will focus primary attention on instruments that appear to be the most commonly used in clinical practice, and most commonly discussed within music therapy literature (Matney, 2004). The term "functional percussion skills" will refer to those percussion skills that allow a music therapist to facilitate clinical music experiences. There is a critical need to clearly articulate the percussion competencies for music therapy students so faculty and supervisors may better learn how to teach them.Percussion competenciesThe AMTA uses the Professional Competencies to detail specific objectives that entry-level professionals should have obtained during preclinical or clinical training. The three main areas are (a) music foundations, (b) clinical foundations, and (c) music therapy. Bruscia, Hesser, and Boxhill (1981) provided the first list of competencies to the American Association of Music Therapy (AAMT), and a second document for the National Association of Music Therapy was approved in 1996 (McGuire, et al., 1996). The AMTA Assembly of Delegates voted to adopt a change in this document that emphasizes "percussion skills" in the fall 2008 revision. In a prior version of the Professional Competencies, two percussion skills were listed under the subheading of "nonsymphonic instrumental skills" and the other under the subheading of "improvisation." Three percussion competencies in the 2005 revision stated:7.1 - Play percussion instruments alone or in ensemble7.5 - Demonstrate basic skills (i.e., rudiments) on several standard percussion instruments sufficient to facilitate rhythmbased experiences for groups and individuals8.1 - Improvise on percussion instruments.The current version includes a subheading entirely devoted to percussion called "Percussion Skills." Under this subheading, the competencies are listed as:7. Percussion Skills7.1 Accompany self and ensembles proficiently7.2 Utilize basic techniques on several standard and ethnic instruments7.3 Lead rhythm-based ensembles proficiently.Item 9.1 "Improvise on percussion instruments," will also be referenced in this paper.While percussion becomes more prevalent in health care literature, both inside and outside of the field of music therapy, percussion pedagogy is absent within the literature of our own field (Matney, 2004). The primary purpose of this paper is to put forward a pedagogical framework that addresses functional percussion skill development for music therapy students. The secondary purpose of this paper is to offer competency-relevant resources and guides that may assist academic faculty to communicate student needs with university percussion educators. Rationales for both purposes are offered below.Rationale #1 : Music Therapy-Centered FocusPercussion is likely the most utilized interactive instrumentation in the field of music therapy (Matney, 2004). Clinicians likely use percussion across theoretical orientations, within most clinical settings, with most populations, and goal areas. The four sets of instruments most commonly identified in therapy, according to Matney (2004), are drums (hand, frame, bass, drum set, snares & toms, most commonly), shakers and rattles (maracas, egg shakers, caxixi, ganza, axatse, gourd shakers), unspecified "rhythm instruments," and Orff xylophones and metallophones. The field may benefit from further inquiry regarding instrumentation choice within the body of literature and within clinical practice. …