See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/272173816

Music Therapy in India: General Guidelines on Musical Preferences and

Approaches for Musical Selections.

Chapter · November 2006

CITATIONS READS

2 891

1 author:

Sumathy Sundar
Mahatma Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute
39 PUBLICATIONS   45 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Evaluation of Maternal and Fetal Health with Music Therapy In-Utero View project

Can Traditional Healing Practices be integrated into Modern Music Therapy Clinical Practice? View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Sumathy Sundar on 19 February 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Music Therapy The Sacred and the Profane. Nada Center for Music Therapy, Chennai

Music therapy in India: General Guidelines on

Musical Preferences and Approaches for Musical
Selections
-Sumathy Sundar

Sumathy Sundar, holds Master’s degrees in music and applied psychology and has a diploma in
counseling psychology. A carnatic music vocalist, she is also a graded visiting artist with AIR,
Pondicherry and is presently pursuing her doctoral studies in clinical music therapy at University
of Madras. She has released albums in classical music and devotional music

Abstract
As music therapy in India is nascent, there is a need at this stage to make use of the rich
musical resources to develop culturally sensitive approaches, techniques or methods adaptable
to clinical applications. This paper is based on formative studies and a survey on music listening
pattern undertake by the author and also gives general guidelines on the various approaches
that could help in the assessment of musical preferences during the process of musical
selections during treatment planning.

An Introduction to the uniqueness of Indian music

Indian music, a predominantly voice-based music system, has the innovative and
improvisational raga as its base. This unique repertoire-based system has been cultivated since
the Vedic times and handed over through an oral tradition – the guru-shishya parampara
(teacher-student tradition) for over centuries. It is still preserved, developed and elaborated by
hereditary musicians. Indian music is not notational. The existence of various embellishment
and microtones makes it difficult to write it down. Individuals need high levels of aural
sensitivity, good memory and training to perceive and interpret Indian classical music and to
develop improvisational techniques. There are two schools a) South Indian Carnatic and b)
North Indian Hindustani, which have different styles of rendering. There are also genres like
devotional music, folk music, bhajans, qawallis and ghazals, film music popular light devotional
music etc.

Background and need for this study

Musical preferences, music listening pattern and musical selection are vital with regard to
music therapy. (Kopacz, 2005) Benefit of music therapy depends on determining the patient’s
music preference. It necessitates a music therapist to develop an efficient means of
determining such preference. (Standley,1996). Comprehensive knowledge and assessment of
musical preferences are significant in the musical selections for therapeutic work be it,
receptive or interactive interventions. Many studies prove that music therapists choose music
Music Therapy The Sacred and the Profane. Nada Center for Music Therapy, Chennai

preferred by the patients for alleviation of anxiety and to brig out desired effects (Iwanaga &
Moroki, 1999; Thaut&Davis, 1993). Listening to music is a personal experience and hence is
subjective. Preferences depend on factors like musical upbringing, cultural background,
personality, musical training and musical taste in family lineage. (Sumathy, 2004)

Each individual perceives music in a different way, depending on various factors like past
experiences, cultural perspectives, listening patterns, cognitive development etc. if perceived to
be beautiful and interesting, music garners attention, which has an important implication for
music therapy (David et al, 1999)

The object of this study is to develop a tool by which various listening patterns in Indian
music culture could be assessed comprehensively and based on that, to formulate different
approaches which could be adopted to cater to the needs of patients with different musical
interests and preferences. The study also addresses the need to derive the factors influencing
musical selections in music therapy treatment planning.

Survey – Method
Participants

Randomly chosen participants (N = 106) from three organizations – a hospital, an University

and a commercial organization participated in the survey. The age group was in the range of 16
to 60 years. The participants were a heterogeneous group comprising of both trained and
untrained in music. They belonged to different socioeconomic strata with different cultural
backgrounds, belonging to different places, speaking different languages. All the participants
knew the local language tamil.

Materials
The music-listening pattern schedule designed consisted of instructions and 20 questions on
the following factors for the survey – musical training, musical preferences, duration of
listening, time of listening, preferred mood to listen, pattern of listening and general response
to preferred music.

Discussion
The survey revealed that all the participants enjoyed listening to music but their listening
pattern and the musical prefere3nces showed marked differences. Participants, who preferred
classical music, be it vocal or instrumental or both had prior knowledge and a cultivated taste.
They were either trained in classical music (basic or advanced training) or had a family lineage
of musicians or were brought up in a musical atmosphere and had a higher socio-economic
back ground. Most of the participants who had not undergone systematic musical training
chose light devotional music, folk music and cinema music as their favorites. Participants in the
lower socio-economic strata who had no training in music did not find any meaning in music
without lyrics as music meant songs in a language known to them. However, participants who
were trained in classical music chose to listen to the vast repertoire of songs irrespective of
Music Therapy The Sacred and the Profane. Nada Center for Music Therapy, Chennai

their languages. Music was both vocal and instrumental music and all other genres of music.
Most of the participants actively focused their attention while listening to classical music.
Participants who listened to other genres preferred to generally relax and sing along.
Participants who were trained in music preferred to hear all types of music and genres, be it
folk, devotional, light devotional or film music. An in depth group discussion organized recently
reaffirmed that a well-defined hierarchy exists in musical preferences in Indian cultural setting.
Group discussions also confirmed that for proper appreciation of classical music, Hindustani or
Carnatic, one needs to know its science. Classical music is complex and challenging to
understand. One needs a lot of cognition, analytical listening ability and ear-training to
appreciate and to garner attention. The untrained feels it difficult to understand and especially
to enjoy, which is an important implication in bringing out therapeutic effects during times of
suffering. Devotional music has a certain divinity in it that people use it as a medium to express
their deepest values of devotion to god. The present day light devotional music that attracts the
core of the population is more of light music with religious themes, easy to understand and is
devoid of and technical virtuosity. Light music and cine music are the ‘mass music’, music of the
day, enjoyed by people. The vast repertoire of folk songs for every event of life like
occupational songs, tribal songs, marriage songs, worship songs and lullabies have simple music
and easy rhythm that express the feelings and ideas of people.

Factors influencing Musical Selections in Music Therapy Treatment Planning

The patterns of listening by participant with different genre-s of music gave a direction for
selection of music for different approaches and treatment goals. (See Figures 1 & 2). Active
listening to classical music enables a person who is trained in music to appreciate aesthetically
the nuances of music. It also enables to analyze the music technically which is important for its
application in cognitive behavioral interventions like distraction from pain and lowering the
perception of pain. Similarly, light devotional music, which is generally in medium and fast
tempo, stimulates the listeners and makes tem actively focus on the music-couched lyrics and
the temp, which energized them. Psychological goals like alleviating anxiety requires less
stimulating music and the listening pattern also gave a direction that simple genres like
devotional music, light devotional music, cinema music and bhajans are preferred for relaxing
effects even with participants with sound knowledge of classical music.

Based on the above survey and the focus group discussions held by the researcher – the
factors influencing the musical selections (Figure 2 for treatment planning in music therapy had
two major approaches formulated like

a) Raga-based
b) Genre-based

These research approaches could be chosen and adopted in clinical set ups, catering to the
individual needs of the clients, taking into consideration, factors like music preferences, the
listening pattern, socio cultural background and level of exposure to classical music.

The Raga-based approach broadly involves application of musical pieces with a specific
emphasis on swara patterns, embellishments, and appropriate rhythms. This approach being
 Music Therapy The Sacred and the Profane. Nada Center for Music Therapy, Chennai

both melodic and rhythmic depends on the intended music function and the therapeutic
objective identified. Raga-s with swara-s having short of long intervals and different
embellishments could be chosen with the appropriate slow, medium or fast tempo, with or
without technical virtuosity. The applications would vary for different music functions identified
a) to be an audio analgesic, anxiolytic or sedative b) to be stimulating and energizing c) to be an
active focus of attention etc.

The genre based approach is a socio-cultural approach which emphasizes more on rhythms
and genre-s than melody. It can be broadly adopted with clients having less exposure to
classical music. The choice of musical pieces could be with different genre-s like devotional
music, light devotional music, folk music and cinema music which are more lyric and language
oriented.

Conclusion
The paper gives an idea of the procedures that could be followed in a clinical set up for
planning the music therapy treatment considering the musical preferences documented and
also the approaches that could be followed while selecting the musical pieces for intervention
in receptive music therapy session. It is necessary to experiment upon these approaches further
to standardize for to make improvements.

References
 Futamata, Izumi (2005). ‘Things Asian Music Therapists should Learn’. Voices: A World
Forum for Music Therapy. Retrieved October 16, 2005, from
http://www.voices.no/mainissues/mi40005000168.html
 Iwanage, M., Sc Moroki, Y. (1999). ‘Subjective and physiological responses to music
stimuli controlled over activity and preference’. Journal of Music Therapy, 36, 26-38.
 Kopacz, Malgorzata (2005). ‘Personality and music preferences: The influence of
personality traits on preferences regarding musical elements’ Journal of Music Therapy,
Fall 2005
 Standley, J. (1996). ‘Music research in medical/dental treatment: An update of a priori
meta-analysis’ in Effectiveness of Music Therapy Procedures: Documentation of
Research and Clinical Practice. (Ed) Furman, E Charles. Second Edition. National
Association for Music /therapy, Inc.
 Sumathy, S. (2004) Music Therapy: Gaining an edge in health care system. Shanmukha
Vol.XXX.No.4 Oct.-Dec. 23-25
 Thaut, M. H., & Davis, W. B. (1993). ‘The influence of subject-selected versus
experimenter-chosen music on affect, anxiety, and relaxation’. Journal of Music
Therapy, 30, 210-223.

View publication stats