Toward a Practice of Engaged Filming in Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy
Megan E. Graham, MA
From <https://academic-oup-com.lib-ezproxy.concordia.ca/mtp/article/34/1/64/2583062?login=true&token=eyJhbGciOiJub25lIn0.eyJleHAiOjE3NDU0MTk3NzQsImp0aSI6ImQ4NjM1Mjc0LTllZmMtNGMwMS1hMjEwLTRiOWRjMzQwZWM2NCJ9.>
Quotes and Passages that Stood Out to Me:
"Filming is an essential component in clinical music therapy practice." Very first line of the article
This paper is based upon the author's fieldwork at the Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development.
Apparently filming is used a lot, not just to document progress, analyze music but as a "gift for clients and their families"
Pual Nordoff and Clive Robbins took video originally for "historical documentation" just audio
As historical records, promotional material, and study tools, the cassette tape audio recordings were indispensable to the development of the Nordoff-Robbins approach
Since the experimental approach to music therapy (like NR) requires so much present-moment music making, analysis can be lost and only noticed when reviewing a recording
Video recording creates a representation of experience, which is not the same as the experience that was recorded. The representation cannot be an exact copy of an original, in form or in elicited human experience, because it is a product of three processes: the social context in which the event was performed, the recording technologies that captured the event, and the skilled ways of looking and listening with which the viewer examines the recording
The Creative Now is an existential state of being that Robbins felt was ideal for the therapist and client in music therapy. When poised in the Creative Now, the therapist is receptive to the creative (that which is unknown, not yet realized, and may come into being), as well as the created (that which is known, realized, and has come into being). The former requires intuition and inspiration, while the latter requires expression and form.
Shelley, a Nordoff-Robbins music therapist whom I interviewed, described being poised or engaged in the following way:
"There’s this hyper-alertness that goes on when you’re doing improvisational work that there’s a readiness. You cannot just go in and relax into it, you have to be on. And something about the cameras contributes to that, at least when we first started here in 1990. There was that feeling of lights, camera, action, and we got used to it, and once it was on, you were on! It can take a lot out of you, because there’s an energy around what we do and a preciseness of what we want to convey that if you’re not on the top of your game you may miss something, not that that’s terrible, but you want to be as poised as you can."
There were times when Clive used to come away from a session and say, “Oh, that was the worst session ever.” Then he’d watch the video and realize it wasn’t so awful. Or the reverse would happen, he’d say, “Wow! What a great session!” Then he’d watch the video and think, “Oh, that wasn’t so great after all.” (Graham, 2013)
When a video recording is used for data collection or training as an objective document, there is a risk that it will be “heard” and “seen” only for its objective characteristics to which we can assign language, and that the experiences of the recording for which there is not ready-made language will go unremarked
The article discusses Engaged Filming in which "that the best representations of sessions are accomplished by engaged filming, where the videographer is as poised in the Creative Now as the music therapists who are in the session room"
My personal thoughts:
I think the presence of a recording device has an effect on both the therapist and client. Even if it is part of the practice, there is a different pressure, accountability and performance aspect in place
I think this can both be beneficial and hindering to treatment
We did indexing in an improv class last semester and I remember it being informative and truly deepened my qualitative data.
It is very time consuming to index
Confidentiality concerns with holding recordings, especially if working as a contracted/travelling music therapist
I worked with a supervisor who recorded every session and it resulted in her documentation to be very accurate and quantitative, with the video providing qualitative observation
I am not sure this would work with all clients.
