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Music & Life in the Field of Play: An Anthology Carolyn Kenny, PhD, MTA Barcelona Publishers, 2006. ISBN 978-1-891278-39-8
This book came into being after Barcelona publishing approached Carolyn Kenny about putting together an anthology of her music therapy writing over the years. This is a testament and tribute to the enduring presence and impact of a true music therapy visionary.
The book is divided into five different parts or sections, each with a number of chapters. The five parts are representative of the journey that Kenny's life of scholarship within music therapy and indigenous studies has taken. This gives a narrative feel to the book that is inviting to the reader. In addition, each of the five parts opens with a newly written introduction by Kenny, which further thickens the narrative thread and serves to contextualize the material of each section.
Upon receipt of the book I was pleased by its feel and format. It's great that they were able to run this first edition in soft cover; despite the inclusion of two previous books, journal articles, edited book chapters and a variety of conference keynote addresses, it is lightweight and easy to handle and pack around. The larger page size keeps it to 247 pages and allows for a very readable two columns of text per page. The best part is that we now have all this rich material in one place. My Kenny material was spread through various stuffed files entitled music therapy research, music therapy theory, cultural awareness, systems theory, and general music therapy. I now see that my collection was incomplete and that I was unaware of a number of her writings.
Part one, A Mythic Journey, features, Kenny's entire first book, The Mythic Artery: The Magic of Music Therapy, which was originally adapted from her Master's thesis. There are also four other papers (chapters) that in a similar vein boldly call for music therapists to recognize and embrace the broader and deeper resonances of a musical experience. Kenny extols that meeting and traveling together in music represents not only an intimate encounter between people, but at the same time the music connects us "...to the mainstream of humanity - past, present and future... as a constant reminder of...