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Clinical Improvisation Techniques in Music Therapy: A Guide for Students, Clinicians and Educators by Debbie Carroll and Claire Lefebvre. Charles C. Thomas, 2013. ISBN 978-0-398-08890-3 (spiral); 978-0-398-08891-0 (ebk)
Anyone who has taught clinical improvisation is aware of the complexity involved in presenting the myriad skills and helping students develop and apply these skills with sound therapeutic rationale. For this reason, Carroll and Lefebvre's (2013) book is a very welcome addition to the clinical improvisation skills literature. Founded upon their years of teaching improvisation to music therapy students and supervising clinical work, the authors have provided a systematic approach to help students apprehend, develop, and integrate both clinical and musical skills to foster a therapeutic relationship in the context of improvisation. The presentation of this complex material is clear, easily understood, and elegant in its simplicity. After using it for two courses over the past two years, I find it an indispensable resource to teach these skills at both the undergraduate and graduate level. But-let us begin at the beginning and place this book in context.
Every music therapist with an interest in clinical improvisation is familiar with Kenneth E. Bruscia's 1987 tome, ImprovisationalModels of Music Therapy, which he deemed "the first book to extricate improvisation training from specific clinical models of music therapy" (p. 15). Indeed, this seminal work identified and gathered together a compendium of clinical techniques that were organized according to clinical goals, providing a foundation for subsequent works on clinical improvisation. Wigram's (2004) book on individual and group improvisation expanded upon Bruscia's (1987) work by providing instructional exercises to develop music and clinical skills along with a CD with audio examples of musical styles and tracks to practice improvising to various types of client musical production. Gardstrom (2007) also closely followed Bruscia's original categories of clinical techniques, adding an indispensable chapter on Bruscia's Improvisation Assessment Profiles...