ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on research into musical communication in clinical improvisation as a core ingredient of human interaction in music therapy (MT) practice. Healing rituals throughout human history have included music accompanying ceremonies and serving to signify important parts and events within these culturally diverse healing practices. The 1999 triannual World Congress of Music Therapy in Washington, DC, focused on five major models of music therapy: Analytical MT, Benenzon MT, Guided Imagery in Music, Nordoff/Robbins MT, and Behavioral MT. Analysis of moment-to-moment interactions has been the subject of many MT case studies and different studies have expressed this variously, describing "meaningful moments", "pivotal moments" "significant moments", or "present moments". Time processes are related to the events and the personal meanings and experience of these events in the music, rather than the music's inherent logic. Music therapists use music to accompany people, and making use of the temporal nature of music to and work with the emotions.
