Meet Alecia: Why I Became a Music Therapist

Written by Alecia M. Meila, MM, MT-BC

Like with teaching, there is a joke in the music therapy world that no one goes into music therapy for the money. One of the most interesting questions I’m asked is, “Why did you become a music therapist?” With its modest pay and, at times, seemingly modest amounts of understanding as to what music therapy is (like here when we talked about how conversations like that usually go), “Why?” is a reasonable question to ask!

Music In My Heart

I was four years old when I saw Itzhak Perlman play violin on Sesame Street, and I remember thinking it was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heart. It was a short clip, but I was in love. I immediately told my parents I wanted to play violin. They didn’t as immediately believe me, because if you’d asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have answered “A lumberjack,” because my father used to sing a line from Monty Python: “I am a lumberjack and I’m okay. I work all night and I sleep all day…” and as someone who, even then, didn’t like mornings, I figured this sounded like a great job, because I could sleep during the day.

In any event, I kept asking my parents when I would be able to learn to play the violin. To humor me, my parents got me a little blue plastic guitar (which could be, and was, tuned like a full-size guitar), and I used to alternate between plucking out children’s songs on it in my room, and walking around the house with it tucked under my chin while holding a pencil, pretending to play violin.

After a year, my parents started to believe that maybe this wasn’t something that was going to change (I no longer wanted to be a lumberjack, for those interested in that detail). They looked up lessons for little kids, and just due to timing I had to wait another year before I could start playing. I was elated when I turned six and we went to Mr. Fichter’s violin shop for my first-ever violin!

I loved it. I loved it and when other kids my age practiced the required 15 minutes per day, I routinely practiced anywhere from 30 minutes to over an hour, as soon as my fingers were able to handle pressing the strings down for that long. And then an hour and a half. And then multiple times throughout the day. Violin was and is my first love.

Disaster Strikes

It was a good thing I found the violin when I did. Soon after this, I became very sick and often had to miss school. Due to the nature of my illness I had very few opportunities to go out and play with other children, or even participate in activities that other children did. And, as a child, I didn’t have the language skills or emotional capacity or perspective or life experience to be able to talk about what I was feeling. When everything was bad, I played the violin. When I said I didn’t want a test done and had to do it anyway, violin was something that belonged only to me. I am not ashamed to admit that playing the violin is what got me through.

Inspiration Strikes

As I grew up (and especially once my health improved), I started thinking about what I wanted to be when I was an adult. My first thought was a music teacher, which seemed like a natural and meaningful course. Music had been so integral to my well-being growing up, and I wanted to be able to give that to someone else. Surely there were other kids out there for whom music would be the lifeline they didn’t know they needed. I would pay it forward.

My mother was a special education teacher who worked with autistic children, and had worked with a music therapist for several years. She’d always loved working with all the therapists, but was particularly impressed by the music therapist, because she knew that when she gave the music therapist a concern, the music therapist would give her something that “always worked.” When my mother found out that I wanted to be a music teacher because I wanted to help kids like me, she mentioned music therapy as being a possible avenue to explore. Back then, the internet wasn’t really what it is today, but I did find some information on music therapy, and loved the idea of it. I went to college initially as a double-major in music therapy and music education, but eventually had to decide between the two.

Why Music Therapy?

We’ve defined music therapy in other blogs as using music to help people reach non-music goals. In my own life, music helped me make sense of my world when nothing else did. Music helped me make sense of myself when I felt isolated from everyone else. Music helped me achieve my own non-music goals, and I wanted music to help other people the way it had helped me. It seemed only natural that I go into music therapy.

Would I Do It Again?

Absolutely, yes. There has never been a moment that I regretted going into the music therapy field. With complete honesty, there is nothing else I can truly picture myself doing.

In the end, there are many wonderful music therapists in the world, but I like to think that my journey as a musician has motivated me and pushed me to be the best therapist I can be, and to look past all the “outside” and see what it is that the music can do for the person sitting in front of me. Sometimes the music does exactly what I expect it to, and sometimes the music surprises me, reaching my clients in ways I didn’t realize they needed to be reached. That’s what the music is there for.

That’s what the music has always been there for.