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Whenever it comes to finding the right music for a music therapy session, music therapists find themselves overwhelmed by the numerous possible choises, though asking themselves which one is the most appropriate and with the best results. The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of music on people, and to find ways of facing the challenge of choosing the right music for each individual. Starting with the fact that listening to music is predicting the personality, is increasing the creativity and is improving our motor and reasoning skills, being the centre of the therapeutic process, we find challenging the method of choosing the music although, nowadays, the new technology is of great help in making the choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Music Therapy practices with premature and medically fragile infants and families have been widely researched and documented across the globe. Despite such a plethora of discourse, there remain many questions within the evidence base. In particular, exploring and understanding parents’ perceptions of musically engaging with their baby, the role of the music therapist when working with the infant-parent dyad and understanding where music therapy practice is best placed to intervene within such a multifaceted and acute health care continuum. This qualitative inquiry, adopting Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) methodology explores how parent’s experience and perceive interactions with their baby through moments of singing and using their voice in a Neonatal Unit (NU). Findings emerged across four waves of analysis with recurrent themes including the intrinsic role of singing and voice to support the developing identity of parents and act as a fundamental bridge of connection to their premature baby; the powerfully supportive role of voice to meet the emotional needs of parents; and accessing voice as a self-soothing coping tool for parents. Moreover, the concept of time across differing stages of the acute neonatal journey and its influence on parents’ experiences and perceptions of voice inductively emerged across cases. Moreover, findings highlighted singing and voice interactions as a critical dialogical encounter of perceived connection and recognition that validated the parent’s developing relationship with their baby. Finally, the role of the music therapist was explored with dialogue emerging acknowledging the importance of this role in supportively educating and facilitating parents to find their voice and connect with their baby in the NU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following story is a written portrait (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) of Yuna, with particulars constructed and consolidated from data obtained from several of this study's participants. All had travelled to the US to study music therapy from a country in Asia. The form, themes, and shape of the story is taken directly from transcript data, while details have been fictionalized to create greater context for the reader's understanding of Asian students' lived experiences. The music excerpt that follows the story is offered as a way to further enhance our comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]