I made a breakthrough this week in my journey with my role as a facilitator of music ministry, as a professional and in my personal life. That breakthrough came with the discovery of the Voice Study Centre!
They offer a completely online Masters degree and/or Postgraduate Certificate in Vocal Pedagogy, including a specialisation in Singing for Health.
I am forever grateful for however I ended up on this site! Not only have I been struggling with my goals and identity as a Music Ministry practitioner (this is a phrase I am making up right now), but also with the channel and facilitation of how I am to grow into this field. Although I have positioned myself to eventually study a Masters in Music Therapy, likely at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, I have found my motivation and that ‘spark’ lacking in getting me to the place I need to pursue it.
This ‘spark’ has now been lit, however, with the discovery of a specialisation in the study of how singing is therapeutic and life-giving from a physiological, social, psychological and spiritual perspective. This is what I know and have experienced (as a previous student of music specialising in voice and singing in a beautiful chorale). While ‘music therapy’ has been an overwhelmingly broad subject that ranges from beating djembes in a circle to singing along to an improvised guitar piece, finding my passion and my niche here, in the area of singing for health, frees me to dive right in and grasp what I want to do with myself!
This leads me to my next point: so – where do I want to go? This is an important question, and one which I am glad to be writing down here since it seems my journey with Music Ministry is a long, belaboured and inconclusive one (see my last blog post about counseling a year ago). I want to teach music in a way that is therapeutic and life-giving (John 10:10) to those in my community, whether that be in schools for children and teenagers, or in old age homes for the elderly, and in the format of one-to-one voice lessons or choir directing and conducting (eek!). This is no easy feat! And yet, if I study and take steps on how to be a teacher, especially aiming towards a MA (or perhaps even just as PostGrad Cert in Vocal Pedagogy), then this goal becomes more and more achievable.
Singing for Health has become a significant area of research and interest in the past two decades in the UK.
This course provides an academic pathway to facilitate the study and research of Singing for Health.
Students will be at the forefront of innovation in this programme, with an opportunity to engage in Masters level practitioner research focused on Singing for Health and Well-being, culminating in a Voice Pedagogy MA.
Students on this pathway have examined the impact of singing on blood pressure, strategies for working with lung health groups, working with stroke, chronic pain, mental health, postnatal depression and Parkinson’s disease.
Overview of Voice Study Centre’s MA in Vocal Pedagogy – Singing for Health
This is an exciting breakthrough for me because I have been struggling with my professional identity as a musician and my ‘end goals’ with the skills that God has gifted me. I asked the Lord – in all seriousness, hoping for an answer that would be simple and straightforward – ‘what would you like me to be? What am I going to be?’ And he told me very clearly: Music Therapy. It popped into my mind like a text box word bubble: I had never heard of it before, nor previously considered anything like it. But once I had researched what ‘music therapy’ looked like in my country and context, I was not immediately excited. It did not seem like a glamourous job for an 18 year old who wanted to change the world, or at least, be glowing on an international stage (how naïve!) I had big dreams that spun out like an extensive spider web, with many prongs and synapses in topics ranging from music, performance (acting included), film, psychology, neuroscience, creative writing and theology. How could God provide only one specialisation to what my main goal and profession would be? And did it look like strumming a guitar (that I could not play) with autistic adolescents in a classroom with an outdated colour scheme? Perhaps it was, and perhaps I was too proud and obnoxious to appreciate it, so I resigned to admitting it would ‘grow’ on me and decided to be obedient in aiming for this goal.
Arriving to this end, however, would not be a straightforward experience (and, in fact, we still haven’t got there, have we?!) I have discovered that, with God, this is often the case: things are never as simple and straightforward as we would like them to be, and this is to build and refine our character and dependency on Him. To God be the glory for this journey I have been on, but sjoe! (an Afrikaans term for ‘gee-wiz’!) this has been a wild ride!
If one were to visualise my expedition to do “music therapy” as a football being kicked from centre-field into the ‘goal’, one would see the ball being kicked by a rather confused, yet obedient, player, in a wayward direction from the goal post; full of faith that the ball, now in the air and spinning in what looks like a different direction, would reach its destination. This ball would fly towards Scotland, to what seems like a side-venture in learning obedience, dependence, and incidentally finding a husband, before being picked up and blown by some supernatural winds across the Atlantic to the USA in Chicago; here this trajectory looks more correct, but yet still unsure and skewed if it were to reach its end goal as seen from the human eye. Here the ball twists and turns as it picks up more dreams, inspirations, knowledge, experiences and fulfilment, before being suddenly dropped a couple of feet straight back to where it came from, in New Zealand and at home. The sudden drop is a shock, and the ball experiences some regression as it touches the ground and absorbs the impact of what ‘real life’ is again, and what it should expect at its goal. Doubt is cast over whether the ball has enough ‘bounce’ in it to truly ‘bounce back’ and absorb the shock for its benefit; there are many moments of fear, uncertainty, loss, insecurity, miscarriages and surgery, ill-health and a lost identity. The ground is hard, it is cold, it is very real, and the pull of gravity is very strong. But, fueled with the air that has been breathed into itself from experiences and life-filled words of days bygone, it does begin to lift and begins its bounce: now we see it rise again in the air in an upright position, ready to be hit in the direction of the end goal. The player is less confused now, and is a lot closer to the goal, and feels permitted to run up to the ball to kick it again (or perhaps we expect a head-butt!) in a confident manner towards its goal with a strength that conveys his conviction in the trajectory he should now take.
It is here we now find ourselves – at the bounce-back of the ball, ready to be hit in an upwards direction, through a specific pathway that appears more clear than before, to arrive and land gracefully and successfully at its destination. If you have been following well enough, you’ll take my meaning to be the trajectory of this Vocal Pedagogy course, as the penultimate step before taking a Masters in research in Music Therapy at Victoria University, and thus beginning my career as a Music Therapist.
Well, I haven’t kicked the ball just yet, so we will see what transpires! But this is the plan at this current time.
As I prepare to take this study, I am going to position myself to become a music tutor/teacher, preferably in Voice, in my community. I am on the verge of registering for the Foundation Course with the Institute of Registered Music Teachers of New Zealand (IRMTNZ) where I hope to upskill and begin teaching basic music lessons in the next year after my maternity leave ends (yes, I did just have a baby, I forget to mention these rather large life events). From there, I’ll be in a better position to kick the ball, and we will see where God will direct it before it lands in its final destination.
A man’s heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.
Proverbs 16:9
The Ministry of Music 