Kate Beever, music therapist & owner, Maine Music & Health

Course Overview: This course explores the therapeutic uses of music within healthcare settings for clients of all ages. No musical experience is necessary to benefit from this short form course. Various healthcare populations are explored through readings, visits to community partners, and research. Music is experienced in group settings for a hands-on learning of ways to address cognitive, physical, social, and emotional goals through drumming, songwriting, lyric discussion, and movement to music. Ethical implications of community based therapeutic music programs are explored. Students will learn about the field of music therapy and the human interaction with music from a health perspective- physical, social, emotional, and cognitive health of all ages. Students will have opportunities outside of class to develop and assess collaborative projects that use music to help children and adults reach their optimal wellness.

Learning Goals: 

• Explore the relationship between music and the brain so that students have a clear understanding of why music is able to help with speech, movement, and expression.
• Describe the process to become a music therapist and the other options for using music in healthcare- sound therapy, music education, adaptive performance.
• Describe key terms, clinical and musical characteristics, and needs of clients with dementia, TBI, ID/DD, ASD, and general stress.
• Improvise effectively on a variety of musical instruments- percussion, voice, piano, strings (no musical experience necessary, these lessons will vary based on students’ ability levels)
• Participate in music groups to learn about group dynamics and facilitation.
• Evaluate the ethical implications involved in therapeutic music/adaptive music work.

Class schedule:

Kate Beever is a board-certified music therapist who studied both Neurologic and improvisational music therapy at NYU and collaborated on research at Beth Israel Medical Center and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center before returning to Maine to open her private practice. She sees clients at Maine Medical Center and at her office in an adaptive campus in Brunswick. Kate has an active schedule of performing, presenting, and mentoring in music therapy, and has worked as a consultant to nonprofit arts groups including 317 Main St and the Portland and Bangor Symphony Orchestras to develop music and wellness programs. She was a member of the Maine Arts Commission and founded the Maine State Task Force on Music Therapy to increase access to the arts. Kate created and ran the annual Creative Health conference, which ran for three years at USM. Kate is President of the USM Alumni Council. Maine Music & Health was the Small Business Administration’s 2017 Microenterprise of the Year and recently won $10,000 in the INC Magazine and UPS Store’s Small Business Challenge in Los Angeles. Kate is also a Remo HealthRhythms facilitator.