This is an exploratory, qualitative, interview-based study investigating the subjective clinical experiences of Nordoff-Robbins music therapists with regards to the following questions: ‘To what degree can aspects of “disfluency” be considered sources of creativity within the Nordoff-Robbins approach to music therapy?’ and ‘How can music therapists articulate these aspects of their practice, to contribute to shifting discourses around “fluency”?’. I draw on the work of Claypole who advocates for ‘disfluency’ to be deemed a source of creativity. I suggest that the concept of ‘fluency’ is useful for music therapists, encouraging consideration of how the people we work with experience themselves in time. I posit that a central goal of music therapy is to bring ‘flow’, and that there is perhaps a tension between this and valuing someone’s experience of disfluency. The interviews reveal that, perhaps uniquely among therapeutic interventions, Nordoff-Robbins music therapists can simultaneously value a person’s disfluency, while offering an experience of fluency in the music. I conclude by drawing on the interviews to recast the binary of fluency versus disfluency and explore language that embraces the diversity of ways in which people ‘flow’.
Henry Bateman (Fri,) studied this question.