Alpha Woodward | Wartburg College (original) (raw)
Papers by Alpha Woodward
What remained with me after repatriating back into my home country, were questions about my capac... more What remained with me after repatriating back into my home country, were questions about my capacity and abilities as a leader, and how the collective trauma and dysfunction in the community may have impacted my own perspective, judgment, and decision-making while serving the needs of others. My dissertation is a multi-layered study that explores deeply some of the more salient connections and disconnections of my experiences over a four-year period in a culture that was, initially, foreign to my own. The research is bounded by my time in BiH, but as the research evolved, it also became relevant in the sense that life did not start in 2004. My personal history had a role to play.
Voices, May 10, 2016
A short personal reflection of how aesthetic and artistic abilities offer resilience for social c... more A short personal reflection of how aesthetic and artistic abilities offer resilience for social change and personal transformational experiences.
Voices, Jul 1, 2004
Most extended care environments are fraught with noise pollution, resident distress, and staff bu... more Most extended care environments are fraught with noise pollution, resident distress, and staff busyness. The continual clamour of random sound events such as call bells, public paging systems, TVs, loud conversations, kitchen clatter and continuous foot traffic contribute to an alarming sense of frenetic activity and impervious indifference. The Emergent Voice is the sum of all sounds we hear. It is the qualitative and identifiable personification of health or illness in a system. An Emergent Voice that reveals disturbing sounds and disruptive behaviours can be influenced towards health through the experiencing of the aesthetic, temporal and structural properties of music. This perspective introduces an environmental approach to music therapy programming in institutional facilities and necessitates a basic understanding of systems and field theories, the physiology and phenomenology of sound, and a willingness to engage in, and listen to, the environment in a new way.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 2012
Leslie Bunt's Introduction to the interview:It gives me great pleasure to introduce this text... more Leslie Bunt's Introduction to the interview:It gives me great pleasure to introduce this text written by music therapy colleague Alpha Woodward. For quite some time Alpha and I have been exploring how to communicate to the international music therapy community through ‘Voices’ something of the essence of the work of a quite remarkable man, Nigel Osborne. Alpha has provided a creative solution to this challenge by interweaving excerpts of an interview with Nigel within the context of a case study exploring the background and evolution of the Pavarotti Music Centre in Mostar. As Alpha points out in her text Nigel Osborne is a great friend and ambassador of music therapy, although not ‘formally trained’ as a music therapist. His work touches on so much that is fundamental to the work of music therapists and as he says ‘enlivening children through song.’ But Nigel goes further in combining this passion for music with his burning desire for social justice and action.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 2011
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 2004
Most extended care environments are fraught with noise pollution, resident distress, and staff bu... more Most extended care environments are fraught with noise pollution, resident distress, and staff busyness. The continual clamour of random sound events such as call bells, public paging systems, TVs, loud conversations, kitchen clatter and continuous foot traffic contribute to an alarming sense of frenetic activity and impervious indifference. The Emergent Voice is the sum of all sounds we hear. It is the qualitative and identifiable personification of health or illness in a system. An Emergent Voice that reveals disturbing sounds and disruptive behaviours can be influenced towards health through the experiencing of the aesthetic, temporal and structural properties of music. This perspective introduces an environmental approach to music therapy programming in institutional facilities and necessitates a basic understanding of systems and field theories, the physiology and phenomenology of sound, and a willingness to engage in, and listen to, the environment in a new way.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 2012
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cultural disintegration, political confusion a... more Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cultural disintegration, political confusion and unresolved inter-ethnic conflict are just some of the hurdles that can face citizens in war affected areas. After the Dayton Accord had been signed in 1995, international government and charity organizations and a variety of NGOs flooded into Bosnia and Herzegovina to help rebuild the infrastructure and to offer transitional economic and political support for the beleaguered, fragmented population. Although arts-based activities, therapies and projects were also part of the international influx, this form of psychosocial intervention was piecemeal, somewhat random, and often unable to sustain a long term or systemic approach to the massive psychosocial needs of the people. There appears to be little peer-reviewed fieldwork research to support claims of effectiveness of arts-based projects in post-conflict regions. Therefore, considering the growing number of projects that use the...
What remained with me after repatriating back into my home country, were questions about my capac... more What remained with me after repatriating back into my home country, were questions about my capacity and abilities as a leader, and how the collective trauma and dysfunction in the community may have impacted my own perspective, judgment, and decision-making while serving the needs of others. My dissertation is a multi-layered study that explores deeply some of the more salient connections and disconnections of my experiences over a four-year period in a culture that was, initially, foreign to my own. The research is bounded by my time in BiH, but as the research evolved, it also became relevant in the sense that life did not start in 2004. My personal history had a role to play.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, Sep 24, 2018
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 2016
A short personal reflection of how aesthetic and artistic abilities offer resilience for social c... more A short personal reflection of how aesthetic and artistic abilities offer resilience for social change and personal transformational experiences.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, May 10, 2016
A short personal reflection of how aesthetic and artistic abilities offer resilience for social c... more A short personal reflection of how aesthetic and artistic abilities offer resilience for social change and personal transformational experiences.
Voices, 2016
Humankind's most essential faculty is quite possibly the ability to imagine. This article is a r... more Humankind's most essential faculty is quite possibly the ability to imagine. This article is a reflective essay on the potency of the human imagination and its role in enabling us to reach higher, go the extra distance, or sometimes, just explore our immediate environment for inspiration, answers, and more importantly - questions.
In this article, the authors reflect on their four year experience with ongoing music-centered su... more In this article, the authors reflect on their four year experience with ongoing music-centered supervision. Isolation is identified in the literature as a causal agent for disillusionment among music therapists. Peer supervision is explored as a form of support which decreases feelings of isolation and uniqueness. Group structure, norms and process are examined through Pratt and Whitney's (1991) model of group dynamics. First person narrative is used to examine and discuss each individual therapist's experiences in supervision. Supervision methods embedded in the narratives include improvisation, reflection, holding, elaborating qualities in the music, gestalt musical dialogue, and imaging to music. Alternate supervision models are explored addressing the challenges of rural music therapy practice.
What remained with me after repatriating back into my home country, were questions about my capac... more What remained with me after repatriating back into my home country, were questions about my capacity and abilities as a leader, and how the collective trauma and dysfunction in the community may have impacted my own perspective, judgment, and decision-making while serving the needs of others. My dissertation is a multi-layered study that explores deeply some of the more salient connections and disconnections of my experiences over a four-year period in a culture that was, initially, foreign to my own. The research is bounded by my time in BiH, but as the research evolved, it also became relevant in the sense that life did not start in 2004. My personal history had a role to play.
Voices, May 10, 2016
A short personal reflection of how aesthetic and artistic abilities offer resilience for social c... more A short personal reflection of how aesthetic and artistic abilities offer resilience for social change and personal transformational experiences.
Voices, Jul 1, 2004
Most extended care environments are fraught with noise pollution, resident distress, and staff bu... more Most extended care environments are fraught with noise pollution, resident distress, and staff busyness. The continual clamour of random sound events such as call bells, public paging systems, TVs, loud conversations, kitchen clatter and continuous foot traffic contribute to an alarming sense of frenetic activity and impervious indifference. The Emergent Voice is the sum of all sounds we hear. It is the qualitative and identifiable personification of health or illness in a system. An Emergent Voice that reveals disturbing sounds and disruptive behaviours can be influenced towards health through the experiencing of the aesthetic, temporal and structural properties of music. This perspective introduces an environmental approach to music therapy programming in institutional facilities and necessitates a basic understanding of systems and field theories, the physiology and phenomenology of sound, and a willingness to engage in, and listen to, the environment in a new way.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 2012
Leslie Bunt's Introduction to the interview:It gives me great pleasure to introduce this text... more Leslie Bunt's Introduction to the interview:It gives me great pleasure to introduce this text written by music therapy colleague Alpha Woodward. For quite some time Alpha and I have been exploring how to communicate to the international music therapy community through ‘Voices’ something of the essence of the work of a quite remarkable man, Nigel Osborne. Alpha has provided a creative solution to this challenge by interweaving excerpts of an interview with Nigel within the context of a case study exploring the background and evolution of the Pavarotti Music Centre in Mostar. As Alpha points out in her text Nigel Osborne is a great friend and ambassador of music therapy, although not ‘formally trained’ as a music therapist. His work touches on so much that is fundamental to the work of music therapists and as he says ‘enlivening children through song.’ But Nigel goes further in combining this passion for music with his burning desire for social justice and action.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 2011
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 2004
Most extended care environments are fraught with noise pollution, resident distress, and staff bu... more Most extended care environments are fraught with noise pollution, resident distress, and staff busyness. The continual clamour of random sound events such as call bells, public paging systems, TVs, loud conversations, kitchen clatter and continuous foot traffic contribute to an alarming sense of frenetic activity and impervious indifference. The Emergent Voice is the sum of all sounds we hear. It is the qualitative and identifiable personification of health or illness in a system. An Emergent Voice that reveals disturbing sounds and disruptive behaviours can be influenced towards health through the experiencing of the aesthetic, temporal and structural properties of music. This perspective introduces an environmental approach to music therapy programming in institutional facilities and necessitates a basic understanding of systems and field theories, the physiology and phenomenology of sound, and a willingness to engage in, and listen to, the environment in a new way.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 2012
Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cultural disintegration, political confusion a... more Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), cultural disintegration, political confusion and unresolved inter-ethnic conflict are just some of the hurdles that can face citizens in war affected areas. After the Dayton Accord had been signed in 1995, international government and charity organizations and a variety of NGOs flooded into Bosnia and Herzegovina to help rebuild the infrastructure and to offer transitional economic and political support for the beleaguered, fragmented population. Although arts-based activities, therapies and projects were also part of the international influx, this form of psychosocial intervention was piecemeal, somewhat random, and often unable to sustain a long term or systemic approach to the massive psychosocial needs of the people. There appears to be little peer-reviewed fieldwork research to support claims of effectiveness of arts-based projects in post-conflict regions. Therefore, considering the growing number of projects that use the...
What remained with me after repatriating back into my home country, were questions about my capac... more What remained with me after repatriating back into my home country, were questions about my capacity and abilities as a leader, and how the collective trauma and dysfunction in the community may have impacted my own perspective, judgment, and decision-making while serving the needs of others. My dissertation is a multi-layered study that explores deeply some of the more salient connections and disconnections of my experiences over a four-year period in a culture that was, initially, foreign to my own. The research is bounded by my time in BiH, but as the research evolved, it also became relevant in the sense that life did not start in 2004. My personal history had a role to play.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, Sep 24, 2018
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, 2016
A short personal reflection of how aesthetic and artistic abilities offer resilience for social c... more A short personal reflection of how aesthetic and artistic abilities offer resilience for social change and personal transformational experiences.
Voices: A World Forum for Music Therapy, May 10, 2016
A short personal reflection of how aesthetic and artistic abilities offer resilience for social c... more A short personal reflection of how aesthetic and artistic abilities offer resilience for social change and personal transformational experiences.
Voices, 2016
Humankind's most essential faculty is quite possibly the ability to imagine. This article is a r... more Humankind's most essential faculty is quite possibly the ability to imagine. This article is a reflective essay on the potency of the human imagination and its role in enabling us to reach higher, go the extra distance, or sometimes, just explore our immediate environment for inspiration, answers, and more importantly - questions.
In this article, the authors reflect on their four year experience with ongoing music-centered su... more In this article, the authors reflect on their four year experience with ongoing music-centered supervision. Isolation is identified in the literature as a causal agent for disillusionment among music therapists. Peer supervision is explored as a form of support which decreases feelings of isolation and uniqueness. Group structure, norms and process are examined through Pratt and Whitney's (1991) model of group dynamics. First person narrative is used to examine and discuss each individual therapist's experiences in supervision. Supervision methods embedded in the narratives include improvisation, reflection, holding, elaborating qualities in the music, gestalt musical dialogue, and imaging to music. Alternate supervision models are explored addressing the challenges of rural music therapy practice.