Computer-Aided Music Therapy Evaluation: Investigating and Testing the Music Therapy Logbook Prototype 1 System

This thesis describes the investigation and testing of a prototype music therapy practice evaluation system: Music Therapy Logbook, Prototype 1. Such a system is intended to be used by music therapists as an aid to their existing evaluation techniques. The investigation of user needs, the multi-disciplinary team work, the pre-field and field recording tests, and the computational music analysis tests are each presented in turn, preceded by an in depth literature review on historical and existing music therapy evaluation methods. A final chapter presents investigative design work for proposed user interface software pages for the Music Therapy Logbook system. Four surveys are presented (n = 6, n = 10, n = 44, n =125). These gathered information on current music therapy evaluation methods, therapists‘ suggested functions for the system, and therapists‘ attitudes towards using the proposed automatic and semi-automatic music therapy evaluation functions, some of which were tested during the research period. The results indicate enthusiasm for using the system to; record individual music therapy sessions, create written notes linked to recordings and undertake automatic and/or semi-automatic computer aided music therapy analysis; the main purpose of which is to quantify changes in a therapist‘s and patient‘s use of music over time, (Streeter, 2010). Simulated music therapy improvisations were recorded and analysed. The system was then used by a music therapist working in a neuro-disability unit, to record individual therapy sessions with patients with acquired brain injuries. These recordings constitute the first music therapy audio recordings employing multi-track audio recording techniques, using existing radio microphone technology. The computational music analysis tests applied to the recordings are the first such tests to be applied to recordings of music therapy sessions in which an individual patient played acoustic, rather than MIDI, instruments. The findings prove it is possible to gather objective evidence of changes in a patient‘s and therapist‘s use of music over time, using the Music Therapy Logbook Prototype 1 system.