Music Therapy Clinician: Supporting reflective clinical practice Volume 1 | Page 5

Gillian Zambor, MSc MT-BC, Associate Editor New Beginnings Thank you for stopping by, and welcome to the Music Therapy Clinician! Our team was established at the end of 2014, Skype meetings commenced and articles began to come our way. We then made the decision to shift the format of the traditional New Jersey Association for Music Therapy newsletter and create an online, accessible journal-come-e-zine. Out with the old and in with the 21st century! We envision the Music Therapy Clinician having a clinical yet creative focus: for and by music therapists. We envision it to be interactive and a welcoming platform on which we can share, grow and develop with each other. In this rapidly changing digital era, and for the busy music therapist always on the go, we also aspired to make it virtual and easily accessible online. Despite the presence of so many fantastic websites, blogs and journals around the world dedicated to music therapy, surprisingly there are minimal opportunities to enable the practicing music therapist to publish clinical articles reflecting on their own personal experiences and viewpoints. We want to inspire you to write and share these with us; perhaps learn about a population you are not so familiar with; listen to others’ opinions; or gain new ideas for the population with whom you work. Too many of us don’t know all the wonderful work that is happening in the growing world of music therapy. Let us help you to hear about it and spread the word! While we were establishing the inaugural issue, we noticed the theme of birth and new beginnings began to evolve. This theme also draws parallels for me on both a personal and professional level, being a brand new member of the music therapy community in this country having emigrated from Scotland in 2013. So as my new American journey was beginning, so was that of the Music Therapy Clinician! I have been so grateful for the friendliness, enthusiasm and true dedication of music therapists at local, regional and national events and projects I have attended and been involved with since my move here. I look forward to both furthering connections and establishing new ones in the future, both stateside and internationally. I am proud of the camaraderie in our field worldwide, and the Music Therapy Clinician team would feel honored to help to develop and nourish that. It is a huge privilege to serve in this way and to contribute to published work from New Jersey and beyond. We would like to thank all our contributors and reviewers for making this inaugural issue happen, and to YOU, the reader, for reading it. We also look forward to receiving your feedback on this issue, as well as future contributions for our next issue. Happy reading! Contact Gillian [email protected] Ellen de Havilland, MT-BC, Design Editor Designing Woman It all started out of a necessity to get the job done. Without any seed money to get a music therapy business rolling, I was forced to be creative from the start. From learning how to draft legal contracts to designing marketing materials, creating a logo that would go on my letterhead and clinical forms - through trial and error, I figured out how to create a brand for myself. I learned on the spot, and I made it happen. And so, being in business in a field I know and love is really how I came to explore the realm of marketing design and social media management. My focus has never been on growing a huge business, but rather on building a quality service. Developing skill in 3|Page marketing and design turned out to be an unexpected perk of that mission. I have no professional training in design and do not claim to be any sort of expert-extraordinaire, but I do face problems head on, and I love collaborating with other people to produce creative solutions. The project you see on the pages that follow are the culmination of hours of editorial meetings, motivated by a passion to create an alternative music therapy publication. Welcome, Music Therapy Clinician! It has been a great joy to be part of this small but dedicated team who make sure that no detail is skipped over. We hope to continue to develop Music Therapy Clinician into an even greater masterpiece, a work that is attractive, accessible, and most importantly features music therapists and the powerful work we do. Now, how can we make this even more accessible? How can we best serve you, our reader? Contact Ellen [email protected]