The fiddle as a symbolic creative therapeutic tool in music therapy

Music is a powerful connecting tool. It can serve both as an auditory and emotional stimulus and connect to our innermost self. It is also motoric and we involuntarily let our muscles interact with many elements of music such as its rhythm, timbre, pitch, melodies, and harmonies. Its use as a healing force dates back to ancient times and most cultures have myths and narratives on the healing power of music. While music has been used in this way throughout history, the concept of music therapy evolved and gained professional ecognition around the time of World War when it was used to deal with trauma in healing war veterans. While this is documented as having been helpful and supportive, those giving the therapy lacked training in therapeutic assessment procedures and also were limited in medical and psychological knowledge of their clients. But such historical events set the
scene for the establishment of training courses in music therapy for musicians who wished to put their skills into therapeutic use both in the USA and UK.