ABSTRACT

As a music therapist, I have faith in the power of music to transcend the differences between people and provide a way for people to come together in unison. There is an enormous amount of theory and research that sits behind my beliefs, and an understanding that this can only occur when the circumstances are right; but I do believe it. So it was challenging for me to be confronted by the realization that music can also reinforce the divides between people. My experiences also provided an important reminder that each of the various strategies in my well-travelled toolkit fails some of the time.