Standing up for healthy music-making
In difficult times, the 18th SMM symposium offers orientation in the jungle of therapies and an opportunity for exchange between musicians and health professionals.
Wolfgang Böhler* - The Swiss Society for Music Medicine (SMM) brings together under one roof specialists from the fields of medicine and a wide range of therapeutic approaches, as well as scientists and professional musicians. A central concern of the SMM is to encourage constructive dialog between these groups. However, it also wants to help musicians who are struggling with specific health restrictions or are simply interested in putting their music-making on a sustainably healthy footing.
We are proud to have doctors in our circle who can offer medical solutions for music-related illnesses at the highest level. In everyday life, however, people seeking help from the world of music are usually closer to trusted individuals with low-threshold therapy services than medical specialists, who generally have to cope with the hectic pace of clinics or surgeries. The variety of methods, schools and techniques in the therapy jungle can be confusing. The decision in favor of a technique is then often a matter of chance - usually based on personal encounters or recommendations.
With the 18th symposium, the SMM would like to offer those seeking help the opportunity to get to know some of the most important body-oriented approaches in music in one place and at the same time take the opportunity to talk to their representatives without obligation. The therapists should also be able to approach each other on this day. A motto that the American epistemologist Nelson Goodman once coined for philosophy should apply here: those offering therapies should no longer be judged according to which schools and world views they represent, but for which problems they develop solutions.
A world premiere to kick things off
We are delighted to announce that we will be opening the symposium with an unusual world premiere. It is a highly interesting work by the clarinettist and saxophonist Fabio da Silva, who is currently studying at the HKB. Rugueux 2, a game between live performance and pre-produced sounds for baritone saxophone and bass clarinet, is a low-frequency performance accompanied by a pre-produced tape. The instruments, which mix very well, especially in the low frequencies, approach microtonally specific frequencies. Multiple sounds are filtered, creating stronger and weaker frictions.
*The music psychologist and music producer Wolfgang Böhler has been President of the SMM since January of this year.
In cooperation with the Swiss Performers' Foundation SIS, the Bern University of the Arts HKB, the Swiss Music Pedagogical Association SMPV and the Swiss Association of Music Schools VMS.
Various recognized and proven forms of body-oriented approaches in music will be presented on stage and at tables. Keynote speakers are Klaus Scherer (music psychologist and founder of the Geneva Center Interfacul-taire en Sciences Affectives) and Günther Bernatzky (founder of the Salzburg Pain Institute and board member of the Austrian Society for Music and Medicine).
Saturday, October 24, 2020, 9.50 a.m. - 5 p.m., Bern University of the Arts, Papiermühlestrasse 13a, 3014 Bern. Costs: SMM members, students and employees of the BUA: CHF 30; non-members CHF 90; first-year students free admission.
The protection concept of the symposium will be adapted to the current pandemic situation and the corresponding cantonal and national regulations and recommendations in a timely manner. There may therefore be changes to the program at short notice.
Information and registration: Phone 032 636 17 71 or www.musik-medizin.ch, registration deadline: October 10, 2020.
