Master’s Degree in Music Therapy

Master’s degree in process of verification to become an official qualification

ECTS Credits120
Available places15
Calendar1st year: September 27, 2024 - June 21, 2025
2nd year: September 26, 2025 - June 19, 2026
TimetableWeek with face-to-face classes: 1 weekend per month
Friday, from 18:00 to 21:00
Saturday, from 9.30 to 15:00
Sunday, from 9:30 to 13:30

Week with online classes: 3 weekends per month
Friday, from 18:00 to 21:00
Saturday, from 9:30 to 15:00
Teaching languageCatalan, Spanish, English
ModalityOnline / In-person
Price/credit52,50€
Payment distributed in two years (4 payments per year)

Music is inherent to the human being and is a means of expression, development, health and cohesion for people. Music therapy is a scientifically based discipline that consists of using music to improve the lives of people with particular needs in the educational, medical-hospital and social-community fields.

This Master of Music Therapy is designed for the following people:

  • People who believe in the potential of music.

  • People who are interested in the world of education and want to learn new resources to help children with special educational needs.

  • People who want to establish new channels of communication with people with mental disorders.

  • People who want to specialize in working with people with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, stimulating their memory, facilitating their orientation, and helping them to rediscover themselves.

  • People who would like to help alleviate the suffering of hospitalized people.

  • People who want to contribute to improving people’s quality of life through music.

At ESMUC, students will acquire the skills that will help them develop as music therapists and will experience the field of the profession from the first day, beside active professionals and the best teachers and researchers in each specialty.

Students of this master’s degree have at their disposal study areas, recording rooms, a wide variety of instruments, the Library and Resource Center for Learning and Research (CRAI) with a large number of documents related to music and interrelated disciplines. Students can also participate actively in musical activities and other experiences offered by ESMUC.

Access and admission

In order to obtain the qualification fo Master in Music Therapy (120 ECTS) you must already have a degree. However, students who are still in the last year of a degree course can apply for a place, and can obtain the qualification of Master in Music Therapy provided they finish their degree course. Without a degree qualification, the student will only be given a certificate of results.

In addition to the general access requirements for all master’s degrees, future students must show:

  • Musical knowledge and skills (in the absence of a music degree). For this, an audiovisual recording of the candidate singing or playing a musical instrument can be presented. Both solo and accompanied performances are accepted.


For the assessment of musical skills, the following criteria will apply:

  • Technical skill with the instrument.

  • Communication/transmission of the performance, coherence and interpretative creativity and use or not of a harmonic instrument.

In addition to musical skills, Students must be able to understand and read English.

Applicants are also asked for the following:

  • Presentation of a CV.

  • Presentation of a letter of motivation.

  • Availability for an interview in person o online.

Curriculum

This master’s degree is completed in two academic years, part-time, following the training criteria recommended by the European Music Therapy Confederation (EMTC) and the World Federation of Music Therapy (WFMT). It has a total of 120 ECTS and the study program consists of the following subjects:

SubjectSemesterECTS
1. Theoretical foundations of Music Therapy
Introduction to music therapy14
Psychological and neuroscientific bases of Music Therapy14
Introduction to Music Therapy research3 & 44
2. Methodological foundations of music therapy
Application of Music Therapy in the different fields of intervention:
educational, medical-hospital and social-community fields.
Active and responsive techniques
1 & 216
Working models in Music Therapy with self-experience3 & 412
Professional aspects of music therapy1 & 24
3. Musical and technological resources in Music Therapy
Relationship of assistance13
Music Therapy and self experience23
Psychotherapies - Psychotherapeutic models3 & 48
4. Music, body and technology resources in Music Therapy
Functional instrumental training:
piano, guitar, voice
1 & 220
Body techniques in the clinical context24
Training and practice of ensembles in the clinical context34
Technological resources: Basic tools and clinical applications3 3
Composition / Improvisation in Music Therapy3 & 45
5. External practicum
External practicum I1 & 24
External practicum II 2 & 38
Final Project
Final project3 & 412
Objectives and skills
TargetsSkills

The principal objective of this master’s degree is to train professional music therapists, in an environment surrounded by high quality music, so that they can work and develop independently in a variety of educational, medical-hospital and socio-community contexts.

The learning process that students will carry out in this master’s degree must lead them to a preparation that ensures their professional competence together with the empowerment and optimization of their personal development. The training offers future specialists the knowledge and theoretical and practical skills that they will need in professional practice, as well as the methodological rigor and the attitude of constant self-improvement that will lead them to be agents of the development of the profession. Continuing education is essential for this profession, which is constantly evolving.

Through this master:

  • We offer professional training in the field of Music Therapy, favouring personal development and critical thinking to enhance self-directed or autonomous work.

  • We prepare students to the highest level for entry into the professional world, providing knowledge, practical skills and assessment instruments so that they can contribute to the development of professional practice based on scientific evidence.

  • We provide students with an environment of learning and reflection that enables them to discover and develop their potential, overcome their limitations, and integrate study and conscious practical awareness into their professional development.

  • We encourage students to develop and consolidate their skills as competent music therapists, expanding and integrating their intellectual, emotional and physical resources.

  • We ensure students acquire the necessary knowledge to start clinical practice and research, an essential professional facet to contribute to the development of the discipline and profession.

The music therapist must be able to care for people, whether they are children, young people, adults or the elderly,  with some type of need, in the educational, medical-hospital or socio-community fields.

In all these fields, the necessary skills of a professional music therapist can be defined in three areas:

Musical competence

Competence in the musical field includes: skilled use of accompanying instruments, skilled use of the voice, ability in improvisation, conducting ensembles, composition and arrangements, knowledge of a variety of repertoire and musical styles, ability to apply basic music technology to the clinical context, and knowledge of pedagogical techniques related to musical teaching that allow adaptation to different functional levels of the participants.

Clinical competence

Clinical competence includes: empathy, ability to observe from an ethical and respectful perspective, knowledge of helping relationship and psychotherapeutic techniques in specific groups, ability to evaluate, design and plan treatment, and good communication and teamwork.

Music Therapy competence

Music therapy competence includes: self-experience, knowledge of the psychological and neuroscientific bases of Music Therapy, understanding of the theoretical foundations of Music Therapy, familiarization with the different methodological orientations, knowledge of the scientific literature on the subject, as well as familiarity with Music Therapy techniques used of specific environments and groups, and the ability to apply them in clinical contexts through practices.

Professional opportunities

The professional opportunities of a trained music therapist are very broad, given the diversity of the educational, medical-hospital and social-community fields in which Music Therapy is applied. Thus, people who have completed the ESMUC master’s degree may work in:

  • The educational field: General schools, special education schools, music schools, hospital classrooms, rehabilitation centers, job training centers to work on the potential of children, youth and adults with physical, intellectual and sensory disabilities, and improve their quality of life.

  • The medical-hospital field: Hospital centres, rehabilitation centres, geriatric centres, day centres, home music therapy, family support centres and associations linked to the health context.

  • The socio-community field: Associations working with children, youth, adults and the elderly; private consultations; companies incorporating corporate policies; centres for personal development and emotional intelligence; prisons and social integration centres.

Faculty

Coordination: Dra. Melissa Mercadal


This master’s degree has the collaboration and participation of a good number of music therapist professors with specialization and a long professional career and who are fully active in clinical practice and research.

The structure and organization of the classes is fully integrated in the framework of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), with the aim that students combine different abilities: the reception of information through theoretical classes, l ‘learning technical skills through practical experience, and personal introspection through experiences and reflections on appropriate attitudes and behaviors in order to adapt and adapt to the needs and demands of the environment. We share and defend the importance of addressing the human dimension, both in terms of the type of problems being treated, and in terms of the human component that must always be present in any therapeutic action.

Badal, Ferran
Barbal, Margarida
Dra. Clancy, Catherine
Gelabert, Damaris
Gumí, Albert
Dr. Herrera, Perfecto
Momblant, Ester
Dra. Martí, Patricia
Dra. Mercadal, Melissa
Dra. Pérez Molina, Lourdes
Pugès, Francesc
Soler, Jordi

In addition, each year, other nationally and internationally recognized professors are invited to give seminars, master classes, specific monographs, participate in seminars and training workshops.

For whom?

As a starting point, a music therapist is a person and a professional with a great love for music, and who is committed to using it for therapeutic purposes, within a helping relationship, with people who present a need for some sort of support.

This master’s degree is aimed at:

  • Professionals of Music and Musicology

  • People with diplomas or degrees in: Teaching, Speech Therapy, Social Education, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, etc.

  • Graduates in: Psychology, Pedagogy, Psychopedagogy, Medicine.

International academic agreements

The Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC) has Erasmus agreements with more than 70 European centres, thus allowing the exchange of students and teachers from various Music Therapy programs: Guildhall School of Music; Vienna University of Music and Dramatic Art; Norwegian Academy of Music; Institut Kódaly (Hongria), among others.

In the field of Music Therapy, the international academic and practical training programmes work closely together for mutual knowledge of, and the students benefit from this joint work and exchange.

Relations are also maintained with North American centres such as Western Michigan University (WMU-USA), West Virginia University (WVU-USA); Seattle Pacific University, Indiana University-Purdue University (IUPUI), in USA and the Center for Music Therapy in End of Life Care, Florida, USA, to facilitate exchange of faculty and students. In addition, students from foreign universities who wish to carry out their internship supervised by professional music therapists from ESMUC are welcomed.

Relations are also maintained with American centers such as West Virginia University (WVU); Seattle Pacific University and the Center for Music Therapy in End of Life Care to facilitate the exchange of faculty and students.

Community Music activities, psychosocial intervention in music, and Music Therapy in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

Music and Resilience

A project of International Cooperation led by the Social Promotion Association Prima Materia (Italy) in collaboration with the Palestinian-Lebanese partner NISCVT, National Institution of Social Care and Vocational Training “Beit Atfal Assumoud” (“House of the Resilient Children”).

Other projects:

Prima Materia

Beit Atfal Assumoud

These exchanges make it possible to experience first-hand the practice of this discipline from diverse cultural realities.


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