Throughout my 22 years of living, I never really knew or learned anything about music therapy. I knew it was therapy through music and that was about it. Andrew Nieporent is a musician and music therapist from New Jersey. He has had many releases under his belt and works hard every day to improve the lives of others through music therapy. I was so happy to get the chance to interview him about his profession and learn more about the amazing work he does.
Kay: What initially inspired you to go into the field of music therapy? Andrew: For starters, I am on the “high functioning” end of the autism spectrum, what has been known by the now not clinical but still culturally relevant name Aspergers, and I’m also bipolar. My childhood was difficult, including meltdowns, difficulty socializing, moving schools and unsuccessful medications on the way to successful ones, and at least one full on manic episode. I have been incredibly privileged to have the support of my family and more doctors, therapists, teachers, and friends than I can count, and it’s why I am a successful, functioning adult who can “pass” for a neurotypical person, and am not defined by disability, but rather ability, and difference as a good thing. Music has been my passion for as long as I can remember, and was instrumental in giving me a path forward to overcome my challenges, express myself, and connect with my peers. At the same time, a strong desire to give back after I was given so much drove me to seek employment working with people with special needs, and I worked many paraprofessional jobs in school settings through high school and college. In the course of these jobs I learned about the field of music therapy and it seemed to just about be the perfect career path for me, so with the help of two former music teachers of mine who were also certified music therapists, I educated myself about the field, sharpened my musical skills, and applied to graduate programs. K: What demographic of people do you tend to work with, and why? A: So today I work for a private practice called Jammin Jenn Music Therapy, mostly with children on the autism spectrum, but I also frequently work with adults, and people with different developmental disabilities, communication challenges, and physical disabilities. We have a studio where I have seen clients, but we also do home sessions, and group sessions at schools and an adult day center for elderly people with dementia. Obviously, right now all of our sessions are remote, but we are figuring out how to eventually safely transition back to some in person when the time is right. My training prepares me to work with any sort of client, but of course we’re all more familiar with certain demographics than others, and my life experience naturally motivates me towards kids on the spectrum. I don’t think I knew I wanted to or would enjoy working with children until I found out I was good at it, and now I know I love it. Folk music has always been my thing and I’ve found that approaching music aimed at children from that angle keeps it all fresh and authentic, and of course I am never short of reasons to smile and laugh. K: What is the most difficult part of your work? A: Honestly, before COVID I would have told you the traffic I will often run into driving all over North Jersey going from one client to the next! But I would say that when you have a big caseload, which I have been fortunate enough to have for two years straight of this job, even during a global pandemic, your physical endurance becomes very important because you are using your voice a ton, and both physical and emotional self-care is super important. K: What is the most rewarding part, or was there a specific time where you realized that it was all worth it? A: I don’t know if there’s any one moment, but in this work, you are always dealing with slow and incremental growth, and of course clients regress too. So when you are able to realize how a client has come in achieving their goals, when they do something you know they couldn’t do x number of months or years ago, it’s incredibly rewarding. It’s also an amazing feeling to realize that your musical skills are up to the therapeutic task at hand, that you have more than one good musical idea to try with a client. It’s important to remember too when sometimes it seems like nothing is working; you develop a remarkable faith that you’ll figure it out with your voice, and your instruments, and your empathetic presence. K: Why do you think music therapy works so well to help people? A: Music is an essential part of who we are as human beings. We have always made music, and while not always obvious, there is a little music in all of us, and it has a way of expressing things that spoken language can’t always. In a more scientific sense, music engages both sides of the brain, so if someone is challenged in language, music can sometimes access communication in a different way, or empower someone to express a feeling they haven’t been able to, or just get people moving through rhythm. K: What are some of the techniques you use on a somewhat daily basis, and why? A: So, the big distinction of music made in a music therapy session, is that everything I do, musically and otherwise, is intended to address the client's clinical goals and objectives; said another way, I don't do anything musically that is not useful for doing that. So I will almost always start and end sessions with a “hello” and “goodbye “ song to provide structure and a frame of sorts to the relationship between myself and client. Singing and playing client-preferred songs is common, but for different reasons depending on the client: for some it's to work on speech and language, for others it's for social interaction, self-expression, and self-esteem. I also strive to meet the client where they are at, mood-wise, before I attempt to bring them to some other place, so if they seem relaxed, tired, or depressed, I will start by playing something softer or slower before bringing in dynamics to try to "lift" them, and vice versa is equally true. I use a lot of drums and percussion, including shaking instruments, to work on coordination, motor skills, and even playing simple patterns to play memory games. Getting up and moving or dancing is good too. Some of my clients do very well with a sort of "behaviorist" approach, where they work for a little bit and then earn a small reward or break for a few minutes, while with others it's more important that I change things up frequently to keep their interest and engagement. It's different every day and that makes it very exciting! K: Are there any things that you learned from the local music scene that have helped you in your professional work? A: This is "whole person" work; that is to say, while our clients have all sorts of challenges and disabilities that need to be understood and taken seriously, ultimately we treat the whole person, not a diagnosis. My experience in the local music scene has given me a very strong sense of the value so many diverse individuals can bring, with their music but also with their whole personhood. The local music scene is always healthier when people feel valued and like they belong not despite their differences, but due to them and how much they contribute to making things fun and interesting. I've played a community leader/unofficial therapist role as an open mic host anyway, so there's definitely an overlap in my overall humanistic philosophy. K: What was your education process like? A: I went to Montclair State for my masters in music therapy. At the beginning this included a great deal of undergraduate level music education because while I studied music at Ramapo College as an undergrad, I had avoided the kind of coursework that challenged my actual music technique, so I was in for a rude awakening in terms of formal music education! But I ended up embracing it, doing theory, score analysis, choir, piano technique from the ground up, and classical guitar. The music therapy courses over time became more and more of what I was doing, spending time with most of the same fellow students, grad students and undergrads. You do field work in three different locations (older adults, children, and adult psych), accumulating hours, watching and learning from a professional, and gaining direct experiences with diverse clients. The main difference between the grad and undergrad programs is the level of coursework, but the field work is potentially the same. At the end of the program you do an internship, and mine was in hospice. While I didn't intend to work in hospice, the experience was unbelievably rewarding and prepared me for so many things about actually doing this work, especially in regards to self-care, reporting clinical information to co-workers/superiors, and being of comfort to clients' loved ones. At the end of internship, you take a standardized board certification exam. I passed mine in September of 2017, and have been practicing ever since! We also do need to do continuing education while we practice and get recertified every five years (unless you want to just take that test again, no thanks!); given that in person conferences won't be a thing for a while, I've got some online classes to take towards recertification in 2022, so it's definitely a lifelong learning culture. K: Are there any certain qualifications you need to become a music therapist? A: Yeah, so like above, you definitely need to be a professional level musician who works on getting better at your instrument. Your background need not be in jazz or classical, but you need to be versatile for so many different clients and situations. There's plenty I can't do on the guitar or with my voice, or with rhythm, and my piano is pretty basic, but I'm always trying to do more. You need to be an empathetic person, and a self-reflective person (which often includes some amount of therapy for you), willing to identify and grow beyond your inevitable or even unconscious biases about different kinds of music, and people. You should, to some degree, care about social justice and be scientifically curious. Not a good profession for the closed minded or those who think they already know everything about music, or otherwise. K: You are also the co-host of the Ridgewood Coffee Company open mic night, what inspired you to get involved on a higher level like that, rather than just performing? A: I had been a part of the local music scene in North Jersey since the end of high school and start of college, which for me was the mid-2000s. I'd been playing at open mic nights and organized college shows throughout the area and had made friends with some really amazing musicians, and over time, most likely due to my involvement and eventual leadership of a (now-defunct) Ramapo club called Ramashows, was gaining a reputation as a leader in the scene and someone who knew how to effectively organize an event. The Ridgewood Coffee Company had around for many years already, but had not had a regular open mic until the Wieczorek family from Ridgewood bought it. The open mic began in March 2009 hosted by a local musician named Dan Tornatore, and I would drive down from Mahwah every Monday for it. Around May he was feeling burnt out and that doing it weekly indefinitely was not for him. After a week or so of chaos, I got a call from my friend Shaun saying that they needed someone reliable there and that I ought to give it a shot, so I said "give me a couple of weeks to take my finals and I'll come home and do it." And the rest is history, I hosted it through summer '09, then after some slow going in the fall the open mic was canceled til the following summer when the baristas on shift that night hosted it, then it was canceled again before I was asked to come back in spring 2011. I did that regularly until fall of 2012 (when I took my first paraprofessional job at a school), when Bruce Atkins and Gerry Herrera took over until a night in November 2017 when Bruce asked Rob Janos and I if either or both of us wanted to take over. We both said yes, and here we have been for the last few years! K: You just released your album, “W/ You In Rockland,” what inspired you to make an album by yourself in quarantine? A: Obviously, this has been an incredibly difficult time for everybody, but given that I still have my job, and my health, and the health and safety of my family, I can only feel incredibly fortunate. That said, early on I dealt with a great deal of anxiety and depression, and I wasn't certain from the beginning that I would write any songs during this time. Also, I had actually already been working on a more polished studio album with my collaborator Steve Carter, which obviously had to be put on hold. Nonetheless, I had some bits and pieces of songs I had been playing with, and was playing guitar a lot in my spare time in search of something. The big moment was when I went looking through some very old notebooks that I keep buried in drawers. What I found was musical and lyrical fragments from when I was as young as 15, 16 years old (which to date myself, ironically was the year of the first SARS pandemic! not that that's significant), that I had forgotten about or dismissed years ago, but upon inspection had a lot of "raw material" I could use. What I liked about it was that I was able to reclaim an earlier, kind of garage-folk-rock side of my sound I had neglected and update some romantically yearning lyrics that felt relevant given that back then I was a socially isolated kid having trouble making friends, and now I'm single and living by myself in a very different kind of isolation situation. When I put those things together with some protest folk songs I had written addressing the issues we're facing, I felt I had something that could be of comfort and even provide fun for people who were struggling in this very difficult time, and so I decided I would make my first ever DIY, home recorded album! K:12. Is there anything you learned by recording by yourself, and how did you get it to sound so good? A:First of all, glad you think it sounds so good--there were no guarantees that it would!! I will be the first to say that audio recording is not an organic part of my skill set (not like, say, hosting open mic nights), and normally I always work with a collaborator who really knows what they are doing with programs like Logic, and for the past several years that's been my good friend Steve Carter. So the first thing I did was give him a call and chat about things to think about. I think the Denzel Washington quote from the movie Philadelphia applies here: "explain this to me like I'm a 6 year old." All told, I had my MacBook, the OSX version of GarageBand (which I have years of experience using to make demos and little looped electronic experiments, even using with some music therapy clients), a USB mic, and a pair of headphones, and that's it. I would play guitar and sing the songs live, making sure the mic was far away enough not to be peaking, and then add additional tracks for solos, unique instruments, extra rhythms, etc. I honestly got pretty addicted to it! Especially in that arrangement phase, when my confidence in the songs led me to really taking my time to get the little extra bits "right." I had all these bags of instruments that normally live in my car as I go about my job as a music therapist that were all over my living room as a result of transitioning remote work, so I just started grabbing things I'd always wanted to use on a record, like the harmonica, the xylophone, my blues slide on a 12-string, and you'll notice the solos all sound good, but are not overly complicated, because there was no way I could pull off anything fancy! So I kept it snappy, and I think, memorable. Once it was all done I did send it to Steve for mixing and mastering, so that helped it in terms of sound, but otherwise it was all done in a focused but no nonsense manner, right here by yours truly, and while I do look forward to resuming and finishing the next record with Steve, which will have almost an opposite kind of 80's area folk-rock sound, you bet I'm proud of this! So I guess I learned that I can make a record by myself after all, at least this kind of record, and I even took a moment as I was prepping the record for mixing to write and record one more song, "Fair Verona," for my friend Travis Love Benson's collaboration/compilation album, which they in turn added some really nice harmonies too! K: How do you go about writing your songs? A: How I write has changed over the years, but in the last few years I've increasingly had a mentality that I was writing in the context of an album, even if that process takes a few years, and there are themes I get kind of interested in exploring. As an undergrad at Ramapo I was also nearly a creative writing major, and I used to write poetry and draw from those poems for lyrics, but that dried up a long time ago, between my Moth and Wherever You Are Tonight records, and I think you can hear the difference in how the songs live and move. Usually there will be some little musical hook or progression that latches on in a way to a short lyrical idea or phrase, and I keep strumming and humming in earnest to say how far that gets me in terms of the song. Sometimes that gets me all the way there, other times I drive myself insane trying to figure out where to go next, but usually I have to step away to allow it to breathe, and that eventually breaks the blockage in either how to vary up the chord progression or melody for another part, or to develop the lyrics to the point they have something unique or interesting to say (this applies even for very simple or poppy songs) without being clichéd. I'm inspired to write by all kinds of things, of course personal experience and feelings and people I've known, but also books, movies, philosophy and spirituality, and increasingly, my anxiety about current events and what I want my values about society to be. I write in order to perform, record and release, and I don't think I've ever not put out a song because I thought it wasn't "me." I intend to be writing songs for what if I'm fortunate enough will be a long life, and I assume my songs will evolve in all sorts of directions during that time, and I can only let them, and be just as interested as anyone else who listens about where it will all go next! After reading Andrew’s responses it is very clear to me how difficult and essential music therapy is. Andrew is an incredibly talented and intelligent person, and I am proud to know him. He helps people every day and I hope he knows how important he is in the community. Listen to his music at crazyworks.bandcamp.com.
0 Comments
Recently there has been a lot of discourse surrounding sexual assault in the music industry, mainly in the alternative scene. I will not be discussing these stories as they are not mine to tell (except for my own of course), but I wanted to write something positive for the womxn in the scene. Now I am not saying that womxn cannot be abusers by any means, they definitely can. I just wanted to make this list to empower womxn because most of the stories I’ve heard are stories surrounding womxn. I want to make sure that they are being seen and heard and are not afraid to play music with all that is going on. With that being said, I wanted it to be known that I will be omitting Hayley Williams and Paramore from this list as I feel like everyone knows them and that would not be sharing new music. I am still very much aware that Paramore is one of the best bands in the world. This list is also in no particular order.
Songs to listen to: Runner, Every Tense, Eleonora
Songs to listen to: DQ, Blown to Bits, Glitter
Songs to listen to: Seashore, I Dare You, Pumpkin
Songs to listen to: stay, just cuz you can’t, temporary tantrum
Songs to listen to: Brainfreeze, Milkman, Feel the Same
Songs to listen to: Baby Who, Last One, Daydream
Songs to listen to: Thriving, Bit Back, Dinner Date
Songs to listen to: Full Control, Stick, Heat Wave
Songs to listen to: 6 Weeks, Sports, Boys
Songs to listen to: BLOODMONEY, I Disagree, Sick of the Sun I have compiled a playlist of all of the songs in this list here. |
Kay RomanKay Roman is a 22 year old DIY pop musician Archives
December 2020
Categories |