The title of this worthy paperback offers a clear statement of intent, and certainly identifies the target market: music therapists, volunteer musicians, caregivers and family members actively involved in the care of relatives in residential care.
Pinson has a proven track record in a number of associated fields to music therapy, and it interestingly also brings his composing and arranging skills to the fore here. All the more surprising perhaps, is that while this volume is aimed at North America, it isn’t necessarily tailored to a European readership. As such, it is perhaps a missed opportunity: however, given the scope and experience of Jessica Kingsley as noted health-related publishers, a companion edition may be anticipated in the future.
For anyone drawn to explore this specialism, readers can still draw a number of satisfactory and encouraging conclusions from the information here. Many of the insights and the conclusions remain true for an ageing global population, but nevertheless there remains a slight sense of disappointment as one is led through a now well-established workbook format, over the course of 11 chapters.
This is partly due to unavoidable repetitions in the editing process: each of the first ten chapters have brief end-piece summaries, which usually offer valuable reviews of the content, but in the introductory one – Overview of the Senior Population, the wealth of data relating to, and drawn from the United States 2010 Census, given on page 13 are reiterated four pages later.
Elsewhere an apparent eagerness to lead the interested reader into the setting up of a group dynamic does tend to become rather bogged down in reminders to get names right, as in this extract, from page 52:
After naming yourself (“I’m Joe”), move to the left or to the right in the circle. If you know that person from a previous session, say “And this is Susan” (assuming that is her name). If you are just meet-ing that person, say, “And what is your name?
American spellings (and the occasional typo: guita, in one notable example) notwithstanding, another concern is with the choice of 28 songs reprinted, with music, in the Appendix. No concession is made for any participant beyond the North Americas – and somewhat surprisingly of the three non-Pinson composed items, two date from 1908 (In My Merry Oldsmobile and Take Me Out To The Ball Game) alongside the endearing Let Me Call You Sweetheart (from 1910).
The final chapter addresses the issues of self-assessment and conclusion. Anyone finding difficulty in carrying out such self-appraisal might be “of limited intellectual ability, [experiencing] illness affecting cognitive functioning, or just plain stubborn” (p. 97): any number of questions are generated during this chapter – and occasional attempts at further levity – “Do you love to sing? Do you sing in the shower? (Not required)”.
Part of the reluctance to wholeheartedly recommend this paperback stems from it being a missed opportunity. Music therapy can be a force for good in caring environments, but perhaps a greater sense of clarity might get the message across more clearly.
