I play in a folk band and want to do music sessions in care homes. Do I have to train as a music therapist first, or can I just start?

#1bodhran_tom(Joined Oct 2026 · 3 posts)October 26, 2026, 7:22 pm

Bit of a different question from most on here, apologies if it is the wrong place.

I have played in a folk band for about fifteen years, fiddle and bodhran, and my day job is ending in the spring. Last Christmas we did a set at the care home my aunt was in and it was the best gig I have ever played, and I am not exaggerating. One man who had not spoken all afternoon sang the whole of The Leaving of Liverpool with us.

I would like to do that properly. Regularly, paid if possible. I looked up music therapy training and it is a two year master's and costs a fortune and frankly I am 54. Is that the only legitimate way in? Or can a musician just go round care homes offering sessions? I do not want to be the bloke who turns up with a guitar and does harm because he does not know what he is doing.

#2mikeatthepiano(Joined Feb 2025 · 21 posts)October 27, 2026, 8:15 am

You can just start, sort of. I do exactly this, a handful of homes, piano where there is one and keyboard where there is not, and I am not a therapist and never call myself one.

"Just start" still involves a criminal record check, insurance and an induction at every home, which took me longer than learning the songs. And a lot of sitting with the activities coordinator working out who comes down and who needs fetching. The music is the easy bit.

#3linkworker_sam(Joined Oct 2025 · 14 posts)October 27, 2026, 12:48 pm

From the referral end: the arts courses I send people to are almost all run by artists and musicians, not therapists. There is no requirement that they be therapists and there could not be, there are not enough of them. What I look for is that the person turns up, keeps a register, knows what to do if someone becomes upset, and tells me when somebody stops coming. Plenty of very good practitioners have no qualification beyond their instrument.

The funding is short term though. Eight to ten week blocks and then it might not come back.

#4bodhran_tom(Joined Oct 2026 · 3 posts)October 28, 2026, 9:03 pm

This is really encouraging. So what is the difference then, if I can do the care home sessions without the master's? What does the therapist do that I would not be doing?

#5Miriam HalsteadModerator(Joined Mar 2024 · 208 posts)October 30, 2026, 10:41 am

I moderate here and this is my route exactly, so I can answer from the inside. I run singing sessions in two care homes and on a stroke unit, I did a postgraduate certificate in arts and health, and I am not a therapist.

The difference is the work, not just the word. A registered music therapist assesses a named person, agrees goals for them, keeps clinical notes, takes supervision and plans an ending. In the UK music therapist is a protected title on the HCPC register, along with art therapist, art psychotherapist and dramatherapist, and you cannot use it unless you are on that register. What you and Mike and I do is community music: a group, a song, a session. It is not therapy and it does not need to be. The man who sang The Leaving of Liverpool got something real from your set, and nobody needed to write a clinical goal for it to count.

The line you are worried about, doing harm because you do not know what you are doing, is mostly about what happens when a session stirs something up. People cry. Sometimes they tell you things. Your job then is not to explore it but to keep them comfortable and tell the staff who know them, in whatever way the home uses, the communication book or a word with the senior on shift. The practitioner who starts acting like a therapist without the training is the one who does harm. The one who plays well and passes things on is doing the job.

The other thing to read before your first session is the home's approach to photographs and recordings, because you will be asked to film something lovely and the answer is usually no.

I have put all of this, including the checks settings ask for and the honest picture on money, into working in arts and health without a therapy qualification. And if after a year of it you find yourself wanting to understand what is happening in the room at a clinical level, then the master's is worth another look, 54 or not.

#6bodhran_tom(Joined Oct 2026 · 3 posts)November 1, 2026, 5:30 pm

Read it twice. The passing it on bit is the part I needed. I had pictured myself having to know what to do with everything, and actually the job is to know who to tell.

Rang my aunt's old home this morning. The activities coordinator remembered the band and has asked me to come in for a chat in a fortnight. I have started the criminal record check. Will report back.