A degree in psychology will not lead to a career in music therapy. While psychology is an important component of what you would study as a music therapy student, majoring in music therapy requires an audition on a primary instrument as part of your application process and includes music classes as well as other areas deemed relevant to becoming a professional in this field.

Please read the music therapy articles on MajoringInMusic.com to learn more about this wonderful profession and what the training entails.

For starters, we encourage you to read all the music therapy and music education articles on MajoringInMusic.com to gain a better feel for each of these career fields. You may also want to explore the websites of the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) and the National Association for Music Education (NAfME).
It may also be helpful to talk with the department chairs of music education and music therapy at your current school to learn more about how you can major in in one field and keep the door open for the other.

There are two ways into the music therapy profession – one is to major in it in college as an undergrad; the other is to major in another area of music and then take an approximately 2-year “equivalency program” at a school that offers this. The equivalency program provides what you would have missed by not majoring in music therapy and prepares you for the exams that any prospective music therapist must take. Note that regardless of your primary instrument, you will be expected to show a certain level of proficiency in voice, keyboards, and guitar in order to become a music therapist – classes in all of these are offered in music therapy programs.

As a music education major, should you decide later to switch to music therapy, you would take the equivalency program. As a music therapist, should you decide later to switch to music education, you would likely be able to take a master’s level program to prepare you to teach.

This sounds like a great plan! Do read all of the articles about music therapy on MajoringInMusic.com to learn more about the profession, the classes you’ll take in the Equivalency Program, and more.

Schools offering music therapy programs will have you apply and audition on your primary instrument. If you are accepted, you will be taking classes in voice, piano and guitar because these instruments have been deemed the most useful in the practice of music therapy. You won’t be expected to become highly proficient in these three instruments but you will be proficient enough to be able to use them in your work as needed.

Learn more about different areas in which music therapy is useful by reading these articles on MajoringInMusic.com. Also visit the website of the American Music Therapy Association. Note that a key component of the music therapy curriculum is the internship. This gives you hands on experience in working in a music therapy setting before you graduate.

You don’t need to become a highly proficient singer to pass the qualifying exams to become a music therapist. You will, however, need to take some vocal music classes in your music therapy curriculum in college because the three instruments deemed most useful in this profession are keyboards, guitar and voice.

A music therapy degree is a music degree so yes, auditions are required. However, the bar for auditioning tends not be quite as high for music therapy as it would be for a music performance degree. Note that if you are applying to a music therapy program within a university, you will also need to apply to and be accepted by the university in order to be accepted into the music program. So your GPA and SAT or ACT scores will also be considered.

You will need to audition on your primary instrument. As a music therapy major, you will take classes in voice, keyboards and guitar to prepare you for the exams required to graduate with the music therapy credential – and for what you’re most likely to need as a working music therapist. You are not expected to be proficient on these when you enter your program. However, anyone planning to major in music should start getting some keyboard skills before applying.

Since you’re a senior, we assume you’ve already applied to college and are preparing for auditions. And if you’re interested in becoming a music therapist, you’ll either be majoring in music therapy at a school that offers it, or majoring in music and then taking a music therapy equivalency program.

To become a music therapist, you will need to major in music therapy OR another area of music and take the Equivalency Program (see our article about this on MajoringInMusic.com). Either way, you’ll need to audition. Most schools include sight reading as part of the audition. The more competitive the school, the stronger your sight reading skills need to be at the time of your audition.

Read all the articles on MajoringInMusic.com about music therapy to learn more about this profession. Also look at schools with music therapy programs and check their audition requirements to see what you’d need to be prepared to do.

You will qualify for an Equivalency Program if you major in any area of music, regardless of whether you double major. But a double major in music and psychology will certainly be beneficial if you do go on in music therapy.