Adapt to Connect: An Interview With Matt Logan
Working at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco, Matt Logan is familiar with adapting music making to pediatric patients admitted to the hematology, oncology, blood and marrow transplant, and neuro rehabilitation units. Matt’s intention is to inspire connection, trust, curiosity, creativity, and expressivity when making music with young patients. In this podcast, he emphasizes selecting instruments that provide an optimal level of challenge and interest for the child and songs that are meaningful to families. He speaks to the value of including everyone in the patient’s room in the musical experience to level out the dynamic of power in a medical setting. To Matt, adapting instruments for young children means using pentatonic scales and providing a high quality musical experience. Spontaneous, improvised songwriting, captured on Mom’s or Dad’s cellphone is what Matt does on a daily basis. His top advice is to prioritize connections with children through the non-verbal act of making music.
Resources
- Nachmanovitch, S. (1991). Free play: Improvisation in life and art (1st ed.). G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
- Orenstein, G. A., & Lewis, L. (2022). Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. In StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK556096/
- Robb, S. L. (2000). The effect of therapeutic music interventions on the behavior of hospitalized children in isolation: Developing a contextual support model of music therapy. Journal of Music Therapy, 37(2), 118–146. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmt/37.2.118
- Shoemark, H., Rimmer, J., Bower, J., Tucquet, B., Miller, L., Fisher, M., Ogburn, N., & Dun, B. (2018). A conceptual framework: The musical self as a unique pathway to outcomes in the acute pediatric health setting. Journal of Music Therapy, 55(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1093/jmt/thx018
About The Interviewee
Matt Logan, MA, MT-BC, is a clinician and internship director at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco, California. He primarily works with patients undergoing cancer treatment and neurological rehabilitation. Connecting through music and adapting in the moment are key to his professional success. Contact: matthew.Logan@ucsf.edu
Suggested Citation
Ruffner, A. (2023, July 15). Adapt to connect: An interview with Matt Logan [Audio podcast]. imagine. www.imagine.musictherapy.biz
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