Andrew Chapman

Coordinator, UofL Music Therapy Clinic

If music is mankind’s universal language, then Andrew Chapman ’21 wants to use it to reach people who don’t always feel they have a way to connect.

As coordinator of UofL’s Music Therapy Clinic, he seeks to make people comfortable with making their own form of music and communicating through music what they may not otherwise have the means or comfort to convey.

Or, as the clinic hallway sign proclaims – You Deserve Music.

“Everyone has some relationship with music,” Chapman said.

Growing up in a musical family within a tradition-rich area, Chapman sang and played piano and then guitar from a young age, often in a worship setting. The son of a music teacher dad and a chaplain mother who worked in locations including nursing homes and special education classrooms, Chapman said he observed early on both the importance of music to people and the inequity that existed for some.

“The social determinants of health were really evident to me, even as a kid.” he said.

The allure of music and the tug of a helping vocation – you might say the combination was an inevitable and harmonic convergence for the eastern Kentucky native. So he ventured from his Flat Gap home near Paintsville to enroll at UofL, which had the only undergraduate music therapy program in the state at the time.

“I came here and instantly felt a super-welcoming environment,” Chapman said. “I definitely made the right choice for me.” The strong fit and the challenge to try new things led him to become president of the music therapy student organization on campus.

“Getting to interact with the Louisville community is one of the best things about being at UofL,” Chapman said, and that’s part of why he remained in the city to work with the Music Therapy Clinic where he had served initially during a student practicum. The learning continues on the job and beyond, as the board-certified therapist also currently pursues a creative writing master’s degree in English.

As in his own studies, Chapman commends the collaborative, creative and helpful faculty and staff who unite to offer a personalized approach to clinic services. The clinic operates on a sliding scale to extend access to people from different economic levels, and it also provides a training site for music therapy students.

At the School of Music, children and adults come in weekly to benefit from individual or group sessions with music therapists in-clinic space, while others benefit from a telehealth approach through online sessions. The clients, called clinic artists, come in for an assessment, and the team identifies specific musical skills to support their health goals, sometimes as a supplement to their other forms of therapy.

“Biologically and neurologically, our bodies are wired to respond to music in various significant ways,” Chapman said.

For example, Chapman said, for people with neurological differences, “how can music provide an alternative form of communication and active connection in ways missing from their everyday lives instead of forcing them to adapt …. without having the pressure of communicating in ways viewed as ‘normal’?”

Part of why this approach works is grounded in the value of music to society, he said. Also, people who learn to play some of the musical instruments available in the clinic or to sing together can feel successful in their accomplishments.

Among the success stories the clinic fosters is an all-abilities band that meets for hourlong rehearsals throughout the semester. The Grooves band is 10-12 people, including adults who are autistic, with visual or physical disabilities or with Down syndrome. Band members play electric guitar, drums, keyboards or other clinic instruments, some of which are modified in adaptive ways with colored stickers, cue cards, etc., for ease of following along for more useful music-making.

Typically the band will perform for an audience once a semester in a School of Music performance hall, and the clinic also makes some recordings for them to enjoy. Everyone benefits from what Chapman termed “a sense of mutual musical identity.”

“It’s been great to work with these folks to create that authentic band experience that we take for granted and to highlight their abilities,” Chapman said. “It’s a good time.”

Music therapy teams also have helped run therapeutic summer band camps and worked with clients in their own environments, including young people in group foster care and people in addiction recovery services.

Therapists worked with UofL Health-Brown Cancer Center patients on a narrative approach to songwriting as another way of expressing their feelings. Chapman said many participants, including some he described as “natural -born poets,” were grateful to explain their cancer journey to friends or relatives or to chronicle their experiences in an empowering and musical way.

Also off-campus, the clinic takes its show on the road, courtesy of a mobile clinic van supported through the WHAS Crusade for Children.

“The van and the mobile clinic really let people know there’s music happening at UofL and the Music Therapy Clinic is in the community and doing work with music with people who may not typically be able to access that,” he said.

“I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be,” Chapman said.