Program Overview

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Music Therapy

Overview

Music has the power to transform lives and communities. A degree in music therapy will provide you with everything you need--specialized music skills, theoretical foundations, and clinical experience--to become a board-certified music therapist. Learn to harness the medium of music to make a tangible impact on the world around you while collaborating with a diverse community of musicians and health professionals. Students are not only prepared to work across the lifespan, from birth to death, and in a variety of settings, including schools, hospitals, prisons, and more, but are also equipped with business skills and ethical decision-making in order to thrive in the presence of real life challenges.

Learning Outcomes

• In the areas of voice, guitar, keyboard, and percussion, students will create musical performances, arrangements, and compositions that employ transposition, harmonization, and physical movement.
• Drawing on appropriate terminology from the fields of medicine and education, students will identify and describe the characteristics of typical and atypical human development.
• Develop treatment plans consistent with accepted methods of major therapeutic approaches, doing so in the context of best practices that govern the therapist-client relationship in the field of Music Therapy.
• Identify and explain the purposes of the accepted criteria for assessing clients or patients, treating them, evaluating progress, and terminating treatment for the populations specified in the standards of Clinical Practice for Music Therapy.
• Using statistics and field-specific methodologies, students will evaluate the challenges involved in solving a contemporary problem in or related to the field of music therapy, and design and execute ethical projects that confront these challenges.

Program Details

Coursework Location(s)

Main/Tucson

Level of Math

General Knowledge

This strand involves the general understanding and appreciation of how mathematics is used to solve problems in everyday life. The G-strand does not prepare a student for any further work grounded in mathematics and assumes the student will not proceed beyond the basic Foundations level noted above. Thus only those students whose major requires the most general knowledge of mathematics should take this strand.

Level of Second Language

4th Semester Proficiency

Fourth-semester skill level in a second language is required. B.A. degree students may fulfill this requirement with one of the following options:

1. Scoring the equivalent of fourth-semester skill level on an entrance or placement examination administered by The University of Arizona.
2. Completion of a two-course sequence beyond the second semester of post-secondary language instruction.
3. Completion with a C or higher of a 300- or 400-level language course at the post-secondary level.
4. Completion of one course beyond the third semester in combination with an AP (Advanced Placement) score, IB (International Baccalaureate) score or a CLEP (College Level Entrance Program) score determined by the individual language department.
5. An AP, IB, or CLEP language score determined by individual language departments
6. A minimum of one semester study abroad in a language program approved by the appropriate language department as the equivalent of fourth-semester skill level.

Pre-major Required?

No

This Major's College

College of Fine Arts

Degree

Bachelor of Music

Sample Plans

2025, Music Therapy

• 4-Year Sample Plan
• Map Transfer Coursework

First Year

1st Semester

• ENGL 101 - First Year Writing 1 (GE Foundation Composition) (3)
• Introduction to the General Education Experience (Entry Course) (1)
• MUS 120A (3)
• MUSI 182 (2)
• MUS 400 (1)
• MUS 360 (3)
• GE Core Exploring Perspectives or Building Connections (3)

2nd Semester

• ENGL 102 - First Year Writing 2 (GE Foundation Composition) (3)
• GE Core Exploring Perspectives or Building Connections (3)
• MUS 120B (3)
• MUSI 182 (2)
• MUSI 400 (1)
• MUS 130B (2)
• MUS 180 (2)

Second Year

3rd Semester

• GE Core Exploring Perspectives or Building Connections (3)
• MATH 163 (3)
• FSHD 117 (3)
• MUS 210A (1)
• MUS 220A (3)
• MUSI 282 (2)
• MUS 400 (1)

4th Semester

• GE Core Exploring Perspectives or Building Connections (3)
• PSIO 201 or ANTH 324 (3)
• FCSC 202 (3)
• MUS 210B (1)
• MUS 220B (3)
• MUSI 282 (2)
• MUS 400 (1)
• MUS 380 (2)

Third Year

5th Semester

• GE Core Exploring Perspectives or Building Connections (3)
• MUS 330A (3)
• MUS 370 (2)
• MUS 310 (1)
• MUS 381 (2)
• MUS 490 (3)
• MUS 494 (1)

6th Semester

• Major Elective (3)
• GE Core Exploring Perspectives or Building Connections (3)
• FSHD 401 (3)
• MUS 421 (3)
• MUS 481 (3)
• MUS 494 (1)

Fourth Year

7th Semester

• GE Core Exploring Perspectives or Building Connections (3)
• General Education Portfolio (Exit Course) (1)
• FSHD 405 (3)
• FSHD 427A or C (3)
• MUS 482 (3)
• MUS 494 (1)

8th Semester

• GE Foundation Second Language (Second Semester) (4)
• MUS 483 (2)
• MUS 494 (1)
• MUS 493 (2)