Enriching lives, connecting community and assisting clients in meeting goals through our mutual friend, music.

Serving individuals and groups in the Upstate, SC area.

Our approaches include music therapy, music lessons, community music programs, and programs for music in self care.

Music Therapy

While music can sometimes be therapeutic on its own, music therapy dives deeper into the use of evidence based music based approaches to address individualized clinical goals within a therapeutic relationship between the client(s) and credentialed professional. These goals may be physical, emotional, cognitive, or social in nature.

Music fires up neurons across hemispheres of the brain, and provides opportunities for communication for those who find it difficult to express themselves verbally.

As Hans Christian Andersen eloquently stated, “where words fail, music speaks.”

To read research on the benefits of music therapy, visit our blog and The American Music Therapy Association.

Adaptive Music Lessons

Taking time to learn an instrument (or rekindle love with an instrument you haven’t touched in years) can serve as a healthy outlet for self expression and enjoyment, in addition to the brain boosting benefits the process provides! Lessons are available for all ages in flute, ukulele, guitar, and piano; adaptive instruction is available to meet the needs of our students.

Community Music Programs

Music brings people together in a unique way. Group music making experiences can help facilitate bonding, teamwork, and empathy with a spirit of FUN! Programs include HealthRhythms empowerment drumming, community music “edutainment,” team building through music, and music + wellness workshops.

Music in Self Care

As technology makes it easier to study the effects of music and sound, most of us are also able to access MILLIONS (if not billions) of songs in the palm of our hand. Even if you “can’t carry a tune in a bucket,” you have the power to use music! It can increase your connection with history and those around you, change your mood, take a mental time travel trip, and help you process/express emotion.

Compose Your Self Care highlights ways in which you can use creative approaches, including music, as a catalyst for good. We also offer workshops, online resources, and courses to empower you to take time for pause, play and rewind.

Alison Hughey, MT-BC

FOUNDER/music therapist/owner

As Willie Nelson sings, “The life I love is making music with my friends.”

Whether it be singing in the car with my husband on our road trips, making up songs for our dogs (Mila and Tater), facilitating music therapy sessions or virtual retreats, leading group singalongs, or performing with the Sally Rides, music is my jam (side note: I’m also a fan of song quotes and puns). My greatest passion is helping people connect and heal with compassion through our dearest mutual friend: Music.

Music can help us feel seen and heard, feel connected with strangers who like the same band, connect us through time to our history, connect us to our faith, and physically bring us together in listening to a performance or making music in a group.

A few years after graduating with a degree in music performance from Converse College in 2003, I experienced a back injury. I turned to an old friend to help me cope with the pain: Music. I found myself tapping out rhythms, humming, and singing to distract myself and find hope again. I soon met one of the first students in the newly established Bachelor of Music in Music Therapy program at Converse, and decided to return and complete the program.

Since earning my board certification (MT-BC) in 2010, I’ve continued to perform around upstate South Carolina while working as a music therapist in long term care, mental health, and community settings. I’ve collaborated on two published research studies on music and wellness for community mental health and long term care.

In 2018 I founded Carolina Music Therapy, my music therapy private practice based in Spartanburg, SC. In addition to offering clinical music therapy services and adaptive music lessons, I also share resources on music in self-care for mental health at Compose Your Self Care and offer creative self care workshops.

Education

Certificate of Completion, Neurologic Music Therapy Training, Center for Biomedical Research in Music, 2014
Music Therapy Equivalency, Converse College, 2010
Bachelors of Music in Performance (Flute), Converse College, 2003