New course
Holistic Music Therapy Practitioner Course
Learn how sound and music can be used, deliberately and safely, to support a person's wellbeing: both receptive methods, where the client listens, and active ones, where the client plays or sings.
The short version
What holistic music therapy actually is
Music therapy is the deliberate use of music and sound to work toward a goal that is not itself musical. Easing agitation in a dementia ward. Giving a non-speaking child a way to take a turn. Making room for something a grieving person cannot yet say out loud. The music is the means, and the goal belongs to the client.
A holistic music therapy practitioner works with the whole person rather than a diagnosis, and works within a clearly defined scope alongside medical care rather than in place of it. That means a real intake, a session you have planned, notes another practitioner could read, and a firm sense of where your work stops and a referral begins.
This online music therapy course teaches that craft across 18 modules: how sound physically moves through the body, what the evidence actually supports and what it does not, receptive methods where the client listens and active methods where the client plays or sings, how to take a music history, how to design a session, and how to work safely in aged care, palliative settings and schools.
It assumes no musical training. Most people take it to use music properly in the work or the life they already have, and for them it is a complete training in its own right. For the smaller number thinking about a master's degree and registration further down the track, it is about the strongest grounding available outside a university programme. The first section below sets out what it opens up.
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The 18 modules
A course overview at a glance
Tap a theme to filter, then open any module to see what it actually covers.
Where music therapy came from, what it is, and the distinction that matters most: a music therapist is a registered clinician, while a practitioner uses music therapeutically within a defined scope. You will place your own work on that map before you learn anything else, and you will finish the module able to describe what you do without overstating it.
The physics, in plain language. Sound is mechanical vibration and needs a medium, which is why it cannot cross a vacuum. You will follow a sound from the outer ear through the eardrum, the ossicles and the cochlea to the auditory nerve, learn why resonance and entrainment are different things that are constantly confused, and work out what changes for a client with a cochlear implant.
The body you are actually working with. The sympathetic and parasympathetic branches as a spectrum rather than a switch, why heart rate rises on the in-breath and falls on the out-breath, and why age-related hearing loss takes the high frequencies first. Also the safety end of it: what a pacemaker means for vibration work, and how to read a client's state without asking them.
How to tell a strong claim from a thin one. You will work through the evidence ladder, identify which applications of music therapy are genuinely well evidenced, and practise rewriting overstated claims into ones you could defend. This is the module that teaches you what you can and cannot say about dementia, and why a colleague's water crystal story is not evidence.
Where this work sits alongside everything else. How to explain yourself to a GP, where your boundary is and how to hold it, what to say when a client asks whether they should stop a medical treatment, and how referral relationships are built in practice. Holistic is treated as a commitment with consequences, not a softening adjective.
Work where the client listens. Music-assisted relaxation with a real shape to it, song discussion, vibroacoustic work and what must be asked before any direct vibration, and where the Bonny Method stops for a practitioner at this level. You will select and sequence three pieces for a forty minute session and justify the order, and learn why relaxation sometimes makes anxiety worse.
Work where the client plays or sings. Why re-creative work with a familiar song usually comes before improvisation, the five improvisation techniques and what each is for, the Nordoff and Robbins model, and song parody. You will also learn what to do when a client plays loudly, stops and begins to cry, which is the moment most people get wrong.
The instrument every client already has. A sustained tone is a timed exhale, which is most of why humming settles people. You will learn how to introduce vocal work to someone who insists they cannot sing, why the voice is more exposing than any other instrument, and how to open a toning group safely, including what to do when a participant becomes dizzy.
What you watch, and in what order. The first ten minutes, consent for physical contact, your own state in the room, the silence at the end and how to end well. This module covers what to do when a client discloses more than the session can hold, and the difference between hearing someone and listening to them.
The practical centre of the course. Rolando Benenzon's idea of a sound identity, the music history that follows from it, and why asking what someone listened to at about twenty reaches memory nothing else does. Which questions must be asked out loud rather than left to a form, the aversion question, and what a properly written session record looks like.
The five parts of a session and what each is for. Whose goal you are actually working toward, how to write one you could check by week six, how to read a room when nothing is landing, and why stopping at forty minutes beats padding to the hour. You will plan a six session series and adapt it when the day does not match the plan.
How change actually happens, and how little of it you control. Recognising where someone is, what pushing does, what makes a take home suggestion stick, and how to respond when someone is enthusiastic for a fortnight and then stops. It ends with how to talk about endings, which is a skill in itself.
Groups behave differently. How many people and where they sit, consent when others are present, designing for a room rather than a person, and handling the three participants who make a group difficult. Entrainment does much of the work here, which is why a drumming circle pulls ten strangers into one pulse without anyone being asked.
Where your scope ends. Trauma-informed practice in concrete terms, what to do when someone becomes distressed mid-session, why referral is a generous act rather than a failure, and what to say instead of interpreting. It covers responding when a client tells you they are thinking of ending their life.
The setting where this work is most established. Musical memory and what it still permits, why a resident may be strong one week and absent the next, assuming capacity, and working with staff who are stretched. It also covers what the family is told, and what it does to you when residents you knew have died.
Comfort rather than improvement. What the five stages actually described and what they did not, working at a bedside in the last days, and why music reaches grief faster than talking does. It includes what to do when the family are in the room, and how to see your next client the same afternoon.
Screening before you begin, consent and assent, and the difference between a six year old and a fourteen year old. Working alongside a teacher, what a parent actually hears, and what to do with a child who does not want to be there or who does not speak. It covers what falls outside your scope in a school, and what to do if a child tells you they are not safe.
Turning it into work. What you may and may not call yourself, what insurance follows from that, what a website must not say, how to handle an enquiry email, sessions over video, and what to charge. If you intend to see clients, this is the module that keeps you on the right side of the line.
Every module opens above. The free info pack adds the full assessment detail and enrolment terms.
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The things worth knowing first
Open whichever matters to you. We have put the awkward one at the top on purpose.
Most people who take this course are not heading for a clinical career. They are counsellors, carers, teachers, aged-care and disability staff, yoga and meditation teachers, and people who simply want to understand this properly for their own life. For them it is a complete training in its own right, and the certificate reflects genuine depth rather than a weekend's attendance.
What it prepares you to do is use music therapeutically within a clearly defined scope: a real intake, a session you have actually planned, records another practitioner could read, and a firm sense of where your work stops and a referral begins. That scope covers most of the settings where this work does good, including aged care, disability support, palliative settings, schools and private wellbeing practice. Module 18 covers what you may call yourself, what insurance follows, and how to describe your services accurately.
On registration. Registered Music Therapist is a protected title in Australia, and it requires an approved university master's degree, demonstrated musical skill and supervised clinical placement hours. This course does not carry that title, and we will always say so plainly rather than let anyone assume otherwise.
If a master's is on your mind. This is about the strongest preparation you can get outside a university programme. You will have worked through the physiology of sound, the evidence base and how to read it, receptive and active methods, intake and assessment, session design, group facilitation and clinical ethics before you ever write an application. It is also a genuine way to find out whether the field is really for you before committing several years and a postgraduate fee to it. It does not replace the degree and it does not guarantee a place, but you would arrive already fluent in the language, and that is worth a great deal.
18 modules, one practical assessment each. The assessments are scenario-based rather than recall-based. You are given a client and a situation and asked what you would do and why, then marked on the reasoning. Logbooks are built in.
18 months of access from the date you enrol, entirely self-paced. Most students work through about a module a fortnight, but there is no schedule and no attendance requirement.
100% online through the Virtual Campus and Student Portal, with every assessment submitted there and written feedback returned on each one.
An HHAI-recognised certificate on completion. Health & Harmony has delivered holistic health education for over 30 years to more than 25,000 students worldwide.
What you need: no musical training, no ability to read music, and very little equipment. A simple hand drum and your own voice will carry most of it.
Most people who take this music therapy course are already in a caring role and want another way in. Counsellors and coaches, aged-care and disability support workers, nurses, teachers and teachers' aides, yoga and meditation teachers, massage therapists, and family carers.
It also suits people with no professional background who are drawn to sound and intend to build one, and people who already run a wellbeing practice and want to add something with more structure behind it than a playlist.
It is a poor fit if you want to become a Registered Music Therapist, or if you are looking for a qualification that will get you hired into a hospital clinical team. Both are covered honestly in the section above.
Do I need musical training to study music therapy?
No. The course assumes no formal training and no ability to read music. Re-creative work, which means using songs a client already knows, is where most sessions begin precisely because it is not exposing, and Module 7 covers how to set up improvisation for someone who has never played an instrument. What the course does ask of you is attention and judgement rather than technique.
Will this make me a Registered Music Therapist?
Not on its own. Registered Music Therapist is a protected title requiring an approved university master's degree, demonstrated musical skill and supervised placement hours. What this course gives you is a full practitioner training in its own right, and, for anyone considering that degree later, about the strongest preparation available outside a university. You would go in having already covered the physiology, the evidence base, both method families, intake, session design and ethics. Module 18 covers describing your work accurately.
What is the difference between music therapy and sound healing?
Music therapy is goal-directed work involving intake, assessment, session planning and written records, evaluated against whether the client's goal moved. A sound bath is a group listening experience. Much of what is sold as sound healing makes claims that do not hold up, and Module 4 teaches you to tell the well-evidenced applications from the rest, because being precise about what you do is what makes you useful to a healthcare team.
How long does the course take?
You have 18 months of access from the date you enrol, and the course is self-paced within that. There are 18 modules, each with a practical assessment, and most students work through roughly one module a fortnight. Studying faster or slower is fine.
Is the course recognised?
You receive an HHAI-recognised certificate on completion. Health & Harmony has been delivering holistic health education for over 30 years to more than 25,000 students worldwide. It is not a university qualification and it does not lead to registration as a music therapist, which is covered in the question above.
Can I work with clients when I finish?
Within the scope the course defines, yes, and Module 18 covers exactly what that scope is, what insurance follows from it, and how to describe your services without overstating them. Many students use it alongside an existing practice in counselling, aged care, massage, yoga or education rather than as a standalone business.
What instruments do I need?
Very little. A simple hand drum and your own voice will carry most of the course. Module 7 covers choosing instruments for a real setting, where the criteria are whether it can be played wrong, physical demand for the client, whether it can be cleaned between people, and whether it can be heard over a television.
Is it entirely online?
Yes. The course runs through the Virtual Campus and Student Portal, self-paced, with all assessments submitted online. There are no scheduled classes and no attendance requirement.
Who is the course for?
People already working in a caring role who want another way in, and people drawn to sound who want to work with it responsibly. Counsellors, aged-care and disability staff, teachers, yoga and meditation teachers, massage therapists and carers all sit comfortably in it. It also suits people with no professional background who intend to build one.
How is the course assessed?
One practical assessment per module, with logbooks built in. The assessments are scenario-based rather than recall-based: you are asked what you would do with a particular client and why, and marked on the reasoning. Written feedback comes back on every submission.
Does it cover working with dementia and aged care?
Yes, Module 15 is devoted to it and Module 3 covers the hearing and physiological changes that shape those sessions. It is the setting where this work is most established, and the course treats it seriously, including musical memory, capacity, working with stretched staff, and the emotional weight of residents dying.
What about working with children?
Module 17 covers children and young people: screening, consent and assent, working alongside a teacher, non-speaking children, what falls outside your scope in a school, and what to do if a child discloses they are not safe.
Can I pay in instalments?
Yes. You can pay upfront in full or choose a payment plan, and both options are set out in the enrolment section on this page. The All In Pass, which gives access to the full course library, is a third option.
What support do I get?
Written feedback on every assessment from a marker, plus access to student support through the portal. Course advisors are available before you enrol if you want to talk through whether it fits what you are trying to do.
From students who've studied with us
What the study experience is like
Thank you to all the tutors for spending the time reading through each one of my assessments. Every time I received feedback, I felt supported. Your comments were encouraging and genuine, giving me the boost I needed to stay on track and complete this course.
It was a great starting point on my new journey. It's been over 25 years since I last cracked a book, and H&H certainly made it easy. Thank you, and looking forward to completing further studies.
This is my second time studying with Health and Harmony College, and I have found it once again very interesting and very enjoyable. I have gained an immense amount of knowledge and insight, along with invaluable input from the tutors.
Enrolment
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$1,400.00 total, paid over a term of your choosing: 2 to 12 months. First instalment due at enrolment.
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