EVEN
RUUD
The book
In Music Therapy and Music and Health, Even Ruud offers a broad, rigorous, and deeply humanistic introduction to the field of music therapy and to the relationships between music, health, and well-being. Written for students encountering the discipline for the first time, as well as for professionals, researchers, and readers interested in the transformative power of music, this book presents an up-to-date view of music therapy as a professional practice, an academic field, and a public health resource.
Throughout the book, Ruud explores the main areas of music therapy practice, including education, childhood, mental health, hospitals, elder care, dementia, rehabilitation, community settings, and work with vulnerable populations. From an ecological, relational, and sociocultural perspective, he shows how music can support emotional regulation, participation, belonging, mastery, resilience, and quality of life.
One of the book’s central contributions is its understanding of music as a “cultural immunogen”: a practice capable of strengthening personal and community resources in the face of distress, while promoting health, meaning, and connection. Ruud links this idea to a broad concept of health that includes biological, psychological, social, and existential dimensions.
The book also offers a synthesis of models, methods, and tools used in music therapy, ranging from improvisation, composition, and performance to music listening and other forms of musical participation. In addition, it places the Norwegian tradition of music therapy in dialogue with international research and with the current challenges facing the discipline.
This first English edition is a unique opportunity to access a key work by Even Ruud, now available open access for an international community of readers, professionals, and students.
Edited by David J. Gamella, José Fernando Fernández and María García. Published by iDETEC Editorial.
Biography
Even Ruud is Professor Emeritus at the University of Oslo and the Norwegian Academy of Music, and remains an active and influential voice in the international development of music therapy. Trained as a piano teacher, musicologist, music therapist, and certified psychologist, Ruud has built a uniquely interdisciplinary career, bringing together music psychology, music ethnography, music therapy, music education, cultural theory, and the study of health and quality of life.
Although emeritus, Ruud continues to write, publish, and contribute to current debates in the field through new books, articles, reflections, and critical reviews. His recent work confirms the ongoing relevance of his thinking and his continued commitment to expanding the theoretical, clinical, cultural, and social foundations of music therapy.
Across his career, Ruud has made major contributions to theoretical research in music education and music therapy, ethnographic studies of rock bands, and qualitative research on music, identity, everyday musical experience, health, and well-being. His scholarship has helped give music therapy a decisive international impulse, opening the discipline to humanistic, sociological, cultural, ecological, and public health perspectives.
He is the author of several influential books, including Music Therapy and its Relationship to Current Treatment Theories, Music Therapy: Improvisation, Communication, and Culture, Music Therapy: A Perspective from the Humanities, Toward a Sociology of Music Therapy: Musicking as a Cultural Immunogen, and the recent Norwegian volume Musikkterapi og Musikk og helse. In Norwegian, he has also published Musikkvitenskap, a textbook in musicology, and Musikk og identitet, a study of music and identity. His writings have been translated into several languages and continue to shape music therapy education, research, and practice worldwide.
Subscribe for updates
Sign up and be the first to know what’s new