Music as a therapeutic medium, digital analysis tool and international collaboration: at the European Music Therapy Conference in Hamburg, THWS demonstrated the relevance of music therapy research through nine presentations.
Published on 31 July 2026
Put simply, music therapy is a process that uses music to improve patients’ health. This can be achieved either by making music oneself or by listening to music. It is particularly through the interaction between therapist and client that things can be expressed which, for various reasons, cannot be conveyed verbally.
The European Music Therapy Conference (EMTC) takes place every three years. In 2025, the EMTC was held in Hamburg under the theme ‘Bridges’ – marking its return to Germany for the first time in over 40 years. THWS was represented at the event with numerous presentations and researchers. One of them was Professor Dr. Thomas Wosch, programme director of the master’s degree programme in Music Therapy for Empowerment and Inclusion at the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences at the Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (THWS).
THWS places great emphasis on music therapy
THWS regularly takes part in the European Conferences with its own projects. As one of the four members of the scientific advisory board of the German Music Therapy Society, Professor Dr. Wosch was actively involved in planning the 2025 conference. However, this does not guarantee automatic participation for THWS projects. Conference contributions must undergo a selection process and convince an independent jury. THWS scored highly here with several contributions. “It was brilliant that we were able to impress the jury with nine contributions and were allowed to present them there. That was quite special,” sums up Professor Dr. Wosch.
A major focus was on the topic of music therapy for people with dementia and depression. The nine papers also demonstrate the high standing that music therapy research at THWS enjoys, even on an international level. There are three funded doctoral positions in the field of music therapy in Würzburg. That in itself is significant, as doctoral positions in this field are rather rare in Germany. Professor Dr. Wosch explains: “When it comes to impact research, we play a leading role within Germany. Furthermore, this leading role also extends to the use of digitalisation in diagnostics.”
The theme of the conference this time was ‘Bridges’. For music therapy, the word ‘bridges’ plays a role in various respects: on the one hand, the bridge between research and actual practical application; on the other hand, also in relation to the high importance of interdisciplinary and international collaboration. For example, the involved computer scientist must familiarise themselves with music therapy, whilst the musicologist, conversely, must also familiarise themselves with the relevant aspects of computer science.
At national level, the research projects collaborate with various foundations, such as the Hanns Seidel Foundation, which is of enormous importance both financially and in terms of political communication. Effective research requires the necessary resources – which is why raising the profile of music therapy is a key factor. International collaboration, in turn, plays a vital role in this regard. In Germany, there are just eleven professors of music therapy. “We are a very small discipline, even though we are relevant to millions of people,” explains Professor Dr. Wosch. “That is why we have to work internationally, because we cannot do everything within the country and need the necessary reach.” In this respect, the European conference offers the ideal opportunity for exchange. “Personal encounters give rise to very important new approaches, and sometimes we even have a session on the subject that very same evening.”
Research using the CAMII music therapy tool
One of the projects presented at the Hamburg conference focuses on the CAMII tool – short for Computational Assessment of Musical Interaction in Clinical Improvisation. Bastian Vobig, a doctoral student supervised by Professor Dr. Wosch, has now been working on CAMII for just under three years. Whilst looking for a doctoral position in musicology, Bastian Vobig came across the project and was enthusiastic about it from the outset – even though music therapy was still relatively unfamiliar to him at the time. “I knew it existed, but I’d never had any contact with it before. So it was something exciting and new for me,” he explains. His enthusiasm for the subject then grew rapidly. “The thought that, in the end, I might have an impact that’s significant for people’s health is an incredible motivation to carry on and stick with it.”
CAMII is based on the assumption that human behaviour is reflected in musical behaviour. In this case, the focus is on people with depressive disorders. The hypothesis is therefore that people with depression behave differently musically than healthy individuals. When a therapist and a client play the piano together, CAMII analyses various parameters such as note density, pitch, and volume. The aim is to investigate, for example, whether someone is very dominant – that is, tends to play loud notes and sets the tone – or whether they tend to adapt to their partner whilst playing. CAMII monitors the course of the improvisation, evaluates the data, and continuously assigns corresponding behavioural patterns to the patients. This information is intended to assist in the further course of therapy. Initial results confirm the hypothesis that there are indeed differences between healthy individuals and those with depression. However, this correlation needs to be further researched and confirmed over the coming years.
Bastian Vobig had the opportunity to present this tool and the results achieved so far at the Music Therapy Conference in Hamburg this summer, both in hands-on workshops and in the form of a presentation. In keeping with the aforementioned theme of ‘bridges’, he found the exchange with practising therapists particularly valuable. “The key question for me is: how do I integrate the knowledge of practising therapists into my research so that I can actually bring added value to clinical practice? For this, dialogue is incredibly important.” Another special moment for Bastian Vobig was the opportunity to speak as one of three German specialists on the closing panel of the EMTC on the topic of “Artificial Intelligence and Music Therapy”.
Artificial Intelligence in Music Therapy
Artificial intelligence also plays an important role in music therapy. In the case of CAMII, for example, machine learning is used to evaluate and interpret data. This computer-based evaluation of data makes complex manual analysis methods usable in clinical practice. Without the system’s support, evaluating the information would take a whole week – and that would be neither practical nor cost-effective.
