Free resource
A lecture from inside Foundations of Therapeutic Music, on the five phases of a session and how to shape music around each one. Watch below, with further materials to download.
Creating Playlists, Part I of IV · 30 minutes · From inside the Foundations course
Mendel introduces the five phases of a session, from pre-onset to return, the parallel to ritual and the hero's journey, and practical maps for matching musical intensity, function and sequencing to how a session unfolds. This lecture sits within a series of more than twenty hours, so it touches on ideas explored in greater depth across the course.
A practice e-book to work with in your own time, and two essays from Mendel's Substack that expand on the themes of the lecture.
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This lecture is merely an introduction. The 9-month live cohort is where the frameworks and approaches discussed become embodied practice.
Fortnightly live workshops, immersive listening, and triad work
Re-connect with your own therapeutic musicality and deepen your ways of listening
Real-time feedback and guidance from Mendel alongside a small community of practitioners and musicians
Reflections from practitioners and musicians who have taken the course.
The content and the reflections surrounding it have profoundly influenced my relationship with music. I have gained greater awareness and openness to what is happening to me and to what music offers beyond the structures we know for understanding it. I feel more confident integrating musical resources into my practice as a psychiatrist and trauma therapist.
Most striking to me has been the way the course explores not just therapeutic music, but the capacity of all music to be therapeutic, building a vivid and detailed picture of why that is, and what an understanding of it makes possible. I hoped it might influence my approach to composition, but more than that, these ideas have changed how I think about and listen to music. Something I didn't even imagine was possible.
Foundations of Therapeutic Music offers a rare and thoughtful interdisciplinary synthesis of neuroscience, music, and lived experience. Mendel's sensibility and knowledge are reflected in his teaching, rigorous yet deeply relational, moving fluidly from science to poetry. It has meaningfully enriched how I think about listening, presence, and the role of music in both clinical and creative contexts.
Participating in this course has been a profound experience. The teaching content bridges science, philosophy, and lived musical practice in a way that feels both intellectually expansive and deeply human. Mendel teaches with humility, curiosity, and remarkable depth. Rather than offering rigid methods, he creates a space where participants rediscover music through direct experience, allowing each person to reconnect with their own musical intuition and trust the unfolding of the moment.
I struggled with questions around music personalisation for a while, both in my group sessions and with individuals. This course has given me new approaches, and a very new way of thinking about music. Now I am witnessing the musicality inside both myself and my clients better, and am responding more strategically and creatively.
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