Because music therapy is a young applied discipline, involving a wide range of disciplines, complex application fields and rich genres, there is no unified discipline definition standard according to the development of music therapy. This is because music therapy is a relatively young subject after all, and because music therapists from different countries and nationalities are influenced by different factors such as culture, history, economy, politics and medical conditions. Moreover, experts in different countries have different fields and methods of music therapy, so there is an inconsistent definition. To put it simply, music therapy is to use various forms of music activities, including listening, singing, playing and rhythm, to stimulate and hypnotize people, and to stimulate physical reactions with sound, so that people can achieve the goal of health.

The definition of American Music Therapy Association is: Music therapy is the clinical and evidence-based use of music intervention to achieve consistent personalized goals in therapeutic relationships. Guided by qualified professionals who have completed the approved music therapy program (American Music Therapy Association, 2005).

Zhang Hongyi, a professor at China Conservatory of Music, and other scholars have extracted representative expositions in their research (Zhang Hongyi's Fundamentals of Music Therapy, published by China Electronic Audio-visual Publishing House in 2000):

European music therapy expert Sasadi believes that music therapy is to treat, relieve or stimulate diseases with music.

Japanese New Music Dictionary: Music therapy refers to psychotherapy and hypnosis through music, which is based on the functionalist artistic view of promoting physical and mental health and cultivating personality through music, and belongs to the category of applied music (psychology).

In China, the definition of music therapy is as follows: Music therapy is a subject that studies the effect of music on human body and how to use music to treat diseases. It belongs to the category of applied psychology. (China Encyclopedia of Music and Dance Volume 1989 Edition) Modern music therapy originated in the United States, and then developed from the United States to all countries in the world. Therefore, in the world music therapy academic circles, the professional technology of American music therapy, especially the practical research of music psychotherapy, has always been worth learning from other countries. It can be seen from a large number of documents that most domestic scholars agree with brucia's statement. On the basis of this definition, the basic elements of music therapy are further put forward: a patient with clear treatment needs, a trained music therapist, a goal-oriented music course, music materials and the evaluation of treatment effect. (Wang Xudong, Implementation of Music Therapy, Music China.

Music therapy is a systematic intervention process. In this process, the therapist uses various forms of music experience and the therapeutic relationship developed in the course of treatment as the driving force of treatment to help the treated person achieve the health goal. (Definition of Music Therapy by Professor brucia K. brucia of Temple University 1989)

This definition is about music-centered experience; The treatment process based on the relationship between therapists and visitors, as well as systematic treatment procedures and health assessment methods, are important components of music psychotherapy. Through the definition proposed by K.Bruscia, we can see that this definition is a perfect definition of music psychotherapy. In China, many scholars agree with this definition, and put music therapy into the category of applied psychology and interpret it. For example, Takada gave a comprehensive and detailed explanation of K.Bruscia's definition of music therapy in Introduction to Music Therapy. Definition emphasis: 1. Music therapy is a scientific and systematic treatment process, including the application of various methods and genre theories, instead of thinking that music therapy is just a simple and single treatment, as some people misunderstand. Music therapy is not a random and isolated intervention process, but a rigorous and scientific systematic intervention process including evaluation, establishment of long-term and short-term treatment, formulation and implementation of treatment plan, and evaluation of curative effect. 2. Music therapy is based on all music-related activities, such as listening, singing, playing, music creation, music and other arts, not just listening to music; 3. The process of music therapy must go through three factors: music, patients and specially trained music therapists. Gao Tian's Introduction to Music Therapy (2006). Looking at the subject goal, application field, operation method and development trend of contemporary music therapy at home and abroad, the subject of music therapy has gone far beyond the subject field of applied psychology, that is to say, music therapy is not just a branch of psychotherapy as most people think, but an independent subject, involving a wider range, so the above definition of brucia can be used as a more comprehensive definition of music psychology, not a comprehensive definition of music therapy.

In his works such as Entertainment Therapy (published by Nanjing University Press in March, 2000) and Health Preservation and Rehabilitation of Traditional Chinese Medicine (published by China Traditional Chinese Medicine Press in June, 2004), Wang Xudong summed up that the concept and practice of western music therapy include three different ways, namely: 1. Clinical mode, 2. Many scientific research results also prove that music therapy not only has psychological effects, but also has obvious physiological effects, such as music prenatal education; Among the ways of music therapy, there are music electrotherapy, the combination of music and acupuncture, music qigong therapy, flute therapy and so on. All these show that the subject of music therapy has surpassed the application scope of psychology and opened up a broader subject extension! (China Music Therapy in the ascendant, 2006)

Chen Jingjing pointed out in the article "The Definition, Formation and Development of Music Therapeutics in China" (Music Exploration, No.3, 2004): "It was founded only a few decades ago, and its research field has not been fully demonstrated and developed. The application of music therapy involves not only psychology, medicine and musicology, but also pedagogy and even many unknown scientific fields. The clinical research of musicotherapy also shows that its discipline itself is not to study the relationship with other disciplines, but to study the clinical treatment methods and therapeutic effects of music as a therapeutic means, so we can't simply define musicotherapy as a comprehensive discipline integrating psychology, medicine and musicology, at least we can think that such a definition is not comprehensive for musicotherapy itself. "

Based on the above theoretical viewpoints put forward by China scholars, music therapy is defined as:

Music therapy is a method to treat diseases or promote physical and mental health based on the practical function of music, according to systematic treatment procedures and by means of music or music-related experiences. As long as music is used systematically, planned and purposefully as a means to promote people's physical and mental health, its treatment methods and activities should belong to the category of music therapy. (Chen Jingjing, Definition, Formation and Development of Music Therapy in China, 2004)