33 Understanding the Technological Practices and Needs of Music Therapists ANNA N. BAGLIONE, University of Virginia, USA MICHAEL PAUL CLEMENS, University of Virginia, USA JUAN F. MAESTRE, Indiana University Bloomington, USA AEHONG MIN, Indiana University Bloomington, USA LUKE DAHL, University of Virginia, USA PATRICK C. SHIH, Indiana University Bloomington, USA Music therapists provide critical, evidence-based care to a diverse range of clients. However, despite their active role in empowering individuals afected by disability, stigma, grief, and trauma, music therapists remain understudied by the HCI community. We present the results of a mixed methods study of 10 interviewees and 20 survey respondents in the U.S., all of whom are practicing music therapists. Our results show that music therapists engage in technology-aided practices such as making personalized connections with clients, assisting in identity formation, encouraging musicking (music-making), and preserving legacies. Results also show that music therapists face key challenges such as environmental, societal, and fnancial constraints, including high workload, lack of awareness of the value of music therapy among the general community, and limited access to secure technologies for remote client care. In light of these challenges, we present a set of design implications for creating future technologies for music therapists. This work diverges from previous studies on music therapy technologies, which focus largely on interventions with music therapy clients, by highlighting the often-neglected perspectives from music therapists. CCS Concepts: · Applied computing → Sound and music computing; · Human-centered computing → User studies; Computer supported cooperative work; Accessibility technologies; Accessibility systems and tools; Accessibility design and evaluation methods; · Social and professional topics → People with disabilities; Gender ; Sexual orientation; Cultural characteristics. Additional Key Words and Phrases: Music therapy; Music therapist; Music technology; Assistive technology; Personalized technology ACM Reference Format: Anna N. Baglione, Michael Paul Clemens, Juan F. Maestre, Aehong Min, Luke Dahl, and Patrick C. Shih. 2021. Understanding the Technological Practices and Needs of Music Therapists. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 5, CSCW1, Article 33 (April 2021), 25 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3449107 Authors’ addresses: Anna N. Baglione, ab5bt@virginia.edu, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA; Michael Paul Clemens, mpc4m@virginia.edu, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA; Juan F. Maestre, jmaestre@ indiana.edu, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, Indiana, USA; Aehong Min, aemin@iu.edu, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, Indiana, USA; Luke Dahl, lsd5k@virginia.edu, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA; Patrick C. Shih, patshih@indiana.edu, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, Indiana, USA. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for proft or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the frst page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specifc permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. © 2021 Association for Computing Machinery. 2573-0142/2021/4-ART33 $15.00 https://doi.org/10.1145/3449107 Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact., Vol. 5, No. CSCW1, Article 33. Publication date: April 2021.