1. Introduction

By searching for keywords such as “music therapy” and “depression” on the Knowledge Network and other paper retrieval websites, most of the search results are focused on children, geriatric depression, and postpartum depression, including clinical research, technical research, and other levels, in which there are fewer studies on adolescent depression. The search results mostly focused on children, elderly depression, postpartum depression, including clinical research, technology research, and other levels, with less research on adolescent depression [1]. Search keyword “adolescent depression” results in most of the drug treatment, through the music treatment of adolescent depression research is more vacant. The research topic of this paper is the treatment of adolescent depression through music, mainly focusing on clinical research, specifically exploring the impact of Orff music teaching method on adolescent depression, through the visual, auditory, tactile and other senses, combined with Orff musical instruments for the treatment of adolescent depression.

This paper adopts the literature research method and summarization method to study the influence of Orff music teaching method on adolescent depression, using music therapy can avoid the side effects of drug treatment on adolescent physiology, while Orff emphasizes the “originality” of music, and integrates games into the music therapy process, which can enhance adolescents’ cooperation with therapy, and will also enhance adolescents’ cooperation with subsequent treatment. At the same time, Orff emphasizes the “original nature” of music, and the integration of games into the music therapy process can enhance the adolescents’ cooperation in the therapy and their interest in the subsequent treatment.

2. Advantages of Orff Music Pedagogy

Orff’s music teaching method is different from traditional medical methods in that it involves sight, hearing, touch, and other senses combined with percussion instruments for body rhythm and the treatment method of games to attract patients, which can improve patients’ initiative and participation in treatment [2]. Secondly, Orff music can improve the fineness of the senses and the coordination of the body, Orff music requires patients to listen to music and accompany them with different musical instruments, such as triangular iron, sand hammers, bells and other simple instruments, which can train the coordination of various senses and limbs. At the same time, as the music continues to change, the body movement also changes with the music, and the patient must always pay attention to the melody direction and rhythm change of the music, and imitate and cooperate with the therapist, so the attention is also greatly exercised in this process.

Music therapy can be divided into “active music therapy” and “passive music therapy”, the methods include receptive style, improvisation, re-creation style, etc., and the specific methods include song discussion method, music synchronization method, music imagination method, etc. [3]. Orff music activities are mostly based on active music therapy; therapists bring patients to participate in music therapy activities. The application of Orff music pedagogy can make patients feel a strong sense of participation, which is more conducive to music therapy. Another feature of Orff music pedagogy is the use of Orff instruments. Based on the original concept of music education, Orff designed a set of musical instruments that are mainly rhythmic and, at the same time, similar to the human organism and easy to improvize. Because each teenager has a different personality and different hobbies, not all children like to sing, and the vocal cords of adolescents are in the voice change period, which is not suitable for singing often. The teaching of instrumental music just makes up for this problem. Participating in the selection and performance of musical instruments can better express emotions, and musical instruments act as a medium of feelings in Orff music activities, which are used to promote young people’s self-expression and interpersonal skills. In a collective instrumental ensemble, each child plays a certain instrument, so each teenager is an integral part of the group, requiring strong attention, discipline, and the ability to follow the command’s instructions, while also cooperating with peers. This kind of musical activity can cultivate the collective consciousness and cooperation consciousness of patients, and improve the ability of depressed patients to deal with interpersonal relationships in participating in social life, which is also the embodiment of the social function of Orff’s instrumental music teaching activities. Orff instruments are mostly suitable for therapeutic needs, and it is therefore often the instrument of choice in treatment [2].

3. Characteristics of Depressed Adolescents

Depression is mainly manifested as long-term and obvious depression; adolescent depression, compared with adult depression, has hidden and slow characteristics, often manifested as no reason to worry; patients do not have a mood but feel sad and painful. Produce bad hints and often suspect that they are sick, bad hints have subconscious and conscious layer hints, often manifested as going to school or facing study and work tasks will feel physiological dizziness, weakness, nausea, or assume that classmates and teachers do not like themselves, long-term negative psychological hints to themselves [1].

Patients with severe depression will have pessimistic and even suicidal tendencies, and if only drug treatment is used for suicide attempts, the probability of repeated suicide is very high, which poses a serious threat to the patient’s mental health and life safety.

Most adolescents have not entered the society at this stage, so the inducing factors of adolescent depression are mostly related to family, school, interpersonal communication, etc., some are the influence of environmental factors, or may be caused by external stimuli, so it is important to actively guide adolescents with depression in time and take effective treatment.

4. The Application of Orff Music Pedagogy in Adolescent Depression

In the face of the increasing number of adolescents with depression, educators are constantly exploring educational treatment models suitable for such groups, and music education plays an indispensable role as an important carrier of special education. Many scholars have done relevant practical research in this field, showing the important role of Orff music education in adolescents with depression from the aspects of intelligence, hearing, and vision.

The earliest department to introduce music therapy in China is also in the field of special education, so domestic music therapists often use Orff music to intervene in adolescent depression to achieve the impact and improvement of music therapy on the higher needs of adolescents. On the other hand, it uses quantitative evaluation data to observe and record the changes in the response to music and behavior of adolescents with depression in music games, so as to provide specific and data-referenced music therapy services for the improvement of adolescent psychological disorders. Although a variety of Orff music activities can cultivate the sensory ability, rhythm, memory, attention and physical coordination of depressed adolescents, and reduce the impact of bad emotions and negative cues on life, Orff music is still based on the learning of musical activities and musical skills as the main purpose, and the development of other abilities is accompanied by the main purpose.

In special education, the common role of music therapists and music teachers is that they all need to consult and cooperate with special educators, but the main body of teaching is always special children, teachers are not dominant, the relationship between teachers and students is “partners” and “collaborators”, and teachers play a guiding role in teaching and guide students to move forward step by step. Music therapists can help educators develop developmental and academic goals for children with special needs through musical interventions.

5. Orff Music Treatment Methods and Processes for Adolescent Depression

5.1. Orff Music Treatment Process of Adolescent Depression

The therapist understands the patient’s basic information before the treatment begins, including the patient’s name, gender, age, family profile, factors that cause depression, etc., and measures the degree of depression using the Depression Scale. Because the social environment of adolescents is simpler than that of adults, the impact of depression on adolescents mainly includes interpersonal relationships, quality of life and learning ability, and treatment will also be carried out around these three aspects.

5.1.1. Welcome

In this session, the therapist needs to understand the patient’s recent condition and ask how he has been doing. Have you been exposed to music therapy? What kind of music do you like to listen to during this time? The use of greeting music guidance to play relaxed and lively music is more conducive to the development of Orff music education when the two sides have a good consensus.

5.1.2. Warm-Up

This session requires the use of song discussion and song singing. The therapist sings the songs mentioned by the patient in the first session, and after listening, the patient discusses the meaning of the music and the lyrics, and allows the patient to vent his emotions in the song. If the patient does not mention the song, the therapist can sing the recent hit song to give the patient a sense of engagement and familiarity [4].

5.1.3. Use of Orff Instruments for Therapeutic Activities

There are two major categories of Orff instruments: one is percussion instruments without a fixed pitch, such as tambourine, triangle, double rattle, etc.; The other is pitched bar instruments, such as glockenspiel, metalliphone, xylophone, etc. Passive and active participatory music therapy with simpler percussion instruments (thumb piano, xylophone, tambourine, tambourine); It also provides fast and slow Chinese and foreign music works, such as Li Huanzhi’s “Spring Festival Overture”, Johann Strauss’s “Radesky March”, Offenbach’s “Kangcan Dance”, etc., and slow works such as “River Water”, “Fishing Boat Singing Night”, “Blue Danube” and so on.

Patients independently choose percussion instruments to play, and each instrument therapist chooses will explain and demonstrate their instruments, and patients need to be accompanied by relatives in this link, guided by the therapist to complete, and assisted by relatives. For each piece of music selected by the patient to play, the therapist will play different types of music, including Chinese and foreign, fast and slow, and play with the instrument selected by the patient. The performance time of each piece is 2–5 minutes, and the timing does not include the patient’s rest time in the performance. Patients can choose the same instrument and song as before or choose a new one at the next performance. If the patient shows discomfort or abandons the performance during the performance, the therapist needs to carefully ask the reason and make a record, and the total duration of the performance can be completed after 20 minutes. In this session, the therapist needs to pay attention to the patient’s condition and communication skills, and record the patient’s words and deeds, the degree of physical coordination and the degree of response to music.

5.1.4. Relax

After the performance of the previous link, the therapist should relax the patient in time, so that the patient’s emotions can be calmed, sit down with the patient to chat, play some songs that the patient likes, during which the therapist walks out of the treatment room and quietly observes whether the patient can pick up Orff instruments and music activities without a therapist.

When the therapist returns to the treatment room, let the patient lie on the treatment table, play soft and soothing music, and guide the patient to develop musical imagination. The therapist can give the patient a guiding instruction, such as: “Imagine that you are lying in the moonlight; there is a sparkling lake not far away...”Or ask the patient, “What kind of emotion do you feel in this music?” What’s on your mind? What do you want to do? How do you feel physically?” The patient’s imagination usually comes from the people and things encountered in life, and the subconscious brought about by these experiences must be accompanied by a series of emotional reactions. The therapist can understand the patient’s deep conscious world through music imagination, which plays an important role in subsequent treatment.”

5.1.5. Farewell

The therapist awakens the patient from the musical imagination, observes the difference between the patient’s state and when he comes through talking with the patient, talks about some topics of interest to the patient, observes the patient’s language expression ability and self-expression ability, and observes whether the patient has pessimism after treatment and whether there is a difference between getting along with relatives and coming. Finally, work with the patient to determine the time of the next treatment and the precautions for self-treatment during this time.

6. The Role of Orff Music in Other Special Education

For special children, such as autism, communication disorders, intellectual disabilities, etc., Orff music’s emphasis on originality also has a great effect on it. The body rhythm made by children hearing the sound is a physical reaction to the improvisation of the sound, and the momentum is the most primitive, instinctive and direct way of human communication, conveying their emotions through actions such as clapping hands, stamping feet, and clapping legs. Motor instruction can promote children’s balanced physical and mental development, and can also develop attention, sensory ability and creativity. In the special children’s group, Orff music activities that integrate music, dance, language, and movement can also be a good psychological intervention for special children, improving their psychological state and stimulating them to respond to changes in the external situation, so they can also enhance their interpersonal interaction ability [5].

Orff pedagogy focuses on the teaching process; he emphasizes that children do it themselves, asking students to do it according to their own ideas and under their own conditions so that students can actively learn, give full play to their imagination, and develop their personalities. For Orff himself, he did not consciously combine his approach to music education with music therapy, and his original philosophy and approach to music education was only for normal children rather than special children, but many of the principles in his approach coincided with those in the field of music therapy. These include the combination of music, language and movement, rhythmic training, improvisation guidance, creativity cultivation, multi-sensory experience, and instrumental music and multi-voice structure training.

7. Conclusion

In summary, Orff’s music education concept has been widely used in clinical treatment, in addition to the adolescent depression detailed in this article. It has also been applied to other special education fields and has achieved remarkable results. Orff music education pays more attention to the process of teaching, and how to carry out music education is more important than what kind of results are obtained, which is completely consistent with the meaning of music therapy. There are great differences between music education and music therapy in essence and in the application of purpose, meaning, and method, but both are the connotation and extension of music disciplines, and they are inseparably linked.

This paper is currently in the theoretical research stage, and there may be problems such as emotional instability and unwillingness to cooperate in the implementation of treatment. It is necessary for the therapist to make corresponding changes during the implementation of treatment to stabilize the patient’s mood over time.