Who we are, and what music therapy really is

Who We Are & What We Do

Agape is a private music therapy practice based in Cupertino, California. We work with children, autistic clients of every age, and older adults living with dementia or at the end of life.

Sessions happen wherever they work best — in our studio, in your home, at school, in a memory care community, or at a hospice bedside. We serve Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, San Jose, Saratoga, Los Gatos, Campbell, Los Altos, and Mountain View, with virtual sessions available where they suit the client.

How We Work

Every client starts with the same question: what matters to this person? Not what a diagnosis suggests, and not what worked for someone else with the same label. From there we write goals you can read and measure, and we adjust when the notes say to.

• Client-led. We follow what the person in front of us responds to, rather than working through a fixed curriculum.
• Sensory-aware. We ask about sensory profile before the first session. We don’t treat stimming as something to eliminate.
• Documented. You get progress notes you can share with a speech pathologist, an OT, a classroom team, or a physician.
• Honest about fit. If music therapy isn’t the right tool for your situation, we’ll tell you on the first call and point you somewhere better.

We’re a fee-for-service practice, paid directly by families. There’s no insurance billing and no waiting on an authorization — which usually means we can start within a week or two of the first call.

Briana Wu, MT-BC

Briana Wu is a board-certified music therapist and the founder of Agape Music Therapy. She trained in music therapy at the University of the Pacific’s Conservatory of Music in Stockton and completed her clinical internship at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.

Before opening Agape, she worked in memory care, pediatric oncology, hospice, and intensive care — settings where music often reaches people when very little else does. That range shapes how we work now. A session with a three-year-old and a session with someone near the end of life look nothing alike, but both begin in the same place: meeting the person exactly where they are.

Guitar is Briana’s primary instrument, and a session might also bring in drums, keyboard, voice, or whatever helps someone move toward their goals. The instrument is never the point. The person is.

Because it’s a solo practice, you’ll always know who’s coming, and it will be the same person every week.

What board certification means, briefly: an approved degree in music therapy, roughly 1,200 hours of supervised clinical training, and a national board exam. Certification has to be renewed through continuing education, so it reflects current practice rather than a one-time qualification.

What Music Therapy is

Music therapy is a clinical discipline. It uses music — playing, singing, listening, writing — to work on goals that usually have nothing to do with music.

Speech and communication. Motor control. Emotional regulation. Memory. Connection with the people in the room. The music is the tool, not the outcome.

A session might look like play, or like a quiet conversation with a guitar nearby. Underneath it there’s an assessment, a written plan, and notes tracking whether what we’re trying is working. When it isn’t, the plan changes.

What it isn’t

• It isn’t a music lesson. Lessons teach an instrument. Therapy uses music to work on something else — though we’re glad when someone picks up playing along the way.
• It isn’t entertainment. A singer visiting a memory care unit is a lovely thing. It isn’t the same as a therapist working on documented goals with one resident over months.
• It isn’t a cure. Music therapy doesn’t reverse dementia or make a nonverbal child speak on schedule. Anyone promising that is selling something.

Your client doesn’t need to be musical

This is the misconception that stops people from calling. No musical training is required, no talent, no prior interest. Response to music is close to universal and doesn’t depend on ability — a person who has never played an instrument, and a person who no longer speaks, both still respond to a familiar song.

Why it reaches people other things don’t

Music engages many parts of the brain at once, which is why it can find a route when a single pathway is impaired. It’s the reason a man in late-stage dementia can sing every word of a song he learned at nineteen, and why a child who isn’t yet speaking will take a turn on a drum before they’ll take one in conversation.

That said — music therapy works well alongside speech therapy, occupational therapy, and medical care. It isn’t a replacement for any of them, and we’ll say so plainly if that’s what someone is hoping for.

Gallery, In Session

What the work actually looks like — in the studio, in homes, in classrooms, and at the bedside.