Music Therapy Moment: Remembering Tempo

I've been struggling with a specific group for a couple of months now. They were very socially aware of one another and found each other so much more reinforcing than anything I was doing in music therapy. They would enter the room, start laughing and being goofy, and they were so wrapped up in each other that I spent most of my time trying to get any scrap of attention that I could. It was difficult to corral them into any type of interaction, and I really felt lost.

Yesterday, that same group had a near perfect music therapy session.

I was a bit kerfluffled after the session - thinking that it was amazing how they engaged, interacted, and were focused on what we were doing. We had one small escalation where one particular client tried to get into his goofy pattern, but peers did not engage or give him attention because they were focused on what we were doing as a group. I was able to be the center of the session with one small trick - tempo.

Now, I am not the miracle worker here - I haven't done much with this group to get them to change, but I was able to use one of the tools in my arsenal to keep up their good effort. This group has had a complete change of teaching philosophy in the past month and the new teacher is using the Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports programs that we have in place. All of the staff members are on board with the programs, and they are working. But, tempo did something for them yesterday.

The session plan was easy. We were going to do some work with entrainment and instruments, so I had every thing ready to go (goal? No down time for clients - full music immersion and rhythmic entrainment). We sang our opening song, I whispered to them all of my responses, and then the rhythm started. Everything from then on was presented through the tempo and the rhythmic pattern. We did a play and pass process from then on. Twenty-five minutes of playing instruments and passing them around to one another in a structured manner, rooted in tempo and various rhythms.

We entrained to 85 beats per minute. The first 10 minutes were set at 85 beats per minute. Once we were all working together in a pattern of behavior, we then changed our root tempo. We were able to continue working together as a group, but we always returned to our base of 85 beats per minute.

We had a 30 minute session where we engaged with instruments and with each other in a pleasant manner. After all the other groups in disarray this week (including this one on Tuesday), it was great to end the week on a set tempo.

I often get distracted by thoughts and things that happen and then ruminate on them for way too long. I often think that I am responsible for every thing that happens in my sessions (even when it is very evident that my clients brought those things into my sessions and I was only responsible for trying to help them navigate the things). I often take my clients' struggles as my personal struggles and my woulda/coulda/shoulda goblins start to take over my thought processes. My emotional brain takes over and my rational brain cannot get a thought in.

In these instances, I often forget that I know music inside and out. I know developmental psychology inside and out, and I know what effect music has on the psychological, physiological, physical, emotional, and other aspects of human beings. I know these things. I've practiced them for 25 years as a professional.

Yet, I still get distracted. I go down the rabbit hole of "If my visual aids are more interesting, I'll get their attention."

My rational brain (which is in control at the moment) knows that visual aids have NOTHING to do with effective music treatment. NOTHING!! (Ironic, isn't it. I love making visual aids, but they should not be necessary for music therapy treatment. The only things that are necessary for music therapy treatment are the therapist, the music, and the client. That's it.)

My success yesterday wasn't due to the fact that I had nifty things to look at. My clients' success yesterday was due to the fact that I remembered those things that I know - grounding interaction in the elements of music is how music therapy works. My group's success in music therapy yesterday was because of several things, but it was strengthened and more successful because I used one of those elements of music as our foundation. The other elements of music that we used - melodic phrases, rhythmic patterns, harmonic structures - enhanced the experience but were not the foundation of that success - that was the tempo. 

I think I'll spend some extra time this week thinking about tempo and making it my focus during sessions. I'm going to rediscover this therapeutic element of music within my sessions, and I am going to center myself in tempo.