music, therapy, and me

It is Monday again, and I am looking for some sort of routine in my life! I didn't make anything this weekend, so Make-It Monday is not happening right now. Actually, I started making a Valentine's Day themed game board, but I did not finish it. It is sitting on my work table waiting to be finished. I just need to put together the candy rhythms  to go with the board game that I am making, and it will be ready to show my registrants for my Make It! CMTE coming up on the 5th of December. I did not do much other than sitting in my upstairs bedroom, reading books, and watching Korean television shows. I also made bean soup, but I haven't tried it yet. I have a dubious relationship with soup to start with, but the weather just seemed to call for making soup. My house smells like soup now, and that is both good and bad. It is dark outside. This is the time of year where I feel happier than the summer months. Even with the shift in allergies, I like autumn better than summer. I li...

I have no idea what song to write about this morning, so I am going to use my random number generator to select a letter for the title and then pick something from my music library that fits with that letter. Now, I have so much music in my library that I can't really figure out a way to narrow things down a bit more. So, off to the random number generator to get a letter number. 23. That means that I look at my W titles to see what songs I have available, and that leads me to Wunderkind  by Alanis Morrisette and  The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe soundtrack. I love this song, but I do have a bit of difficulty with how she pronounces the word "wunderkind" throughout the song. Other than that, it is a great example of Alanis being Alanis in her music - lots of throaty and growly vocals with good harmonic support throughout. I love the song and have forgotten how much. This is a song that needs to be added to my empowerment playlist. I enjoy the harmonics, the lyrics, t...

(Can you tell that this event excites me EVERY SINGLE TIME it happens??) Today is the first day that I will be officially using my new work bullet journal. If you read this blog regularly, then you know that I am a paper planner and scheduler type of music therapist. I sit down every morning (even most weekend days) to write down my tasks and prioritize what I need to do. I use it to capture my thoughts and sort through situations that happen to me. My book is part of my brain and this is important to know as I talk about how I use this as an essential part of my structure. It is my system, and this system makes things happen for me. Now, I do not use any one type of organization system in my books. There are many ways to plan, to track, to use a book similar to mine, and I choose to use my own system. For this, I make my own layouts and spreads to help me do what I need to do. If you are interested in some of the systems that others have developed for their use that I have used from t...

SQUEEEEE! So, I am getting chances to do things that I have never really thought I could do these days. I have been approved to run two ongoing music therapy continuing education opportunities, and I am excited about it all!  The first is a course on Composition and Creativity . It is a self-study course that encourages creativity for music therapists - something that I really love to encourage. Participants can select how many modules they want - either one or up to ten modules at our set price per CMTE - $10.00 per CMTE earned. This course includes topics including composition, budget-minded materials, and avoiding burnout. Lots of choices and options are available, and I get to add new topics when appropriate for me and for other music therapists. I am hoping that I can get some folks interested in taking this course and offering some feedback. This has been a course that I have developed over many years, and it is something that I wish I could take! The second CMTE opportunity ...

My brain is fried. I have been using this phrase lots lately as I seem to be in a slump of some sort - creative, writing, thinking critically type of slump. I had a job offer for a job that I decided I didn't want, and the guilt of turning them down is wearing on me. I have no clear idea what day it is from moment to moment, and I keep trying to make it be Friday instead of Thursday. Lots is going on but is still not going on. I have another interview on Monday for a job outside my usual category but adjacent to my preferred population. The job I turned down was with my preferred population but required things that I no longer want to do with my life, so after some agonizing nights, I finally decided that I needed to just release myself and them from the expectation that I would take the job. I didn't fancy the idea of working full-time in the residences just so I could afford healthcare. That is a difficult job and one that I am not sure I can do these days. So, I let them kno...

Right now, I am going through my therapeutic music experience compendium to find songs and TMEs to go with a specific theme. It is always an interesting experience to dive into the ideas that I have collected over the years. I do not have all of the ideas that I have been exposed to by being around other music therapists in digital form right now, but I do have all of the other ideas in paper form from my first interns before the time when everyone had a computer in their pockets. I have thousands of therapeutic music experiences (TMEs - my preferred theme for what I do in sessions with my clients) in my database (which I like to call my compendium!). Many of them are mine in origin, but many of them are original works of other people. Those do not go into any of my publications because they are not my work - they belong to others. I've had compositions stolen by other music therapists claiming that they composed the songs that I wrote, so I do not do that to others. Those ideas ca...