Dear AMTA

That Perfect Music Therapy Moment

There are times when the therapeutic triad comes together into a perfect music therapy moment. If you are lucky, you can see the pieces come together to form that moment. If you are lucky, you can track how the moment starts and replicate it at a different time. I had the privilege of having such a moment this week.

For consistency's sake, I will be referring to all of my clients by the initial "Q." I have chosen the letter "Q" because of its long status of neglect when it comes to names. There just aren't that many "Q" names. So, I hereby christen all of my future references to my clients as "Q."

So, "Q" transitioned to the music therapy room without an issue. He hummed and chirped the way he always does, entered the room, and got out the spinning chair. He has fallen into a routine of manipulating my musical product (improvisatory) using movements of the chair. "Q" recognizes that I change the music when he changes something about his own movement in the chair. For a kid who did not engage in ANY active communication behaviors just 4 months ago, we are making progress!

He was spinning, and I decided that I did not want to sit at the piano. I wanted to change our dynamic a bit, so I picked up the guitar and sat closer to "Q" than I ever have before. He kept looking over at me while I strummed. Rather than changing my musical pattern when he changed direction, I started stopping the guitar strum when he stopped his movement. I used a slap-stop on the strings, producing a percussive sound. (I am sure that there is a more technical term for the slap-stop, but I don't know it.)


He started giggling. Every time he would stop, I would slap-stop, he would look at me, and the giggling started. We carried on this way - stop, slap, eye contact, giggle - for quite a while.


Then, suddenly, he changed the game.


All of a sudden, I found myself in a new interaction with "Q" and the music. He started freezing until I slap-stopped a second time. He gave me some of the power that I have given him over the past two months (the length of time that we have been in individual treatment sessions together). We laughed for the entire session, and neither of us wanted to leave when our time was up.


I was struck by his generosity in allowing me to have some more control over our interactions. This was the first time that "Q" ever treated me as more than just a music source and keeper of the spinning chair. We played. We connected. We shared a perfect music therapy moment that we recall every time I do a double slap-stop on the guitar.


Next session, it's his turn to play.