Today in my Music Therapy Room...

This morning started off with a typical first-day-of-the-week thought..."What am I going to do with my students today?"

When I left home to go to the car for my commute, the weather was crisp and cool - a typical autumn day here in Kansas. Inspiration struck! An autumn song would be just the thing!

So, then I spent the commuting time thinking about how and what an autumn song would be.

I finally decided that we would do an Orff improvisation using fall words.

Now, here are the things that I had to consider this morning.

Tuesday's clients are mainly verbal, ambulatory, and more involved on the psychiatric spectrum than on the developmental spectrum. They, as a large group, have difficulties with abstract concepts, so starting an improvisation based on words is not often a successful idea. Today it worked.

I started the session with the opening song that I use often and then asked clients to choose Orff instruments. They then had to assemble the instrument - this is ALWAYS a bit of a tumultuous time for most of the students, even though we do not change the process or the instrument ever. Instruments assembled, we tried them out for a short time before focusing on the word/concept portion of the session.

After a 5-count cut-off, we placed the mallets in their storage places and then started brainstorming words about autumn.

We chose a word and then decided on one characteristic of our music that would help us musically illustrate the word. We played. Repeat with word #2 and #3, but we talked about changing the music somehow to illustrate that we had 3 different concepts. 

FOR THE FIRST TIME, MY CLIENTS WERE ABLE TO DO THIS AS A GROUP!!!!!!!!

I sat in awe, listening to the musical products that these students were producing. They were able to change their music with prompts from me. They all seemed to remember how to alter their playing to illustrate the words they had chosen.

I found myself thinking about improvisation while I was driving home. My students often have difficulty with improvising.

While I was driving home, I heard an article about a cello player, Zoe Keating.

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/06/140069246/zoe-keating-a-symphony-unto-herself 

The article shared how Ms. Keating had difficulty with stagefright and trying to be perfect when performing. She started to speak about how she felt less pressure to be perfect when she was improvising and has now made an entire recording career out of her music.

Lightbulb! My students often refuse to do things and share that they don't want to do things wrong. A messed up worksheet often causes tantrums and destruction.

In music, I often have the most success with client improvisation when I tell them that there is no wrong. There is no wrong way to play. There is no wrong way to color. There is no wrong way to make choices. This often frees the client to try things. It also is freeing for me.

I try to live what I tell others...