Sing A Song Sunday #2 - Can't Smile Without You

Here is the second in my Sing a Song Sunday series. I enjoy opening up a songbook at random and then seeing if I can make a therapeutic music experience (TME) out of it. Today's offering is Can't Smile Without You, a song written by Chris Arnold, David Martin, and Geoff Morrow and performed by Barry Manilow in the 70's. It's a typical 70's pop ballad - lots of crooning and rich orchestration and VERY sentimental - the music of my early youth!

Here is my chart. If you are interested, the program that I use to generate these charts is called Inspiration version 9.0.3. I love this program. It is a graphic organizing program that offers lots of options for organizing concepts into visual aids. As a visual thinker, I enjoy this program and highly recommend it. The ideas and concepts within the chart are my own, based on information presented by Deanna Hanson-Abromeit on the Therapeutic Elements of Music - our tool as music therapists.

 Anyway, here is my thought process for using this song with my clients...

This song is not very familiar to my students and probably not to their parents either. The song would not have many extramusical associations (I would think) for my students since they are not very familiar with the song or the performer. It may be a good way to introduce some discussion about people that they miss during their stay at our facility. There could be some difficulties, however, with feelings of abandonment, situations with past trauma, and confused sexual roles for many of my clients. So, the song may not be appropriate for all of my students with the original lyrics, but the lyrics could be easily adapted to address the concepts that each student needs to address within a therapeutic format.

If the emotional content of the song is too abstract for my clients, I can use the musical format to address rhythmic behaviors and support those behaviors in a way that encourages steady movements and entrainment. The melody lends itself well to lyric substitution. I could change the lyrics easily since the melody is repetitive and predictable. The long notes in the phrases also allow for changes in the rhythm to accommodate words and stories to illustrate what is going on in the moment.

Well, another song for my repertoire. 

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