TME Tuesday - Take A Song
One of my favorite things to talk about is how to use music to complete a client's personal goal. I feel that it is our responsibility, as music therapists, to fully be able to not only use our medium, but to be able to discuss our medium with others. To do that, we need to know the process that we use to select music for use in our therapeutic environments. Here's one of mine...
SCENARIO:
Client walks in and starts to look through the iPod for music. Let's say that this client has goals of increasing communication initiation, appropriate emotional expression, and improving impulse control. The client finds a song and starts to play the song on the iPod.
The therapist, in my case, me, needs to start figuring out a way to use the song that the client chose to address the therapeutic goals as soon as possible.
How do I do this? It's a quick series of brainstorms, decisions, and actions. Some of that planning starts before the session. Here are some of the questions that I ask myself as I am planning.
The client brings much more into the session - not only themselves, but their choice of music as well.
This is what the music brings to the session - all of the different elements of music that makes each piece a potential therapeutic tool. Any of these elements can be adapted or changed in order to assist clients towards accomplishing their therapeutic goals.
Back to the scenario, the client chooses a song and starts to dance/sing/interact with the music and the therapist. How does the therapist use that music? It depends on the client (cop-out answer, but a true one nonetheless).
We can use the music to write about our emotions - piggy-backing new words onto the original lyrics. We can engage in start/stop listening with the client initiating the starts and the therapist initiating the stops. We can also use the song as the background of freezing to address simple impulse control. Where we go and what we do depends completely on the relationship between the therapist, the client, and the music.
The important part of all of this is that the music plays a role and the therapist has to figure out how to make the music work for each of the clients that walks into the session. Sometimes that music is planned, specifically selected by the therapist, but other times, the music is unplanned, spontaneous, or improvised and the therapist has to make it work.
Understanding our tool is important. Using it effectively is also important. Being able to describe what we do (in contrast to what others may do with music) is crucial.
Happy Tuesday!
SCENARIO:
Client walks in and starts to look through the iPod for music. Let's say that this client has goals of increasing communication initiation, appropriate emotional expression, and improving impulse control. The client finds a song and starts to play the song on the iPod.
The therapist, in my case, me, needs to start figuring out a way to use the song that the client chose to address the therapeutic goals as soon as possible.
How do I do this? It's a quick series of brainstorms, decisions, and actions. Some of that planning starts before the session. Here are some of the questions that I ask myself as I am planning.
- How can I interest this client in music therapy in general? And in this session?
- Where is this client right now in his/her goal journey?
- What is the next step in that journey?
The client brings much more into the session - not only themselves, but their choice of music as well.
Back to the scenario, the client chooses a song and starts to dance/sing/interact with the music and the therapist. How does the therapist use that music? It depends on the client (cop-out answer, but a true one nonetheless).
We can use the music to write about our emotions - piggy-backing new words onto the original lyrics. We can engage in start/stop listening with the client initiating the starts and the therapist initiating the stops. We can also use the song as the background of freezing to address simple impulse control. Where we go and what we do depends completely on the relationship between the therapist, the client, and the music.
The important part of all of this is that the music plays a role and the therapist has to figure out how to make the music work for each of the clients that walks into the session. Sometimes that music is planned, specifically selected by the therapist, but other times, the music is unplanned, spontaneous, or improvised and the therapist has to make it work.
Understanding our tool is important. Using it effectively is also important. Being able to describe what we do (in contrast to what others may do with music) is crucial.
Happy Tuesday!
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