TME Tuesday - Borrowing Ideas from Others

In my Therapeutic Music Experience (TME) file, I have a space for SOURCE. This is one of the most important parts of my TME plan for reasons I will explain in a bit. In this section, I write as much information about composers, authors, recording artists, textbooks, and any thing and every thing else about the music, experience, or idea that I can find.

I am not the author, composer, developer, or arranger of all I do in my music therapy sessions. I only publish things that are my original ideas and my own work because that's all I can publish under the legal restraints of copyright and intellectual property guidelines, but I use lots of things that others have written and composed. I am careful to give credit where credit is due. This is because of an incident that occurred to me during a music therapy conference many years ago.

I attended a concurrent presentation on organizing sessions for preschoolers. The presenter, unknown to me, introduced herself and stated that she was a recent graduate of the internship that I had attended. She started the week after I graduated, so she was the person who shared my junior intern - the link between us.

As the presentation progressed, she showed several videotaped examples of preschoolers singing and engaging in many different parts of the session. She showed one example of a group of kids singing and moving to Wake Up Body, a song I composed during my internship. I had taught it to my supervisors, and they had added the song to their repertoires.

I was thrilled that the song had moved into other formats and locations. It was something that I felt honored to know that my little song had survived my internship past my presence there.

The incident didn't occur until after the presentation. As good attendees, we all lined up to get our books signed. The therapist in front of me mentioned to the presenter that she really liked the Wake Up Body song. The presenter said (and I can quote this because it is still indelibly marked in my brain), "Thanks. I wrote that song during my internship. Everybody loved it there. It's one of the best songs I ever wrote."

My jaw dropped.

Only one of those statements were true. She hadn't written the song. She had learned the song from our mutual supervisors. It was true that everyone loved the song there - it was requested during almost every group session, but IT WAS NOT HER SONG!

I was flabbergasted. I wasn't brave enough to confront her about stealing credit for my song. I was horribly embarrassed and couldn't even think that someone would be so petty as to steal a small little song from someone else. The presenter had no idea that I was the composer or the intern right before her. She still doesn't know.

I don't remember her name, but I definitely remember the feelings that I had when she took credit for my work.

Long story short (yeah, right!!), I am very careful and extremely vigilant when it comes to making sure that I know where my Therapeutic Music Experiences (TMEs) come from. If I don't know an original composer or author, I start with listing the name of the person who teaches me the music or TME. Then, when I figure out who actually wrote the music, I update my TME file to indicate that knowledge and to give credit where credit is due. It is important to do so every place, every time, and in front of every audience. You never know when the composer/developer may be next in line to talk to you.