Absurdity Day
One of my favorite authors, Sandra Boynton, states that today, November 20th, is Absurdity Day! This makes me very, very happy!
My life is a festival of absurdity. It stems from my job and my personality, I think. What else would you call an existence that leads a person from deep discussions about the future of music therapy and then goes into a rousing chorus of On Top of Spaghetti complete with ukulele chorus?
I love both of these lives. I love the ability to go from one role to another in the blink of an eye. It is the nature of the job. While I am singing On Top of Spaghetti and being silly with my clients, I am also spending time in the other side of the job - the analytical side. I am looking to see which of my clients is engaging in the song and which are not. I am adjusting my music to accommodate differences in client interaction. I am slowing down to encourage clients to coordinate their oral-motor mechanisms and to be able to sing. I am overemphasizing the absurdity of the song in order to gain the attention of some clients. I am changing the lyrics to increase novelty and see what my clients will do. I change the pitch, melody, and harmony. Within the silly is science, and I live in both worlds simultaneously.
I am sure that there are other professions where you have to present yourself one way while processing in a completely different way, but I think that music therapy can be that way (especially when you work with children and adolescents like I do). This is part of the conundrum of music therapy. Most of the stuff that happens in a music therapy session is unseen - it happens within the experience rather than in an overt manner. This is why my supervisor continues to think that what I do is facilitate "happy children making happy sounds."
Most of my music therapy life has been spent explaining what I actually am doing within each music therapy experience. I once had a teacher observe a session and ask, "Why is it that it takes CLIENT 5 minutes to answer the question, 'How are you feeling,' during calendar time, but he only needs 30 seconds in music therapy?" I was able to explain the priming effect of music on neurological processes. She started singing the question to the client, and lo-and-behold, it worked - a significant decrease in latency of response! The science lurked within the silly, but it worked at increasing the neurological processing and increased the client's ability to respond.
I am going to spend most of Absurdity Day in non-absurd activities. I'm going to work on the next version of sing about songs while simultaneously making sure that sub plans are in place for the next month (I'll be gone for at least two weeks and probably all three weeks of December). Then, I am going home and cleaning the kitchen - Whee!!
What will you do to mark this special day? Sing a silly song, just because you can? Spend some time making faces at a baby? Explore something that seems out of reach to you right now?
Do something absurd, please.
My life is a festival of absurdity. It stems from my job and my personality, I think. What else would you call an existence that leads a person from deep discussions about the future of music therapy and then goes into a rousing chorus of On Top of Spaghetti complete with ukulele chorus?
I love both of these lives. I love the ability to go from one role to another in the blink of an eye. It is the nature of the job. While I am singing On Top of Spaghetti and being silly with my clients, I am also spending time in the other side of the job - the analytical side. I am looking to see which of my clients is engaging in the song and which are not. I am adjusting my music to accommodate differences in client interaction. I am slowing down to encourage clients to coordinate their oral-motor mechanisms and to be able to sing. I am overemphasizing the absurdity of the song in order to gain the attention of some clients. I am changing the lyrics to increase novelty and see what my clients will do. I change the pitch, melody, and harmony. Within the silly is science, and I live in both worlds simultaneously.
I am sure that there are other professions where you have to present yourself one way while processing in a completely different way, but I think that music therapy can be that way (especially when you work with children and adolescents like I do). This is part of the conundrum of music therapy. Most of the stuff that happens in a music therapy session is unseen - it happens within the experience rather than in an overt manner. This is why my supervisor continues to think that what I do is facilitate "happy children making happy sounds."
Most of my music therapy life has been spent explaining what I actually am doing within each music therapy experience. I once had a teacher observe a session and ask, "Why is it that it takes CLIENT 5 minutes to answer the question, 'How are you feeling,' during calendar time, but he only needs 30 seconds in music therapy?" I was able to explain the priming effect of music on neurological processes. She started singing the question to the client, and lo-and-behold, it worked - a significant decrease in latency of response! The science lurked within the silly, but it worked at increasing the neurological processing and increased the client's ability to respond.
I am going to spend most of Absurdity Day in non-absurd activities. I'm going to work on the next version of sing about songs while simultaneously making sure that sub plans are in place for the next month (I'll be gone for at least two weeks and probably all three weeks of December). Then, I am going home and cleaning the kitchen - Whee!!
What will you do to mark this special day? Sing a silly song, just because you can? Spend some time making faces at a baby? Explore something that seems out of reach to you right now?
Do something absurd, please.
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