TME Tuesday: Take a Song
I just had an idea for a therapeutic music experience (TME) flash into my head, so this is not as put together as my TME Tuesday posts usually are. Please forgive me for being so spontaneous, but these things happen and are usually good for me!
So, this idea is influenced by something I saw on Pinterest. The idea was to encourage adolescent girls to take lyrics from a specific song and then make them into a collage with self-esteem images and art journaling. My clients are not really able to fully immerse themselves in the reasons why we would do something like this. Most would be able to complete the concrete parts of this experience, but the deeper thought would be difficult for them to complete. They just don't connect the process with a product or challenge for themselves.
They often have the same difficulty with lyric analysis - I think it's in the personalization of the lyrics where we struggle the most. Many of my clients can use their vocabulary skills to think about what the lyrics mean, but they don't really think about what it means to them. The processing part of a lyric analysis just doesn't really work.
So, here is what is starting to percolate in the back of my brain...
I am thinking about using a song - a preferred song suggested by one or more of my clients - and making lyric strips for different parts of the song. Each client or small group of clients gets a couple of lyric strips - enough for an entire verse of the song. It is their job to arrange the strips into a story. (That's how I explain lyric analysis to my clients - every song tells a story of some sort, and it's our job to figure out what the story is and what it means to us.) There is no wrong way to arrange their lyrics - it is their story. Once the lyrics are arranged, the new song is performed for the group to experience and then talk about.
If I got REALLY organized, I could print out the melody lines with these phrases so we could put together new melody lines. Hmmm. Things to think about.
So, what makes this music therapy?
As is, not much, so it is up to me, the music therapist, to change this from a talk therapy strategy accompanied by music into a music therapy experience.
I, as therapist and musician, can work with clients on how they want their music presented. Working on executive function through offering suggestions and examples of what their new lyrics sound like with differing musical elements. We can discuss the ways that changes in our music can change how people think about our music. We can find ways to present our newly arranged music to reinforce specific themes or thoughts. For me, that is the type of thing that moves a TME like this one from something that anyone can do to something that I can do with my unique training, understanding of music and musical elements, and my role as a music therapy professional.
This is going to require some more thought as I try it with my clients. Well, I'm off to think about this a bit more. Happy Tuesday!
So, this idea is influenced by something I saw on Pinterest. The idea was to encourage adolescent girls to take lyrics from a specific song and then make them into a collage with self-esteem images and art journaling. My clients are not really able to fully immerse themselves in the reasons why we would do something like this. Most would be able to complete the concrete parts of this experience, but the deeper thought would be difficult for them to complete. They just don't connect the process with a product or challenge for themselves.
They often have the same difficulty with lyric analysis - I think it's in the personalization of the lyrics where we struggle the most. Many of my clients can use their vocabulary skills to think about what the lyrics mean, but they don't really think about what it means to them. The processing part of a lyric analysis just doesn't really work.
So, here is what is starting to percolate in the back of my brain...
I am thinking about using a song - a preferred song suggested by one or more of my clients - and making lyric strips for different parts of the song. Each client or small group of clients gets a couple of lyric strips - enough for an entire verse of the song. It is their job to arrange the strips into a story. (That's how I explain lyric analysis to my clients - every song tells a story of some sort, and it's our job to figure out what the story is and what it means to us.) There is no wrong way to arrange their lyrics - it is their story. Once the lyrics are arranged, the new song is performed for the group to experience and then talk about.
If I got REALLY organized, I could print out the melody lines with these phrases so we could put together new melody lines. Hmmm. Things to think about.
So, what makes this music therapy?
As is, not much, so it is up to me, the music therapist, to change this from a talk therapy strategy accompanied by music into a music therapy experience.
I, as therapist and musician, can work with clients on how they want their music presented. Working on executive function through offering suggestions and examples of what their new lyrics sound like with differing musical elements. We can discuss the ways that changes in our music can change how people think about our music. We can find ways to present our newly arranged music to reinforce specific themes or thoughts. For me, that is the type of thing that moves a TME like this one from something that anyone can do to something that I can do with my unique training, understanding of music and musical elements, and my role as a music therapy professional.
This is going to require some more thought as I try it with my clients. Well, I'm off to think about this a bit more. Happy Tuesday!
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