TME Tuesday: A Brand New Idea - Still In Development - Improvisation
I was sitting in the hallway yesterday, doing my early morning hallway duty, and staring at my session strategy sheet trying to figure out what I was going to do with my clients this week. I had only one idea, and it certainly wouldn't take up an entire session, so I needed some other ideas.
I understand the situation here - my post from yesterday included a brief tangent into my views of session planning being just a starting point - but yesterday I didn't really even have much of a starting point for my session plans for this week. So, I sat.
While I was sitting there, I had a spark. Why not improvise? It's silly that I have to plan my improvisations sometimes. Many times, I don't plan my improvisations, but yesterday, I felt the need to plan the improvisation. I decided that I was going to pass out a variety of pictures and we were going to make up a song on the spot. I framed it as a "silly song," and it went pretty well.
The clients that I am using this idea with come from four classrooms. They range in age from 6 years to 20 years. They have differing levels of communication skills, but most of them do not communicate verbally. They attend large group music therapy sessions and are often crammed into my music therapy room with limited space to move. There are a couple of outlying clients who really don't belong in those classrooms, but that's their educational placement, so I have to work with the group I've got, not the one I want. Most of the students have been attending music therapy group sessions for a long time. There is one student (out of 42) that I haven't met yet, but all the rest I have treated before for varying amounts of time.
What I like about planning improvisation time is that I can decide what elements will be improvised and what elements will be planned. In this case, I decided to use pitch and rhythmic structure as planned elements. I chose the key of D - my home key - and a rock format. I adjusted the lyrics, melody, harmony, tempo, and style based on information that my clients gave to me. Kids took a pretty passive role in this TME. It was their job to hold up pictures that they wanted me to include in the song. Some of them also sang bits and pieces of the song, adding to the improvisation. All vocalizations were included into our musical piece.
It was fun. Our song stories included dinosaurs, bumble bees, lightning storms, butterflies, tennis rackets, and lots of other things. As we do this more, I believe that my clients will get more interested in what is happening and will add more and more, taking the job away from me and making the improvisation their own. I had three who were starting to be the musickers yesterday. They were starting to take away the power of being the primary music maker away from me. That's what I want. I want them to put me out of a job.
Next time I try this (later this morning), I am going to do the same thing that I did yesterday. I want to see how all of my similar clients respond and react to this idea. Then, I will know how to further develop this idea into a therapeutic music experience (TME).
I understand the situation here - my post from yesterday included a brief tangent into my views of session planning being just a starting point - but yesterday I didn't really even have much of a starting point for my session plans for this week. So, I sat.
While I was sitting there, I had a spark. Why not improvise? It's silly that I have to plan my improvisations sometimes. Many times, I don't plan my improvisations, but yesterday, I felt the need to plan the improvisation. I decided that I was going to pass out a variety of pictures and we were going to make up a song on the spot. I framed it as a "silly song," and it went pretty well.
The clients that I am using this idea with come from four classrooms. They range in age from 6 years to 20 years. They have differing levels of communication skills, but most of them do not communicate verbally. They attend large group music therapy sessions and are often crammed into my music therapy room with limited space to move. There are a couple of outlying clients who really don't belong in those classrooms, but that's their educational placement, so I have to work with the group I've got, not the one I want. Most of the students have been attending music therapy group sessions for a long time. There is one student (out of 42) that I haven't met yet, but all the rest I have treated before for varying amounts of time.
What I like about planning improvisation time is that I can decide what elements will be improvised and what elements will be planned. In this case, I decided to use pitch and rhythmic structure as planned elements. I chose the key of D - my home key - and a rock format. I adjusted the lyrics, melody, harmony, tempo, and style based on information that my clients gave to me. Kids took a pretty passive role in this TME. It was their job to hold up pictures that they wanted me to include in the song. Some of them also sang bits and pieces of the song, adding to the improvisation. All vocalizations were included into our musical piece.
It was fun. Our song stories included dinosaurs, bumble bees, lightning storms, butterflies, tennis rackets, and lots of other things. As we do this more, I believe that my clients will get more interested in what is happening and will add more and more, taking the job away from me and making the improvisation their own. I had three who were starting to be the musickers yesterday. They were starting to take away the power of being the primary music maker away from me. That's what I want. I want them to put me out of a job.
Next time I try this (later this morning), I am going to do the same thing that I did yesterday. I want to see how all of my similar clients respond and react to this idea. Then, I will know how to further develop this idea into a therapeutic music experience (TME).
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