Music Therapy Moments This Week

I had a couple of music therapy moments this week.

You know the ones - those moments when you feel that everything is happening and therapy is going on. You and the client are interacting within and with the music, and things are just going well.

The one that is the strongest for me right now happened yesterday.

We are currently getting a multigenerational choir ready to perform at our annual benefactor event. About 10 of my adolescent students are rehearsing with about 10-15 of the adult consumers that are served by the facility. They all arrive at the music therapy room to rehearse on Friday afternoons (during my preparation/planning time). This year's song is Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones. It's not a song that anyone knew before the first rehearsal, but the words are not really all that comprehensible, so we are kinda doing our own thing.

Over the years of working with these adults and with my kids, I know a couple of things. First of all, it is easier to sing a song that we kinda know already. Second, if we don't know it to begin with, adding movements to cue the lyrics helps with memory recall. Third, we will never be perfect, and THAT'S BETTER THAN OKAY!

Anyway, yesterday we started to learn more of the movements for our song. We had already established movements for "start me up" and "you make a grown man cry," but there are some more phrases that lend themselves to some sort of movement. One of my clients had a pouting fit because another one of my clients was teaching movements, but everyone else was getting into the performance part of things.

We finished the first song, and the fire alarm went off. We all went outside to shiver in the cold until we were released and allowed back into the building.

The common experience of shivering seemed to bring us as a group more closely together. The next time we sang together, things seemed to be easier and more relaxed. I could see some specific benefits to the experience we all shared. The song was running itself, so I had the opportunity of moving from "leader" to "group member."

Try to find those little music therapy moments in your sessions during the week. They happen. Sometimes they happen often, other times it takes a while in order to get to a new moment. When they happen, though, they are wonderful.

Find a moment.