Chicken, Spinach, and Potatoes...and What This Has to Do With Music Therapy
My breakfast is the result of a melding of different tastes, textures, and food groups. It is not a combination that I found in any type of cookbook or recipe site - it is something that I've made up through putting things into my crock pot and seeing what will happen. Now, I tend to do crock pot things this way. I buy some chicken pieces, look in the freezer for the vegetables that I am going to put into a combination (I am not a fan of vegetables on their own, so I have to "trick" myself into eating things like spinach), and then start to play around with broth and sauce and gravy-type elements. This combination ended up including some soup, some Italian dressing seasoning, and some mushrooms.
Now, I also have a bit of difficulty digesting hot things (don't ask - just one of the quirky bits of me!!), so soupy foods are not good for me. However, add a bit of starch (in this case, the potatoes) and I can digest things just fine! So, the potatoes are an add-in to this particular meal, but they make things easier for me.
Are you starting to see how this could work into an analogy about a life of music therapy?
I first heard about music therapy when I was newly 14 years of age. The summer between my eighth and ninth grade years was a pivotal summer for me. I went on my first trip all by myself, to Evansville, Indiana to the University of Evansville for a Girl Scout Wider Opportunity event. I attended this event as a vocalist - it was a two-week fine and performing arts seminar and 103 other high school Girl Scouts gathered for a college-like experience in our specific creative areas. Since the Girl Scouts didn't really think that there were many female trumpet players (my other primary instrument), I went as a vocalist. That fact doesn't really matter except that one of the things that we did as part of our training was attend a variety of lectures about the bigger world of music as a career. One of those lectures was on music education as a career choice.
Now, I was a serious kid back then. I was seriously thinking about college and career plans even before starting high school. I was going back and forth between teaching, music ministry, some sort of therapy (my mom is an Occupational Therapist and I enjoyed her work), and back again to teaching. I figured that I would probably be a music educator because I didn't really know about other options, and I knew that I loved working with people and that music was a huge part of my life. None of my options felt exactly right, but that's what I knew.
(As I reflect back on life, I figure I probably would have ended up out of music education and into special education as a career if I hadn't been in that lecture about music education on that fateful day way, WAY back!)
Back to the lecture day. It was towards the end of the two-week time period, and the lecturer told us things that I already knew about - the course requirements, the options that were available if you got a degree in music education. Nothing really earth shattering until the end.
The lecturer said, "Oh. I almost forgot. We have another department here as well. The professor wasn't able to be here, but she asked me to leave some brochures for you if you are interested. It's called music therapy."
CLICK.
Seriously, that's the sound that my brain made. CLICK. I hurried to the front of the room and took one of those mimeographed brochures like it was the Holy Grail (which, for me, it really was!). I knew at that moment what was to be my destiny. Without knowing anything about music therapy other than the information that was on that brochure, I knew that I was going to be a music therapist. It was perfect, and everything literally clicked into place on that day.
For me, music therapy has always been the perfect blend of the things that I love the most - helping humans get from one place to another, music, problem-solving, continuous learning, and cool tools and instruments! Much like my breakfast, it has many different tastes and textures. I figure that I will be a music therapist until it loses its flavor for me - when things get too bland, I will spice it up until I can no longer tolerate the spice. At that point, it will be time to move to something new. That hasn't happened yet, but that's because I experiment a bit with spicing up my music therapy life.
(See I told you there was a connection between my breakfast and music therapy - at least, in my own brain!)
Music therapy is not something that I consider to be routine. Every interaction with every client is new and quite variable. It amazes me how, much like recipes, you can put in all the different parts (ingredients) in the same way each time but get extremely different types of results. A bit of salty behavior here and the session falls flat, but a bit of salty behavior in a different part of the session leads to a masterpiece of therapeutic breakthrough and growth!
I have now finished my breakfast of chicken, spinach, potatoes, and cheddar cheese (added ingredient at the last moment). It is time to get prepared to move out into the world as a representative of this wonderful profession for the people that are around me.
I don't remember the name of the lecturer who first told me about music therapy, but I am so grateful for her and her off-hand comment that has led me here, to World Music Therapy Day 2019.
Thank you.
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