Song Conversion Sunday: How This Fits in with My "NTM" TME Challenge

As you know, if you've been reading my blog over the past two weeks, I'm currently challenging myself to use a "new to me" therapeutic music experience with my clients every day. I'm doing pretty well with this challenge - I've done seven out of eight possibilities. I'm shooting for four out of four this week, and I figure that this particular post series can contribute to my other challenge. Might as well combine things into one outcome, right?? Better use of systems - am I right??

So, the way I've been doing this particular post series lately is that I've been shuffling my iTunes account to see what pops up. Now, I have over 20K songs on my iTunes account, so there is lots of variety to what is stored on my computer and on the cloud. The selections that have come up have spurred some creativity, lots of thought about cultural appropriation (Cultural Considerations is coming back, I promise! - I'm not finished with that particular thought pattern yet), and a couple of therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) that I've used with my clients. Most of the music that has come up has not really found its way into my clinical setting yet, but that's okay. There is plenty more music in the world than I will ever be able to use in my music therapy sessions. For me, the benefit to this particular series is to spur on my creativity and, hopefully, increase my therapeutic effectiveness for my clients. 

So, here's the TME/song conversion system that I use, including the rationale for why I take time to do this entire process for my TME development. It makes sense to me, but I know that it won't make sense to others. That's okay. You can certainly do what works best for you - please let me know what that is so I can enrich my understanding of how others work...

Song Conversion 

 Purpose:  To illustrate the therapeutic options available to me as a music therapist for specific pieces of music; to become familiar with diverse pieces of music for client use; to assist me in learning music in a quick manner; to use the materials already available to me in therapy

Process: 
  1. Open up iTunes.
  2. Set up Controls to Shuffle - On - Songs
  3. Press Play
  4. Listen to the song
  5. Note name of song, album where it was originally included, and information about performer, composer, date of recording, and other relevant information
  6. Check search engine for information about sheet music, lyrics, other information not present in iTunes database.
  7. Note all websites used in research
  8. Open up Song Conversion Sunday file in Inspiration (my absolutely indispensable graphic organizing program!)
  9. Listen to the song, noting various elements of the music - melody, harmony, pitch, timbre, etc.
  10. Write any information in to Song Conversion Sunday file - rename file to indicate specific song
  11. Determine whether song is appropriate for use for current clients - if not, develop generic TME for publication. If so, develop specific TME for clients and use TME in sessions


This system of random selection and then thinking helps me keep interested in what I am doing with my clients. Often, the music that comes up doesn't have much clinical relevance to my population, but it does make me think a bit more about what is relevant to my clients. I don't also do this just to get things to do with my clients, I do this to keep my music therapy brain working. I find that I have to challenge myself to think about things that are not always based on what my clients are doing in order to stay out of my ruts!

This system of working through the materials that are available to me helps me figure out TMEs for my current client population. It also makes me listen to music in my collection that I may not otherwise access. I find that the benefits far outweigh the amount of work that has to happen to get something accomplished, and it really does make a difference to my outlook about my job and my place in this profession.

There you go!

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