Thoughtful Thursday: It's Time, My Friends, to Share Your Life with Others


My typical view of the Conference
You may not know this, but I am one of the founding members of the Online Conference for Music Therapy, Inc. I am also the Continuing Education Coordinator and the Treasurer, so you can rest assured that this is a passion project of mine. I've been involved in this organization since its inception, and I've been part of eight wonderful, interesting, stimulating, and challenging conferences.

The first weekend in February is one of the best and most grueling weekends of my year, but it is so worth it!

I hope that this post will encourage you to do two things. (My business course is teaching me all about persuasive speech to close a deal - here's one of my first tries!) I hope that you will reserve the first full weekend of February (the conference starts on January 31 for us North American-types) to attend the conference. You can earn CMTEs for attending, and you do not have to attend the entire 24-hour conference on that day/night. You get access to recordings for a month after the conference!

This conference is a time to hear what music therapists in other parts of the world experience. It fascinates me to hear about what colleagues in Korea or India or Greece or South Africa or France or Brazil are doing as part of their music therapy experience. 

The second thing that I would like to encourage you to do is to propose a presentation.

There are about three days left for our call for presentations, and I want to know what your music therapy experience includes. What does a day in your music therapy life look like?

Now, I know what is going through some of your heads... Why would anyone be interested in what I do? I'm not qualified to talk about anything. Present to other music therapists, I can't get in front of a group of people!! What, presenting on a computer - I need immediate feedback! Guess what? We have figured out how to answer all these questions!

The response to the first thought - Why would anyone be interested in what I do? - is simple to me. I am an isolated music therapist. There is no one other than me at my facility (except for my interns). I want to know what our similarities are and what our differences are, and there is no way for me to know, except if you tell me!

Second - you are the most qualified person to talk about you and your clients. 

Third. You don't have to get in front of a group of people in this conference. You present while looking at your computer screen. We can even show you how to block out all participants, if that's what you want, but (fourth) if you want more immediate feedback, we can arrange things on the conference platform to get you that feedback as well.

My computer's view of me during the conference
We offer our presenters free registration (but they do have to pay a discounted rate for CMTEs), training sessions, full moderation during the conference, and both presentation and electronic support.

If you've ever wondered if you would enjoy presenting, consider trying this out! Here's the link to the conference website. 

If you have a presentation topic that is ready, then just pop it into the Call for Presentations form, and we'll be starting our blind review process in just a bit. We would love to hear what interests you, and we definitely want you to come to our conference to see what interests music therapists from around the world!

Here's the link, just one more time!!

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