TME Tuesday - A Bit Different From Before, But Returning to My Feed...

For many years, I released a therapeutic music experience (TME) every Tuesday. I have many different original songs and adaptations to offer to anyone and everyone who finds my blog. (If you are interested in this, please feel free to search this blog using the terms, "TME Tuesday" and "therapeutic music experiences," to find this series of posts.

I then had a bit of an existential crisis.

I got caught in a philosophical loop that included some advocacy concerns and a bit of disgust with some folks in the community who just expect that they should get my hard work without compensating me for my time and effort. I went around and around and around with thoughts about letting everyone and anyone access my music therapy ideas and original compositions. If someone takes one of my therapeutic music experiences and then uses it, that person may say that what they are doing is "music therapy," even if they do not have the appropriate education, certification, or title. That's a problem for me. Also, I spend lots of time writing songs, making visual aids, and writing TME plans for use in my clinic. I started to realize that my time and intellectual property is valuable to me, so I stopped offering my full ideas for free.

Oh, cue feelings of guilt! Why do I put myself through these things?? There is NOTHING wrong about wanting to be paid for my time and effort, and I make sure to offer my products to music therapists for low prices...very low prices. The guilt continues to churn.

I want to find a medium place between giving my things away for free and charging music therapists for my work. I want to find a way to ensure that the people who use my TME ideas are music therapists or music therapy students. I have not figured out how to do the last bit of this, but I'm working on it.

So, here is my new (and improved) TME Tuesday post...

As you know, I am trying to figure out ways to refresh my therapeutic music experience repertoire. I've been writing about this for quite some time now (if you want to read more, search "NTM" TME challenge for posts). I took a week off from work last week due to an illness, so my first day back was yesterday. I didn't really intend to find a "New to Me" therapeutic music experience (TME), but I did do some things that I haven't done before.

We started with a general instrument play TME idea. We did a modified version of my Play/Pass TME. The group seemed to be finished with the instrument play with about 7 minutes left in the group time. I felt that something with movement would be a good call for the group of clients that I had in front of me, so I started to improvise. I sang about a color and asked group members to walk around the room, pointing to objects of that color. The song was simple, but the TME was effective. I was able to see who demonstrated the concept of color recognition and who did not for any number of reasons. I was able to wander around the room as well, interacting with each client for a short period of time. We then got into our line without sitting down and transitioned to the next thing on their schedule. It worked really well with the first group.

The other groups that I led yesterday were not as successful. One group of kids ran around for 20 minutes and I bored my adolescents into stupors. It was not my best day of therapizing, but I made it through and I didn't have to get any sort of outside help. I have some work in front of me to train my co-workers to engage with clients the way I want them to engage rather than the way they are engaging (see the reference to the 20 minutes up there), and I'll be getting onto that in the next session - which is tomorrow.

I'll be writing up my "Colors Around the Room" song this week. I'll announce when I have finished it, and I'll let you know where you can get the TME plan (if that's what you want, and you have about $2.00 to spend). 

I'm not sure what today will bring, but I'll try the "Colors Around the Room" TME again. It will no longer be "NTM," but it will be new to my clients, and it may lead into more new ideas for me. I also have lots of books of songs that others have developed, so I can use those resources to refresh my repertoire and keep moving forward.

Thanks for reading. Let me know if you would like a copy of the TME, and I'll make sure that you get information about how to purchase it!

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