A Professional Day - Time to Get Ready for Conference

Today will be a day of conference preparation and continuing education thoughts and work. I had originally arranged for this day off significantly before all this happened, and I decided to continue to take this day as a preparation day yesterday when I realized that I had lots to do to get myself ready for conference. Most of what I will be doing on this day involves continuing education in one form or another, so I think it definitely falls under the category of professional development.

If you haven't heard yet, the AMTA national conference is going to be online this year. I am actually pretty excited about this. Nothing will change the excitement of being completely surrounded by living, breathing music therapists, but AMTA is FINALLY joining The Online Conference for Music Therapy, inc. in the 21st century! Welcome!!

I am going to spend some time sending in presentation proposals to AMTA today. I have a couple of ideas (finally) rattling around my brain that I can easily adapt to an online audience. I was a bit hesitant about going to Atlantic City this year, but since we are now going to be online, I have no qualms about sharing my thoughts and expertise with others now. Also, my former idea block seems to be opening up and ideas are coming again. I'm a bit relieved by the return of ideas. I haven't had any sort of interest in presenting to music therapists in the past year, which is extremely unusual for me.

Anyway, I have very little on my formal to-do list today other than to brainstorm ideas, develop learning objectives, and be completely immersed in music therapy thoughts and processes. I'm looking forward to it.

Since this day is reserved for professional development, I am going to get to it! "See" you tomorrow.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dear AMTA

Dear American Music Therapy Association: I am debating long and hard about remaining in this relationship. I have been in this relationship since college, and this is not a decision that I am taking lightly or without great cost.  I am not happy with what you are bringing to this relationship. Now, I have been a selfish partner over the past several years - mainly because I am not feeling like we share a common mission anymore. It is easy for me to place the blame on you, but I know that this is not all on me. I have tried to be invested in communication and support and understanding, but everyone comes to a time where enough is enough. I am trying very hard to decide if the benefits that you provide to me are worth the feelings that I have about where I think you and I are going. I am not sure that our destination is the same anymore, and this makes me sad. To be completely honest, I am only in this relationship these days for the music therapy interns. I don't think that is a hea...
Read more

Songwriting Sunday: Repetition

Image
One of the things that I find to be helpful with my client population (children, adolescents, and young adults with dual diagnoses) is repetition of phrases, lyrics, and music. As a result of 30+ years of working with this population in various iterations, I have found that my clients respond the most to songs with three repeated phrases to prime their responses with a different phrase to communicate the important part of the experience. DISCLAIMER: This is not a definite way to write music for clinical interactions. This is what seems to work well with my particular group of human beings. Don't go to your supervisors and tell them that I told you that this is the ONLY way to write music - It is NOT! You have to find what works for your clients and for their clinical goals. Since my clients respond well to this type of song, I tend to write songs in this format more than any other. What I have found is that my clients remember these songs more than the ones that I do in different f...
Read more

Being An Internship Director: On Hiatus

Image
It has been long enough since I have had an intern that I am seriously feeling like I have little to say on the subject. At the same time, I am currently writing Chapter 5 of my general internship handbook, so I am able to write about being an intern and what types of things to think about during this important time in our professional development. It is a strange place to be in, and it is one that is a bit challenging for me. Right now, I have had three vacant internship positions since the beginning of the calendar year. I will have a vacant position next month and that will be an entire year of rejected offers. In the past nine months, I have offered positions to three applicants who have declined. It is interesting how people complain that there aren't enough internship programs, but programs like mine are empty. I guess there aren't enough internship programs that pay large stipends (which mine cannot) out there. I get it. It is interesting to me how we have moved from an ...
Read more