music, therapy, and me

I have an arbitrary rule for myself and my storage space. It is not something that I based on anything other than my tendency to collect things and head towards hoarding, ESPECIALLY with music things, but it has been handy in the 27 years that I've been a professional music therapist. Six things to do before buying/keeping/storing. Simply put, this means that I have to come up with six goals or therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) in which I use the material in order to keep it in my storage space. Since this is my guideline, I strive to make things that can be used in many different ways so I can justify keeping them. Here's how this goes... I see something new, and I start to think - "Can I afford this?" "Do I want it because I just want it?" "Can I think of six things to do with this thing to justify buying it?" The questions start to come fast and furious... What is it? Would it be something I could use in my current music therapy job? (If the ...

It is time to start my summer music therapy reading list. I have a new notebook for taking notes (I filled up the first one!), and I am looking at some more time with my modified work schedule, so I want to do something productive for my professional development. I go to my music therapy bookshelf to find something to read and think about... I think I will start with information from the Neurologic Music Therapy training by Michael Thaut. I took this course a long time ago, but I know that some of the information offered then will still be relevant. I would like to purchase some of the more recent texts that Thaut has produced, but I'm not going to spend the capital at the moment. I will start with the information that I have at hand. My first foray into professional development reading will be the Training Manual for Neurologic Music Therapy. Time to get my supplies ready. Five different types of post-it notes (I have LOTS of cute ones because of my stationery subscriptions). I th...

I h ave a small box that sits on my computer desk that I look around every day. You know, the type of thing that sits there but that you don't really pay attention to all that much? I have had it for many years - it came from a box from Music Therapy Mailings a long, long time ago, and I have used it ever since. I flip to a new quote when I am paying attention to it which is not often. Today, though, it caught my notice, so I flipped to a new card. It is a bit difficult to see, but this quote by Gloria Steinem was the one that I flipped to. It says, "the future depends entirely on what each of us does every day." Hmm. This makes me stop and think a bit about what I do on a regular basis. I work with children and adolescents in a residential and day program for persons with intellectual/developmental diagnoses and chronic psychiatric symptoms. I am not often all that future oriented when it comes to what I do every day, but I do think about where my clients will be going ...

It has happened. I have reached the middle of my break, and I am slipping into my mid-break slump. I woke up today with a headache and a general feeling of "ugh." Nothing seems all that appealing to me right now. Turn on the television? Nah. Get something to eat? Nah. Make a book out of paper? Nah. Write a blog post? Well, I've tried that now three times. Is anything going to stick long enough to be published?? We shall see. I am not motivated to do much of anything. My remedy for when this type of feeling takes over is to fill my environment with things that I love. This morning, I did something that I don't usually do - I reached for my iPod. My iPod is the only iThing that I allow in my home. We have come to an agreement - I will backup and update the thing as long as it keeps my commutes full of tv shows, movies, and podcasts. I have some music on it as well, but I don't usually reach for music to fill my silences. Many times it is just too much for me, so mus...

I have this idea that we are at a crossroads in the profession of music therapy. I've been feeling this way for some time now and have watched as the association has struggled to find leadership, find members, and find a common direction. My feelings are not based on anything other than the thoughts that I get at times and the luxury of being someone who is not part of the association (other than membership) watching the entire picture from the far outside. I think this is part of my current interest in writing futuristic fiction about music therapy. I am thinking about "what ifs" and am making them into some sort of structure - one thing I like is structure. My heroine, Persephone, is just starting her music therapy educational coursework. She has a degree in Music Psychology and has been accepted to one of the four international music therapy education programs in the world. She has come to music therapy how many of us seem to come to the profession - a family membe...

May has flown by, hasn't it? March and April seemed to drag along, but May has just whooshed past me in a blur. I wonder if this indicates that I have become used to my new routine and it is now just what I do rather than something different. Hmm. I am sitting down with my bullet journal to do some planning for the next three months. My performance on my last quarter's goals was abysmal. This past quarter included lots of changes and panic and shifting from one thought to a completely different one in the blink of an eye, so I did not really move forward on many of my goals and objectives. As I look at my progress and my failings, I have to remind myself that global pandemics happen and can change everything. I have done some of the things that I set out to do three months ago. I have maintained my sing about mini edition subscriptions. I have been engaged in being the music therapist as my intern has been in quarantine (facility requirements). I have been saving money and...

It is SO past time for this particular project, so I am taking some time during the next 9 days to review my internship program and adjust some of the requirements, assignments, and timings of things. This project is one that I take on every couple of years and is something important for me as an Internship Director (ID) and as a therapist. This time around, I have LOTS of things to think about as I get ready to welcome intern #30 and intern #31 into my program in the next several months. This recent pandemic has illustrated several things to me as a therapist. First, I think that telehealth is here to stay. I don't think it will ever take over the face-to-face interactions that many of us currently miss right now, but I think it will continue to be a niche of all human interactions from now on. We have found ways to keep doing elements of music therapy through an electronic interface, and there will always be clients who will want this type of interaction over others. So, tele...

Yesterday was my birthday, and I got some new instruments! I tried to post some videos, but they were a bit too big for Blogger to process, so here are some pictures of my new instruments for your perusal!! When I first started my life as a music therapy major, my family members asked me what they could give me that would enrich my training and services for my clients. I told them any sort of music or instrument or recording or sheet music that they could find. They were a bit hesitant to start off with, mainly because they didn't want to give me things that I already had. I was fine with getting duplicates, but they didn't want to do that. So, I gave folks some instructions. "Go to the $3 bin at any store and grab a bunch of random CDs. I will use music from all genres and time periods and styles. Don't spend too much money on this type of music - most of the time, the best music comes from the universe through seemingly random manners." "Head down ...

Today is my last day in my current decade, and tomorrow starts a new decade of living for me. That's right - tomorrow is my birthday, and it is a big one. I have been practicing the thought of this new decade for months now, so the transition isn't as shocking as it was when I turned over the last decade, but I am still a bit awed by the fact that I have lived as long as I have. It doesn't seem possible and seems all too real at the same time.  A new decade. My last decade was marked by severe health-changing events every three years. I'd be happy to give up that pattern for sure! My last decade included a series of changes - some of my doing and some not - in my professional goals and ideas and wishes for myself. My last decade included betrayals by people I thought were my friends but who turned out to just use me, but this decade also included friendships that strengthened into really important relationships for me. I have lost more friends to sickness and deat...

Let's see - when we last left off, Persephone was trying to answer a question about her own use of music for a therapeutic benefit. (Here's an excerpt from the post on May 9, 2020) Second reflection question: Select one song that illustrates your current emotional state. Add your favorite performance of this song to this essay. Describe why you selected this song. Describe why you selected the particular performance. Reflect on the experience of selecting a song. Was it easy or difficult to choose the song or the performance? (Minimum - 500 words; Maximum - 2000 words)  This was difficult to answer. Current emotional state? Should she be honest or pretend that everything was completely positive? To be completely honest, her emotional state was somewhere between complete terror and pure exhilaration. Was there a song that encompassed both of those emotions for her? She set the guitar down and went to her music collection to see what she could find. CHAPTER SI...

I often find myself writing a post titled this at about this time every year. It is almost the end of the regular school year - we have three more days - and I usually start my reflection process a little before all of this stuff happens, but this is not a usual type of year, so I'm a bit late. One of the things that always goes through my head at this point of the school year is how much my teachers must have been happy to see the end of me and my classmates every year. Until I started to work in a school, I did not realize that teachers looked forward to the same things that I looked forward to - the start of school, breaks, the end of every year. Now, my students have a little bit of a different type of situation since we don't really have grades or the end of anything, but I still feel those same feelings of excitement and closure every year that I am a school-based music therapist. This year is a little bit different but only a little bit because I am still working i...