Diving Into the CD Stash

Am I the only music therapist in the world who still has books upon books of CDs? I hope not. I hope that many therapists still have CDs and make CDs of legally purchased albums to use with clients.

I broke my Spotify computer last week, so we have been exploring the CD library that I have at work. I keep CDs there for the days when I am gone and clients still want music to listen to in their session time. Since the computer is broken, I am using old music in my sessions with my clients, and it has been an interesting exercise.

Usually, listening to preferred music is a reward for completing "work" in my sessions. I work with adolescents, and they tolerate my singing their preferred music, but they state over and over again that they prefer the original artists' versions of songs. Rather than taking this personally, I agree with them. While I enjoy singing songs by various performers, I think that those performers do a better job of singing (and I like their arrangements) than I do with my guitar. So, recorded music has a place in my music therapy space.

I used the CDs as a TME this week. We spoke about CDs and how they worked. We looked through the CDs that I have in my space all the time, and we listened to some of the CDs that I made back in the early 2000's. We spoke about music trends and then compared ages to the recording dates of the CDs (many of my clients were infants and toddlers in 2008 - if they were born at all!). We explored some of the music and found things that we know and lots of music that we do not know.

While all of this exploration was happening, I learned a bit about myself.

First of all, I like having a system of CD storage that my clients do not understand. There are reasons why certain CDs are stored where they are with their companion CDs. My clients are not as picky about where things are stored as I am. I may just have to give up when it comes to my current storage expectations. Sigh. It will be easier to live with the circumstances if I just release my need for organization than if I hold onto them and try to force 90+ clients to do things my way!

Second, my clients are not always interested in mystery. Many of my CDs have a title but no other information printed on them. They often just choose something just to choose something and are not as interested about what they are going to hear. I am interested in hearing everything, and I like to solve mysteries.

Third, I have to get going on ripping my music into my iTunes account so I can use the music that I have collected over the years in my clinical work.

Fourth, until my computer is replaced, I will need to be more purposeful with my music use in our sessions.

Technology is wonderful until it doesn't work.

Oh well. Until I can access streaming again, CDs will have to do.