Musical Moments with Very Little Musicking

I spent most of yesterday's groups engaged in little to no active music making at all. We listened to preferred music. Clients made their own music with the round bells and the keyboard, and I just listened.

I'm listening lots this week. 

There are sounds that happen all around us, and it is rare that we just listen to what is happening.

In my music therapy space, I can hear things from all over my wing of the building. I can hear clients and teachers in conflict (because that is when voices get raised most often). I can hear people talking in the hallways that surround my room on two sides. I can hear toilets flushing, air systems rumbling, drips from the leak in my room. I can hear the lights buzzing. There are all sorts of things to hear.

When my clients arrive in the music therapy room, there are more things added to the mix of sounds that are around me, and I learn so much about my clients by listening. I hear how they are breathing. I hear their pitch, rate of speech, and enunciation. I pull those things into the music that we create together, echoing and expanding and supporting as I feel these roles are necessary. 

I feel that there are times when I forget to listen as closely as I know I should. It is easy to get caught up in the internal thoughts and the external pressures and forget to actually listen to what others are expressing in both verbal and nonverbal ways.

I know the sounds that most of my clients make when they are happy versus when they are distressed. There are differences between pain sounds and angry sounds, and there are differences between cranky sounds and crisis sounds. When I am listening, I can usually gauge my musical responses to support and then change these different types of sounds as appropriate for the client's situation, goal, and desired outcome of the session. (There are just times when a good cry is needed, don't you think?) I encourage screams and crying and laughter and exuberant sounds that have no word associations in my music therapy space. I try to reflect the sound back to the client in a way that acknowledges the space where it originates - whether that space is positive or negative.

I don't do that as well when I am not listening.

So, yesterday, I listened.

I am not entirely sure what I am going to do today, but there will be some sort of listening on my part. The groups that I see today are more the "we need constant stimulation or we start into behaviors of concern" types than yesterday's groups. They need to be moving and constantly engaged in large group activities rather than sitting and listening. They just do not do well when asked to sit and listen. So, my listening will continue, but their listening will be less intensive than the groups from yesterday. It is my goal to hear what they are trying to tell us...even when there are no words exchanged.

It is time to listen.