TME Tuesday: The Effect of Last Minute Strategizing

So...

There was no post yesterday because I couldn't seem to break out of a slump of self-pity and repetitive thoughts about stuff. I decided that my thoughts needed to stay in my own radar and not be shared with the music therapy world. I am in a better space this morning, so here goes another attempt at writing something.

I went to work yesterday without an idea in my mind as to what I was going to do with my clients. This is not an unfamiliar state for me. I often start Mondays without any sort of idea what I am going to do with my clients, but I always come up with something. Sometimes what I come up with works with my students, and sometimes it doesn't.

Yesterday worked.

I sat in my office yesterday, looking through my options. We did some Orff work two weeks ago when I had a full week of sessions. I didn't want to do those instruments again, mainly because my students complain when I repeat things too often. I also established the idea of word rhythms during those group sessions. I brought out the word rhythms again because they are centered around candy, and that's the way to get the attention of almost all of my students - candy.

I adapted the chant, Bubble Gum in a Dish, to Candy, Candy in a Dish. We review the idea of words having rhythms, some of my students sort the candy names into matching patterns, and others set up their candy pictures in order of preference and then we chant the patterns. We do a listen and match experience as well - listen to this pattern and find the match... Ta Ta ti-ti ti-ti Ta. It is always interesting to see how my students process the types of things that other students do without needing explanation - they just understand the concepts because someone tells them it is so. My students don't do that...ever. There always has to be an explanation of why a quarter note gets one beat in 4/4 time and why it doesn't get the same amount of time in 6/8 time. We spend time working with concepts in all sorts of ways to reinforce ideas and to provide more opportunities for understanding. So, we used the candy rhythm cards. We chanted and clapped our rhythms, and then we drummed them for a bit before moving into free drumming to preferred music. We also played a favorite - Doggie, Doggie, Where's Your Bone? For some reason, even my "I'm too cool for everything" students love this game.

The first groups engaged very well with the therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) yesterday. I am hoping that the four groups that I have today will also engage in all the TMEs. Tuesday is my rougher line up of students, so who knows if we will even get into the TMEs that I have planned. I have the ability to change things up based on how my students interact in the session, so I will change my strategy if I need to do so for the benefit of my clients. 

The best part about strategizing this way is that I have some options when it comes to adapting things to meet my clients where they are in the world. If my students are not able to focus on things enough to read candy rhythms, we can start with a crowd pleaser, Doggie, Doggie, If that doesn't work, then I can change the session format completely.

The thing that helps me out the most with this type of session strategy process is my TME database and format. I started this database early (second semester of my freshman year) and have kept it going all this time - many, MANY years! Not everything that I have developed has made it to my database, but lots of things have. I have so many things (songs, games, processes, and all sorts of other ideas in there) that I can review it when I am stuck for ideas and have a plethora of things that I can do right at my fingertips.

If you are interested in my TMEs, check out the label TME Tuesday from a couple of years ago to find examples of how I write my therapeutic music experience plans and to get some of my ideas. You can also search "therapeutic music experiences" for other ideas.