music, therapy, and me

It is Monday. I was going to start this post with a title that included the word "exhaustion," but that's really the theme of life at the moment, so I decided not to focus on feeling tired and on getting ready for this week. This is the busiest week of my year, everyone. It is Online Conference for Music Therapy week, so my life will be taken over by last minute registration questions, trying to keep myself from losing it when other people make demands on my time and my process, and combating the stress that comes from having to do my parts of the conference. It is a difficult time for all of us who run the conference - anyone who tells you that running a conference is easy is seriously lying to you! I get very frustrated by the people who "forget" to register and then complain when they do not get information. I get very frustrated by those who seem to think that rules and deadlines are not meant for them. I tend to get very frustrated by those who do not read ...

I finished the book I was reading and synthesizing this week, and I am getting ready to read it again - not because it was difficult, but because I feel like I can really get my teeth into it through reading it with less demand placed on myself. It is time to get back into the idea that music has meaning to me more than just what I can do with it during sessions with clients. That may sound a bit strange coming from a person who is a music therapist, but I find that my own personal music consumption is low. I've written about this before - I tend to go towards television or movies rather than music listening for my leisure time. I listen to people speaking instead of listening to music during my commutes to and from my jobs. I prefer television shows and movies instead of my playlists. I miss music as something that I just immerse myself in as deep as possible. The book, Wellness, Wellplayed. The Power of a Playlist , by Jennifer Buchanan, is helping me figure out what is missing. ...

My current organizational process is going through some changes as I try my best to corral all of my visual aids into some sort of system. I have (mostly) completed an inventory of what visuals are at work right now, I started an Excel copy of the inventory, and I bought some hanging file folders to fit inside my storage boxes. I am making progress. I am currently trying to make a decision about how to store things in my system. I know I am going to use file folders and hanging folders in my document boxes, but I am stuck on the categorization of everything. Do I go with putting things together based on what they are? So, labels like "folders, die-cuts, games, and tools." Or do I put them in themes? "Animals." "Music Composition." There is no wrong answer to the outside world, but I want to find something that works well for me. I currently like the idea of themes, but I have lots of things that do not fit in a theme, so that might get bulky. So, do I do a...

Rant. I was perfectly fine this morning. I really was. I took a couple more minutes of being in bed this morning. I took a shower and then came down to find a spate of messages that passively blamed me for technological issues that are happening in a particular group. I was named as the reason for not changing things to avoid some of these issues. No one else was named in the message line, and it really tromped up, down, and sideways on my feelings. Now, I am a grown up and I know that I do not have to relate to things in this particular manner, but this happens every year at this time and it is always the worst timing because I am very busy right now - more busy than others in this particular group. Interestingly, when things calm down for me, these same folks have no interest in changing things up. I refuse to participate in the conversations concerning technology because I always feel that I am the one who gets blamed, so I refuse to make the decision. I am not a fan of waffling and...

I was offered an interesting opportunity recently that has made me start to think a bit about our Board Certification examination. No details about the opportunity, but I am thinking again... Before I get too far into this particular topic, let me tell you a bit about myself and where I come from as a board certified music therapist. I took the examination in November 1993. In those days, back in the last century, the test was administered once per year. You had to go to the closest examination center where you sat in a room full of people taking all sorts of certification tests. There weren't many music therapists in the large auditorium that my test was held, but all of the seats were full of people taking all sorts of tests. I am a fast test taker, and I finished my test in 20 minutes. I was terrified that I had failed because it did not take me any time at all to finish, but I passed. I have no idea if I passed well, but I passed and that is all that matters for this examinatio...

Flashback to the CD burning days of my career, and you can see a project that my clients completed quite often. In 2014, I finally wrote it down and made it a bit more formal. These days, folks don't burn CDs as often, but you could certainly translate this into a playlist experience instead of making a CD booklet - I liked the use of the cover art to pull together the concept of presentation of music. This TME Tuesday post is very much inspired by my reading of Wellness, Wellplayed The Power of a Playlist!! by Jennifer Buchanan. If you haven't read this yet, then go get it. I will do more of my synthesis on Sunday, but I am looking forward to reading it again and using the ideas contained to focus my own music listening again. Hey, if you are interested in more TMEs like the one presented below, consider signing up for my sing about mini subscription . Only $9.00/month USD for 4-6 TMEs and supplemental materials delivered to your email box on the fifth of every month! You ca...