TME Tuesday: Revisiting My Six Things Rule

I have a rule or system or whatever that I try really hard to live by in my music therapy life. It has to do with what I can keep in my music therapy spaces. I call it my "six things" rule.

To keep something in my music therapy storage (which is usually pretty full and somewhat disorganized and ever challenging to me), I have to think of six distinctly different things that I can do with it within a music therapy session. If I cannot find six things, then I cannot waste the space on the item or material or device or whatever.

I use this rule when I am creating visuals, when I am shopping and want to get something new, when I am clearing things out of my space. I have been able to put things back that have not sparked these ideas in my brain.

So, what does this have to do with TME Tuesday?

I printed off a series of leprechaun/March themed visuals that I have posted in my Teachers Pay Teacher store. I spent some time cutting them out, laminating them, and brainstorming about what I can do with these visuals in sessions with clients for the month.

I have a series of St. Patrick's Day rhythm words with corresponding rhythms. As I was cutting them out to get them ready to be laminated and then cut out again, I was formulating ways to use the word cards. The original intent was to explore word rhythms using pictures, words, and musical notation to reinforce the concept of musical notation and speech patterns. The file comes with an original chant, so I can use the cards to substitute words into the chant. My clients can choose a card to indicate their choices for the chant. We will not need the rhythm cards for that use, but that's okay. We can do a "find the rhythm" TME where I present a rhythm and my clients have to figure out the pattern of the words. We can do a scavenger hunt using the rhythmic pattern or by using a different song. We can use Orff instruments to layer themed patterns using the words to help us organize. 

That's five ways to use the cards. I just need one more thing. I am not sure how many songs will fit with the words that I selected, but I could make a song list and then choose songs based on selection of pictures. We are focusing on Ireland in our cultural awareness theme this month, so I can start with songs from Ireland for my song list. If I connect the songs to the pictures, then clients can use the pictures to select the songs that they want to hear or sing.

Six things.

As I have said many times, I am a packrat and tend to keep things that I really don't need. This rule helps me to figure out whether I have the space to keep materials. It also ensures that I have options when I take any material or instrument out of my music therapy cabinet to use during a session. I know that I can do at least six different TMEs with anything that is available. So, when I am putting together my session strategies, I take out my six things lists for the materials that I am using. If I run out of TMEs before I run out of session time, I have more TMEs that I can run using the materials that I have out and ready. It just makes sense to me to use things more than in just one way.

Now, I have exceptions to the rule, of course, but I keep working on this challenge for myself.

Six things... 

My lists have taken many names over the years. The one that I use right now is "TME Strategy Sheet." I start with listing the material and then brainstorm goal areas that can be addressed through use of the material. (Now, when I say "material," I mean anything that you use in a session - something tangible, but you can use pieces of music for this type of sheet as well - I just don't bother with that aspect. I use this system for physical things.) Once I figure out possible goal or objective foci, then I list all the TMEs that I have developed that can address these goals with the specific material. This way, I can match materials to client goals and areas of focus along with specific ways to use those materials in sessions.

There you go.

I have to figure out some more ways to use my current visuals that are waiting to be cut out and used with clients. I have some leprechaun puzzles to cut out and brainstorm about. I think we will do a Hot and Cold game with puzzle pieces. We will add words to the pieces and then arrange them into a song. We could also do a lyric scramble. Ideas are starting to flow a bit. I need to write them down...