TME Tuesday: Always Remember, We are Rooted in Tempo and Rhythm

I love creating therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) that have wonderful visual aids, sophisticated rhythms, and clever lyrics. I spend lots of time coming up with TMEs for all sorts of clients and therapeutic goals.

The point of today's post, though, is that those things are not essential to any thing that I do in the music therapy session with any and all of my clients.

I tend to get over-focused on my cute visuals and making things to look at and to help my clients understand what we are doing, and I lose sight of what my clients really need to regulate their bodies and prepare themselves for human interaction. (I'll tell you, cute visuals are NOT what I've found to be the most needed part of all of this...)

Most of the time, what my clients need is a focus on tempo and rhythm, and of those two, I've always found tempo to be more important than rhythm.

When what I am trying to do is ineffective during a session, I focus on how I am using tempo and rhythm with my clients. Am I just making tempo decisions based on my needs? If so, then it will probably not be as effective in engaging my client as if I based my tempo on actions that my clients demonstrate to me. I can still use my visuals and my sophisticated rhythms and clever lyrics, but I have to present them at a tempo that is relevant to my client in the moment.

(By the way, this is how I interpret the Iso principle - a term and foundation for music therapy that was coined by Altschuler - here's a link to more information, - thank you, Central Ohio Music Therapy, LLC, for the blogpost!!) 

I find that there are many ways to use this particular concept and element of music therapy. There are times when I start with a faster tempo and then slow it down over the course of a TME or an entire session. There are times when I maintain a steady tempo throughout the session. There are other times when I vary the tempi presented due to different areas of need.

One of my favorite and simplest TMEs to help my clients center into music and to help me find that almost magic tempo for a group of individuals is Play and Pass.

This is not an idea that is unique to me. In fact, I took a typical music therapy experience and wrote up a procedure to play and pass with my cues to assess various elements during the TME itself so I can note specific tempi where clients appear to be coordinated and paying attention.

The premise is simple - first we play, and then we pass. Easy right? To increase executive function and social interaction opportunities, we add to the basic premise. I have clients choose multiples of four for amount of time that we play and the amount of time that we pass. So, my clients might choose four beats to play and sixteen beats to pass. We start our entrained playing and passing with an audible count. After we pass instruments all around the circle, we stop to reflect. Were we able to complete the task of passing in sixteen beats? Was four beats enough to play? Should we change elements - the number of beats for each action or the tempo of the foundation beat. Oh - I forgot to tell you about the foundation beat. We always have a foundation beat going on in the background - I use my Casio keyboard to maintain a steady pattern. This allows me to have a consistent tempo and to change that tempo as deemed necessary by my clients.

With clients who do not engage as much in executive function, I make decisions while looking for entrainment from the group members. I tend to focus more on tempo while observing whether my clients are able to pass instruments successfully and safely during the time provided. Where do we click into a set pattern? Are there instruments that are more difficult to give up when it is time? Lots of handy information comes out of this TME when I am looking for insights into how my clients react to music.

Let me know if you use a version of this TME. I'm interested what you assess and how you run the TME with clients.

Off to a stormy graduation ceremony this morning - four more days before break!! Huzzah!!