Systems in Music Therapy: My Go-To - Color
Now, I know that not everyone can see and perceive colors. So, if you are someone who cannot, please know that there is an alternative to colors. That is patterns. If you cannot see the difference between yellow and blue, then use stripes versus plaid designs in black and white. There is no issue about finding the things that work for you - no one EVER has to do what I do in my systems - the point is to find the things that help you work smarter. For me, that's color and colored patterns (sometimes).
Do you want a deeper dive?
Here's why I use colors as my base system.
Over the many years that I have been a music therapist, I have spent countless hours, words, and ideas about how I want to do things as a music therapist. I take bits and pieces of what I see and what I like about things, and I make them work for me. In my career as a professional music therapist, I have worked with children and adolescents and adults with intellectual and developmental diagnoses, with persons in late-stage dementia, with well older adults, and with adults with both acute and chronic symptomology of psychiatric diagnoses. I have met lots of people over the years who have participated in my music therapy services and sessions, and I have collected lots of stuff over the years. At one point in my life, I spent time as a quasi-itinerant therapist, moving between five buildings and doing music therapy in many different settings with quick changes between sessions and travel time. This is where my color-coding system really became a necessity for me. It is less important to my job at the moment, but I still use the coding system to keep my brain and never-ending parade of stuff organized.
So, what is this system, you might be asking right now? A completely arbitrary way of coding things that has nothing to do with color or anything but consistency. I have always organized my therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) through different clinical domains - motor, academic/cognitive, social/communication, emotional/behavioral, and music. To help me with my color coding, I added holiday into the mix so I would have six colors...can you see where I am going with this?
Now, I chose rainbow colors because I like rainbow colors. If you are not a rainbow type of person, then patterns and other colors into the mix are always appropriate. The point of this type of system is to create a patterned way of thinking about things.
Each of my domains/subject areas (because holiday isn't really a typical treatment focus) has a color. It goes in the order listed above, starting with red, and putting holidays in for orange (because it is not my favorite color, and there are less of those TMEs than the others). Music is purple. If you have ever looked at my Teachers Pay Teachers store, you will see that I use this system for those files as well. You will see lots of purple and yellow covers to my files - most of my created content are for those domains (at least, right now they are...). I also store materials in containers of these colors. Motor sequencing cards are always in the red boxes or binders. You get the idea.
This system has the added benefit of bringing me joy when I look at it. There is something in the rainbow colors that just makes me feel happy - always has, way before there became a greater meaning in those colors. As a person who continually strives to be an ally, the greater meaning, while irrelevant to this particular situation, just strengthens my love of the rainbow.
My clinical space has little touches of rainbow colors everywhere. I love that. Other than just being visually pleasing to me, the color coding system has benefits that save me time and help keep me organized. First of all, I can easily see all the folders that have academic/cognitive skill development or maintenance as their focus because they are all yellow. If there are other domains that are addressed as well, I will add a sticker indicating those domain areas. So, a summer rhythm pattern file might also have a purple sticker and possibly an orange one (if you consider summer a holiday - it's not one for me - I have to work...). Second, I can use the colors to think about well-rounded sessions. A bit of orange, a bit of blue, some green, and finish up with a red and purple deal. Bam! Session strategy covering all domains! Last, I find that this sort of organization system helps me to identify multiple goals for every TME that I write. What are we doing in this particular TME that is motor? What is cognitive? Is there any sort of musical focus that I can extrapolate? Lots of good stuff to think about when you are developing TMEs for general populations of unknown clients - one of my favorite ways to develop TMEs!
Another way I use color is to identify what materials are needed in which sessions. Oo. That's a bit confusing. Let me explain.
During my year and a half of being an itinerant music therapist, I found that it was very easy to get materials mixed up and difficult to find during sessions with rapid changes in between. I was always confused about where two shaker eggs had been left and where to go find my materials. I also had two interns in the mix, and we were all using the same materials in all the same locations but at different times, so keeping track of things just became a nightmare!
My solution? Each of us got boxes. I love scrapbooking materials, so I had plenty of clear, red, and blue scrapbooking boxes at my home that were repurposed for this time in my life. I took the clear ones and each of my interns took one of the colored sets. We had two home bases - two places where our materials were kept. We had checkout systems to help us keep track of who took what when and where. I knew that anything in a clear box was designated for use in my sessions. If something was missing, I knew to look in my session areas only. I didn't have to cover all the ground! It worked out so well.
If I was an itinerant therapist these days, I would continue to use this system of color coding boxes or bags, but instead of using people as the category for color assignment, I would use type of session or type of client population to color code. All the materials for well senior exercise classes would be in blue holders. All the school aged groups' materials would be in yellow, and so on. I would be able to save precious moments grabbing my bags for my seniors without having to rummage through the back of my car to get the things that I wanted to use. I could just load up my bags and be ready!
I guess the reason that I share this as a system so often is that it works for me. It really helps me to keep ideas and materials in a way that helps me figure out what I am going to do with clients. I want other people to find things that will help them as well.
Find your systems and use them. I think this is one of the keys to being a long-lived music therapist - finding things that work and then using them!!
I hope that your Friday is going well, wherever you are at this moment.
Comments
Post a Comment