TME Tuesday: Music as a Therapeutic Element for the Music Therapist

I am not a music therapist who rushes to the car to fill it up with music. I just do not. When I am finished with my job, I am finished with most music. I would rather listen to a television show or a movie than a song of any type.

This is something that gives me some sort of shame - as a music therapist. Should (GOBLIN!) I listen to music all the time? Shouldn't music play a HUGE role in my non-work life? Ah, bring on the goblins. I often spend most of the time trying to avoid placing shame on myself for this particular fact, but that's just something that is part of me.

I love music - I really do, but I do not feel the need to immerse myself in music 24/7. I just don't want to have to spend most of my relaxation time listening to music because I just don't listen. I analyze. 

When I am listening to music, I usually have a part of my brain going through some classification processes. What is the chord structure? Is this song something that my clients would respond to? Does the lyric structure work with some of the goals that my clients bring to me? It is very hard to separate myself from my life as a music therapist.

As a result, I tend to limit my music listening to times when I really need it or when I can listen to songs that have deep personal meaning to me - separate from my experiences with my clients. I just do not find it possible to relax to music.

So, I don't.

I tend to respond better to musical elements that are not pitch-related (well, as much as melody and harmonic structures are linked to pitch). I would rather have the rhythms of speech, the pitch of speech, and the patterns of communication around me. I find the sounds of human conversation more relaxing than music. My brain relaxes into sleep when I put on a familiar television show - it has to be familiar to me, though. New shows are not relaxing - they demand my attention!

I love thinking about how the brain sorts through various stimuli to determine what is the most important. When I am trying to relax, the sounds of speech and conversation and interstitial music to enhance the conversation are something to focus on and to keep my brain occupied as I fall into repose. The familiar sounds help me brain stop ruminating on situations that keep me awake at night. I can switch my attention from thoughts about my family or about work or about my near and faraway futures to listening to the ramblings of entertainment.

That is how I relax.

...and, I am constantly trying to be okay with that fact. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dear AMTA

Dear American Music Therapy Association: I am debating long and hard about remaining in this relationship. I have been in this relationship since college, and this is not a decision that I am taking lightly or without great cost.  I am not happy with what you are bringing to this relationship. Now, I have been a selfish partner over the past several years - mainly because I am not feeling like we share a common mission anymore. It is easy for me to place the blame on you, but I know that this is not all on me. I have tried to be invested in communication and support and understanding, but everyone comes to a time where enough is enough. I am trying very hard to decide if the benefits that you provide to me are worth the feelings that I have about where I think you and I are going. I am not sure that our destination is the same anymore, and this makes me sad. To be completely honest, I am only in this relationship these days for the music therapy interns. I don't think that is a hea...
Read more

Songwriting Sunday: Repetition

Image
One of the things that I find to be helpful with my client population (children, adolescents, and young adults with dual diagnoses) is repetition of phrases, lyrics, and music. As a result of 30+ years of working with this population in various iterations, I have found that my clients respond the most to songs with three repeated phrases to prime their responses with a different phrase to communicate the important part of the experience. DISCLAIMER: This is not a definite way to write music for clinical interactions. This is what seems to work well with my particular group of human beings. Don't go to your supervisors and tell them that I told you that this is the ONLY way to write music - It is NOT! You have to find what works for your clients and for their clinical goals. Since my clients respond well to this type of song, I tend to write songs in this format more than any other. What I have found is that my clients remember these songs more than the ones that I do in different f...
Read more

Being An Internship Director: On Hiatus

Image
It has been long enough since I have had an intern that I am seriously feeling like I have little to say on the subject. At the same time, I am currently writing Chapter 5 of my general internship handbook, so I am able to write about being an intern and what types of things to think about during this important time in our professional development. It is a strange place to be in, and it is one that is a bit challenging for me. Right now, I have had three vacant internship positions since the beginning of the calendar year. I will have a vacant position next month and that will be an entire year of rejected offers. In the past nine months, I have offered positions to three applicants who have declined. It is interesting how people complain that there aren't enough internship programs, but programs like mine are empty. I guess there aren't enough internship programs that pay large stipends (which mine cannot) out there. I get it. It is interesting to me how we have moved from an ...
Read more