Synthesis Sunday:

It is Sunday again, and I have nothing to synthesize. I basically referred to all of my ideas yesterday when I wrote about the AMTA Symposium. There was a comment that it is more difficult to find virtual presenters these days. I thought about that for a bit. I am part of a team that runs an international online conference, and we have more presentations than we need. I also know that I sent in two virtual presentation proposals for the conference that was cancelled, so I bet there were more people who submitted virtual proposals as well. I digress, though, back into my funk of yesterday. Time to shake myself out of this funk into something a bit more positive and more supportive of music therapy.

The only other topic that I have on my idea board is about pet peeves in music therapy, and I am just not feeling that topic...yet, so I will figure out something else to synthesize.

Time to head to my music therapy bookshelf!! (That's right, I have been able to make a portion of my library into a music therapy section!!) Let's see what grabs my attention today.

Today's foray into the music therapy section of my library (chill - I love being able to say that that extra bedroom is now my library - is there a way to express some poshness here?) ended with one of my current blog post streams - competency-based education and training. I ended up with two books - one a music therapy text by Karen D. Goodman, titled Music Therapy Education and Training: From Theory to Practice, and one a more generic clinical supervision text by Carol A. Falender and Edward P. Shafranske, titled Clinical Supervision: A Competency-Based Approach. I think I will focus my professional reading right now on this topic of education and clinical training within a competency-based view.

Goodman's book includes several chapters that appear relevant upon first glance. I will do full APA citations for these books next Sunday when I have a bit of reading under my belt.

My reading practice looks a bit like this (in an ideal world, it would look EXACTLY like this, but I am less than ideal most of the time, and I embrace that fully). I gather my favorite pens, one of my many books (this one is my MT notes book - it includes all of my professional courses and notes about my readings), and a whole bunch of post-its. I sit down with the books and start to read. I use different types of post-its for different types of notes. Quotations from the texts go on one color, words I need to look up go on a different color, and references for additional reading on another one. I have many different kinds of post-it notes, so I can have as many categories as I want or need when I am reading. I tend to start by writing things on post-its first and then I write them again in the book. I also read until my brain is full. When I reach the point where I can no longer read, I do a quick synthesis of what I am thinking about the information that I have absorbed. I then walk away until the next day.

I am not sure how I will work through these two books yet. They seem to go together pretty well, but we will see once I dive in. I like the idea of reading both of these, especially as I am focused on this topic these days. I will start with a review of the table of contents of both books to see if the titles tie in with one another. In addition, I will work out a reading plan - a sequence for this synthesis Sunday strategy. 

It is time to start my job at church, so I must stop here. I will find my music therapy notes book and start my process later this afternoon.

Thanks for reading. Happy Sunday.