music, therapy, and me

I just received one acceptance and one rejection for the World Congress for Music Therapy that will be held in Vancouver. British Columbia next July. I am a bit disappointed that I didn't get both ideas accepted, but I am happy to be leading the one that was accepted! I am happy to be a workshop presenter with an audience of music therapists from around the world. My last World Congress for Music Therapy was in Brisbane, Australia in 2005. I gave a workshop there as well. My sister invited herself along on the trip (after not inviting me, but going with her best friend to Hawaii the year before - yep, still holding onto THAT one, sis!), and we spent two weeks in Australia together. We took advantage of a trip package that was offered by the conference coordinators and went to both Brisbane for the conference and Sydney for purely touristy reasons. It was mostly a good vacation, but hormones arrived and complicated the end of our vacation. (I did get to go to Hawaii with my sister ...

It's time for me to get ready to vote. I am taking advantage of early voting this morning and casting my ballot for what I think about the people who want to run my state and represent me in the federal government. I know that my vote counts little in a state where my views are usually in the minority, but I still feel like I have to participate. I believe fully that you cannot complain about our elected representatives if you do not participate in the process. Once that vote is cast, then feel free to complain away, but don't complain if you refuse to be part of our election process. There you go. That's my opinion. There's so much to consider this time around - things that will affect me directly and things that will not but will significantly affect others. All I can do is cast my vote and hope that other people will turn out and cast their own ballots. I am not picky about how other people vote, as long as they vote. The will of the people is the important part of t...

My prime thinking and working time is from about 4am until about 10am. This is the time where my body is refreshed and my mind can focus on all sorts of things that I get a bit tired of doing later in the day. As a result, I try to use the mornings to do most of my deep thinking. I find it much easier to establish routines in the morning than I do in the afternoons and evenings. Today's topic is my work morning routine = because I have an effective morning routine. My afternoon routine tends to be a bit less refined, so you get to hear about the mornings. My day starts when I walk into the music therapy room. I start off by turning on the lights. Usually, the first bank of lights is on (they are motion-sensing lights, so the lights themselves aren't on, but the switch is), so I turn on the lights that do not have the sensor attached. I then open up my office space. My office space is a mess. It always is a mess because I tend to need lots of things around me. I tend to ignore t...

Yesterday, I did not publish the post that I wrote. It started off as a mournful glimpse into my exhaustion about being sick and then went into some "poor me" talk. I finished writing and then ended up going to work to have a pretty good day. I am still absolutely exhausted and sick (allergies, by the by - I took a test), but it was still a pretty good day. It was the first day where I wasn't physically attacked by a client this week, so I felt pretty accomplished. Today, though, is going to be a day where I have to take some personal time in order to get a dishwasher fixed. I am sitting in my office, waiting for the guy to call and schedule the two hour window so I will know if this is a full day off or a partial day off. I arranged things with my supervisor and the teacher who is affected by my absence, so I am ready, just in case. Is it wrong that I am hoping that the guy won't be available to come to my house until the middle of the day? I am both looking forward ...

This is my first full week back in the clinic as therapist for some of the group sessions that we offer as a "specials" department in my facility. Last week was a partial week due to fall break, so we had Monday off. I was running my groups last week, but it didn't feel quite real to me since we only had four days instead of five. I know, silly to feel that way, but I own it. It's the way I feel when I have Mondays off. I prefer Fridays off. Anyway, I digress... One of the things that I try to do every week (that I am leading session, that is) is to write out a couple of ideas to run during my sessions. These fit on a small piece of paper or, you guessed it, a super-sticky post-it note, and they serve as a prompt for ideas. Right now, my post-it has some ideas on it about a skeleton song that one of my former interns wrote, a loud/quiet song, and rhythmic engagement as a prompt to remind me of options of things to do with all of my students. I do not follow formal ses...

There are so many things that are part of running an internship program that you have to figure out as you are going along. More than anything else, the recent global pandemic showed us that we could adapt and figure out things that we thought were beyond our capabilities. Due to COVID, I have a bunch of assignments that go into effect if we have another situation that we have to adapt to. In the past nine years, I have had three personal surgeries that required long times at home for recuperation. Two of those three surgeries happened when I did not have interns. The other was an emergency, so I started my addition of projects that are competency-based as well as relevant to the clients and to the intern's growth back then. The ideas that I started out with for that emergency surgery recovery became essential in 2020 when my intern was not allowed to be on campus for a period of time. The point is, you never know when you may have to be away from your internship for a period of ti...

Yep, you guessed it, I didn't get any reading done this week for many different reasons, but I did do lots of thinking on the topic of my books - competency-based clinical training in the world of music therapy. I was privileged to present on this topic yesterday at the Student, Intern, Supervisor Conference (SISC) hosted by the Music Therapy Association of Ontario, and this has renewed my interest in this topic as a structure and system for music therapy interns and internship supervisors. So, I am on a quest to talk to as many music therapists about this topic as possible in the next year. Here are the things that I like about Competency-Based Clinical Training: All required skills are identified BEFORE an intern starts their internship. Interns get a copy of these skills when they enter the internship program so they know what is expected in order to graduate. All skills are considered pass/fail. If an intern is completely unable to do the skills, then it is time for more teachi...

It is early on Saturday morning, and I am sitting at the computer, preparing to present on something that I absolutely love to talk about. You know it. Competency-Based Clinical Training! I am getting my Dropbox links ready and reviewing my Powerpoint and my reference list and coordinating my outline. I am looking forward to presenting and to watching the rest of the conference. This is the first hybrid conference that I have attended, so I am curious to see how it all works. The good news is that I can justify this time for CMTEs, if I need it. I am really looking forward to this opportunity to talk to music therapists. It's been a long time since I have spoken to new music therapists. At the moment, I am printing out the final presentation to use for my own discussion and practice in the next three hours and forty-five minutes. I will use some of that time to organize the view behind me as well as to declutter my desk a bit. Once I finish up here, I have to switch to another Goog...

I am sorry about my lack of writing lately. My body has been insisting on sleep rather than thinking, and my eyes aren't uncrossing until later and later due to the increase of allergy medication that I am having to take because of harvest in this area. For some reason, I get sick every time we harvest corn and soy beans around here. I don't know if it is the dust or the foliage being cut that stirs up things that make me sick, but I can pretty much plan on getting bronchitis or pneumonia this time of year. Anyway, that's the reason that I haven't been writing very much. That, however, is not the topic of this particular post, so let's get to it! I have always been someone who likes thinking about how things are done. Some of the best years that I have worked for this personal preference were in the company of 14 other music therapists who all did the same job very differently. I had an opportunity to observe how they did things like documentation, session implement...

Today is the first day with just one intern and getting back into the routine of leading music therapy sessions on a more regular basis. Of course, yesterday, I started my pattern of allergy and occasional cold like symptoms which will probably end up being bronchitis, so I will be croaking and wheezing through a mask this week.  I have two groups today out of the six that are scheduled. The first two groups that are assigned to me are non-existent at this point due to a lack of teachers and clients. My lonely only intern will be covering the other three groups that we have today. We are going to share one of tomorrow's groups - co-leading in a manner that mimics a bit of Nordoff-Robbins partnerships, but is certainly not N-R because I have only learned the basics. Partnerships, though, are something that I have never really explored but feel like this intern will benefit from this form of co-leading, and I will as well, so off we go! I am going to bring out some of my skeleton and...

As you know, I am bound and determined that my internship program be competency-based as close as possible to the ideas of William G. Spady, the original author of competency-based education as a pedagogical structure. To that end, I have coordinated my evaluation, assignments, and the entirety of my internship program to the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) Professional Competencies . This is a system that I started in 2000 when the competencies were first adopted by AMTA, and I have revised it many times in the last 22 years. I am changing it now to accommodate parts of the new reality for us as music therapists - the reality that includes the possibility of telehealth as a definite part of our future as therapists. The point that I would like to make, however, is that I use the Professional Competencies to provide my interns with information that they need to know and to provide me with a more objective way to determine when they are ready to head out into the entry-level w...

...that never stops me from writing! I did manage to finish up my presentation for next week's SISC conference through the Music Therapy Association of Ontario. This makes me pretty happy since I am getting to talk about the topic that I am currently reading more about right now - specifically, competency-based education and clinical training.  I had a bit of fun going back into papers that I wrote and submitted for publication but that never got published since I don't really write things that reviewers can agree on (long story - don't get me started!!). I'm happy to be back into this particular topic since it invigorates me in a way that other music therapy topics do not. The thing that I like about the ideas of competency-based education as developed by William G. Spady in the 70's is that students know what they are expected to demonstrate when they start the educational program. All skills, techniques, educational outcomes and the evaluation process are clearly...

Well, somehow I have figured out how to get one of my social media accounts completely locked to me, and I am so very frustrated with it all! I can't seem to figure out what I have done and why they cannot reach me via email and my cell phone. I am very frustrated, but resigned to the fact that I cannot reach this account through usual means. Apparently, I changed my password several months ago but did not update the thing in my password cache, so I am hoist by my own petard! Alas, this means that I cannot like the banal posts of my friends and family members, and I am bereft. (Sorry, channeling Shakespeare there for a moment...) So, I have spent an embarrassing amount of time on this situation this morning. I am beyond frustrated with it and with myself as my to-do list continues to grow, and nothing is getting checked off. I am also in the throes of hormones and so much yuck, so there you go. Anyway, I need to get started on the things that have to be done today. I have to finish...

Over the years that I have served as an internship director, I have had to come up with systems for various tasks. Today, I get to finish up the internship program of my 34th intern, so I thought I would share the system that I use to make sure that my intern gets all the things finished and to me and that I act in an ethical manner for the benefit of my intern. One of the things that has always bothered me (even back in the dark ages of the last decade of the last century) is that the site evaluation has to be given to the internship director in-person. I have a bit of difficulty with the assumption that an intern will feel comfortable being honest with an internship director about corrections needed to the program. I have spoken to many interns who have stated outright that they do not feel like they can be honest during that process. As a result, I try my best to make sure that my intern knows that I cannot change anything on their paperwork when they give me feedback. When I was on...

I am sitting here, at the time I usually leave my home to get to work, taking an extra hour for myself because I am having lots of medication side effects this morning and just can't quite get my eyes focused. I have a strange response with these medications. I am hoping that I will be able to stand up and see what I'm doing so I can take a shower and get going to work here in a bit. Yesterday was our late day at work, and just like I predicted, no one came to the music therapy room at all. It wasn't as bad as I expected, though. I think that blogging about it in the morning helped me make the day a bit better than it usually is on these days. I didn't feel as cranky as usual. I also didn't get anything done. Tomorrow is an inservice/progress note day. I have to be there. I don't have any progress notes to write because I do not provide an IEP-related service. I provide educational enrichment services, so I do daily point of contact notes rather than IEPs and pr...

I am mentally preparing myself for today's adventures. First of all, I have to spend some of my personal time because I have to leave for my second job. For some reason, my administrator has decided that I cannot use an option offered to many others at the facility. Tonight is parent/teacher conferences which means that I will sit in my room waiting for someone - ANYONE - to show up to talk to the music therapist. Of course, most of the parents of my students do not know that I even exist. They never have. I have been invited to about 7 conferences over the past 26 years of employment at the facility, so I feel like these days are wasted opportunities...AND I get punished for having to leave - even though there is NOTHING for me to do! I am going to take some extra time this morning since I will be penalized for the time that I am having to leave. There is no reason to get there early when I will not get credit for being there. I am not really happy about this situation - can yo...

This is the third time I've started this post, and it is really not going very well. Today is Tuesday, which usually means a TME-focused post, but I haven't been writing or developing TMEs lately. All of my creativity at work has been focused on making task boxes (which, I could do SO much faster if I had a bit more freedom and access to the laminator). I am having to wait for another department to finish up things so I can move forward. I have a whole bunch of ideas, things to put together, and supplies that I need, but I keep getting hurdles put in my place. It's a mess. So, I am going to take a purposeful break from expecting myself to finish up task boxes and TMEs and all that for the next three days. If ideas come, I will record them, but I will not sit and stare at a screen waiting for ideas to arrive. Sorry that this is such a short post - like I said - THREE drafts and all! I might do another post this afternoon, but no promises...

Last week was a week where I was gone from work more than I was present. This happens sometimes - and it usually happens for me more in the months of October and November than any other time of the year. I get strange ailments that cannot be explained during these months. Last week was one of those weeks. I am still having issues, but I've not received the medical assistance that I need, so I am maintaining my bland diet and trying very hard to keep going to work. I know that I am not contagious, so I can go to work and be miserable just as easily as sitting at home. One of the things that I have learned about being an internship supervisor is that intern independence is a good thing, but it has to be taught and modeled. I try to talk about independence with my interns - after all, my supervisor leaves me to do my job without checking in on me...pretty much ever, so my interns have the same freedoms. They do not have to spend their office hours on campus (this is a change from my e...

I did some reading this week, but I didn't get very far in my reading because the book I started this week, Clinical Supervision: A competency-based approach, by Carol A. Falender and Edward P. Shafranske, is so full of ideas, concepts, notions, and challenges that I get overwhelmed by thoughts and have to stop to synthesize things. So, I got to page four. That's right. Page four before I felt the need to stop and unpack the concepts presented at the very start of this book! This is going to take a bit more time than I thought originally, but I have gone down this reading rabbit hole before. I know that this book gives me so much to think about that I never remember when I get things started. Time to unpack what I read and what I am thinking about at the moment. Some background to this, of course. I will be presenting on one of my favorite topics - competency-based clinical training - at a conference later this month, so I am getting myself organized. I selected two books to r...

In two weeks from today, I will be presenting to some Canadian music therapists about my ideas about competency-based clinical training and education. I got the acceptance letter last week, so here I am, sitting at my computer, getting my ideas together, and starting my presentation. I enjoy presenting ideas to people. I like sharing ideas and seeing what other people think of them. The best presentations, in my opinion, are those that challenge your ideas about what music therapy is and can be when observed through a different lens. Those are the presentations that energize me and make me think about what it means to be a music therapist. I hope that I can help attendees with their own ideas about music therapy and competency-based clinical training. EGAD! I just found a spelling error in my proposal. Ugh. It is a little thing, but it matters to me. Be mindful of the mistake, correct it on the page that I just printed out, go back and change it in the original document so it does not ...

So, let's just get this out of the way - I am, once again, a medical mystery. There you go. This week has been a bunch of yucky symptoms, water issues in my home, and visits to the doctor, blood work, and worrying about the results.   That is the reason that I've skipped writing the past four days. I haven't really done much this week. I have been to work for one day and 90 minutes. I am getting ready to go to work this morning - paid medication in tow, just in case. The nurse was not all that certain that a CT scan was needed, but tried to schedule one, again just in case. The only time they had today was a mid-morning time that would have required me to take another day off. I just can't do that. So, I asked for some guidance - what to look for and when to go to the emergency room, if necessary. I'm still waiting for that guidance. Oh well. It is time to head to work and talk to interns about the week, try to figure out how to maintain my own health, and get some ...

Last week, I set an intention to start reading my music therapy texts again, and this week (well, yesterday), I started the process. I actually need to give myself a bit more credit than this since I did identify all of the chapters in both of the books that I want to read this quarter and started my outline, but once I did that, I left it all alone until yesterday afternoon. I started out with Karen Goodman's book on music therapy education and training, and I read the first chapter. This chapter, Music Therapy Education and Training in the United States, covered the history of how music therapy became an educational program in the U.S. Now, I have done much research in this area, so nothing here was a big surprise to me. I know most of the events and information that were listed. I am looking forward to the next readings - in both of the books I've selected (by the way, the citations are listed at the end of this post). I have always been much more interested in the how we do...

I am getting ready to go to an Orff workshop about 40 minutes away from my home, with strangers, and (shudder) I was told (after signing up, by the way) to bring my soprano recorder. Do you know one of the reasons that I am NOT an elementary music educator? Oh, it would be the soprano recorder. I now have a morning full of soprano recorder to get through before I can come home and relax. I felt that this Orff workshop would be a good way to get back into something a little less music therapy focused and a bit more music education focused. I also thought that I would make a bit of community. One of the bad things about me is that, when the time to go actually comes, I am much less enthusiastic about leaving my home at this moment than I was when I signed up for all this, and the recorder information did not show up until significantly after signups were finished. I went back and looked at the information and nothing, NOTHING about the soprano recorder was on the flyer. In fact, there is...