TME Tuesday: Expanding My Possibilities Through Brainstorming

In the recent Tuesday posts, I have shifted my attention away from just writing therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) into exploring TME development from a different perspective. This series of posts is coming from the perspective of someone who talks to music therapy students and interns from many different areas of the world and something that seems to surprise just about everyone that I talk to...

You can do more than one thing with any material/object/song.

Seems like a "duh" thing to me, but then I remember back to my development as a music therapist, and I know that I was in a similar space when I was a student. I wrote a song for shaking the tambourine, so we cannot even fathom using that same song for shaking the shaker eggs. "This is my tambourine song." but there is absolutely NO reason why it can't be a shaker egg song or a rhythm stick song or a move your hands song. All it takes is a slight alteration and the song becomes something that you can use at anytime with any sort of instrument.

Developmentally, though, we have to first start off with specific tasks. "Write a song that encourages your client to play the tambourine." So, we do, and in our minds, we start to think that this is the only song that we will use to encourage our client to play the tambourine.

Today's exercise helps to develop the concept that every single thing that we bring to our clients in a music therapy session can be used for many different goals and experiences. There is never a time when you cannot adapt to what a client needs in the moment. You just have to open your eyes to the possibility.

This comes up twice when I am doing my intern webinars. We talk about this concept when we are talking about time management and organization. We revisit the topic during our discussion about developing TMEs. Interns seem surprised by these concepts, and it continues to amaze me.

I would love to be a clinical technique instructor at a university. I do not want to be a professor at all, but I would love to do a course on how to do music therapy things in sessions. Add that idea to the list... I do my webinars because I enjoy giving folks ideas about the practical things that we have to do as music therapists in the clinical world.

So, if I look at an instrument as an object that I can only use for one thing, then I limit my options for my clinical interactions. If I can take a song or an instrument or other materials like scarves, and then add all sorts of options and ideas, I can maintain a diverse and novel music therapy environment with limited materials or budget items. My ability to do this job is directly affected by how I envision my clients using different things to move towards their goals.

My TME development process happens from several perspectives. I often start with an instrument and then go through my brainstorming and sensory exploration to develop my ideas for how to use the instrument in my session. I also start with an object or a song and do the same sort of process. This blog is full of ways to think about the things that we have to use in our sessions.

Unfortunately, I am out of time right now. My intern is sick, and I have to get to work so I can take advantage and only work the hours that I am paid to work today. If I go in late, then I have to work late, and I do not want to do that. I will write more about this topic next week. In the meantime, think about what you can do with a tambourine...