music, therapy, and me

Tuesday again. For new readers, Tuesday is the day that I usually write about Therapeutic Music Experiences (TMEs) which is what I call the things we do in music therapy sessions with our clients. There are times when I share entire TMEs, but I haven't done that in a long time because I sell TME collections to music therapists on my website. If you are interested, let me know. Anyway - It is Tuesday which means talking about Therapeutic Music Experiences (TMEs). I am heading into work after two days away - one professional day and one sick day, so there will be things to do when I arrive, including figuring out what I am going to do with my clients this week. Last week's common group focus was experiencing the violin because we had a concert last Friday (when I was gone for a conference - can't wait to hear what it was like!). I have no such focus at this point right now. Since we had Spring Break, my focus rotation was interrupted. Usually, this week would be the Musician ...

Way, way back, in the beginning of my internship supervising days, I was taking a course on Advanced Supervision in Music Therapy, or something like that. As part of the course, I was acting as a practicum supervisor for four students at our local university, and I was also supervising an intern from the same program. This was shortly after the merger in 1998, and the AMTA Professional Competencies had just been released with the expectation that all university programs would switch to competency-based education by the year 2006. The project for the class set me on my competency-based clinical training path. One of our projects was to take each one of the competences set down in the document and identify where undergraduate and graduate equivalency students learned about, experienced, and mastered each one of the competencies. We engaged in debate and conversation, week after week, and I became more and more concerned with the number of skills, identified by the professor, that "w...

So, as you may know, I spent the last two days in Nebraska for the Midwestern Region AMTA conference. During that time, I went to two concurrent presentations that discussed the therapeutic function of music, and how we, as music therapists, can use those elements for the benefit of our clients. This is a topic that I am always writing about - both the elements themselves and how knowing and being able to state the therapeutic decisions made can assist us with our advocacy as music therapists. So, today's Sentimental Sunday post is the first time (that I can identify) that I really started to talk about this concept on this blog. That's right - I went through the label list for "therapeutic elements of music" to find the first time I really started to describe how I use music to engage my students where they are in the moment. That date was September 3, 2012. Here is the link to the original post . When this post was written, I had been writing TMEs with consideration...

I am now back at home, in my own surroundings, and ready to get going on the rest of my month. While I love traveling, I also love being home. I appreciate home so much more after being on the road, so I am grateful for the chance to head out into the world and then come back to a place I love to be. My day ended up much better than my morning indicated. This morning, I was in a bummer of a mood. I was stuck in self-pity and criticism loops. I am less prone to that type of thinking now. The change happened because I had several small and one big interaction with people at conference which allowed me to reflect about things. Music therapists are a wonderful bunch of people. Over the course of the day, I engaged in some shameless (well, sorta) self-promotion after realizing that no one really knows that I've been talking about the therapeutic elements of music (they even use same terminology that I've been using for 12 years now) for a very long time. I met my new AIAC representa...

Please know that this entire post is going to be affected by the fact that I have an outer ear infection and am in pain. So, just know that what I write might be different if I were a bit less stuffy and a bit more healthy at the moment... Today is the second day of the Midwestern Region AMTA conference. I am sitting here, in the hotel room, with about two hours before I want to check out of the hotel and just finish up the conference. I bought my breakfast yesterday evening - it is sitting in the fridge and waiting for me to pop it into the microwave. I have a list of presentations to go to for the rest of the day, and I am going to skip out before the end of the day to get home. I am tired and in pain, so a four-hour drive seems like an eternity to get back to my place and my ear drops (I didn't have an ear infection when I left home on Thursday). The conference has been fine. It really is nice to be around music therapists, but it is interesting to see what is going on in our re...

Please forgive my change in topic as I am currently away from easy access to my documents and do not want to make something up. I am sitting on the 15th floor of a hotel at the moment, listening to the sounds of traffic and construction, and enjoying the opportunity of just being away. Away from work, away from home - away. I am awaiting the beginning of the Midwestern Region conference in Lincoln, NE, a conference that I seriously debated skipping but ended up attending. To my disappointment, not many people were interested in what I had to say about competency-based clinical training (I need to look at my description and amp it up a bit before attempting to submit it to other conferences), so I am here early with some time to kill. I could go crash the Passages portion of things, but that seems a bit strange considering it has been 30 years since I was even close to being an entry-level student of music therapy. I would probably stand out, and there are at least a couple of students ...

I am currently a bit preoccupied with my to-do list. I get this way every time I get ready to make a trip of some sort. Today is the day. I am prepared. I have my list of things to pack - and have packed them. I have my list of stuff to take with me - and I have that stuff as well. My backpacks are stuffed with stuff for the conference that I will be attending. I have no marketing materials which is something that I am lacking these days. Good thing I am getting back into the conference swing of things so I can get that sort of task figured out. I enjoy moments like these. I can invent what I need to invent in order to brand my products to others. I have a logo that I really like, and I use it on all of my TPT products . This is a simple, black and white logo that includes a music staff and a treble clef. I am sure that someone else would find it bulky or not quite right, but I like it, so that's what matters the most. It is time to start figuring these things out because I am look...

I was going to write last evening but then a situation occurred which interrupted my concentration, so I did not. Yesterday was a strange day. Students were fine, but there were lots of staff things that were happening that just threw me for a loop. For example, I went up to a group for our post-graduate program to find that the two groups have been combined into one. I was not prepared for this situation and felt surprised to the point of not knowing what to do with the extra six students that were around. The teacher in charge swore up and down that she had sent us all an email - I checked and none of us received said email. The best thing about this change is that I have one less group to do on Wednesdays now. I am very happy about that fact, but still irked that the communication did not actually happen. I checked my phone before I left for work to find a missed call and voicemail from the dentist's office that I went to on Monday afternoon for a procedure. I have another proce...

Spring break is over, so it is time to head back into the work routine. Part of that work routine is reviewing my internship program and setting things up for my next intern (#36 coming in June, and I am thinking deeply about if I want an intern #37). My current focus is to develop my self-study courses for my interns to do during breaks - if they choose those tracts. The tracts that I am thinking of will probably include changes in assignments across the entire program, so I have to figure out what I want my interns to know at the end of their internships to figure out how I am going to get them there. That's the way that competency-based education works - starting from the ending and then working backwards to develop the tasks, assignments, and learning objectives of each assignment. All things should be related to the desired level of competence. Period. Without this type of ending focus, students are not always aware of why they are learning what they are learning. Another part...

Before we get into today's glimpse into the past, I want to thank you for reading this post. I know that there are times when this blog has nothing to do with anything other than me, but I appreciate the views every single day. My vacation/holiday has ended, so it is time to get back into my work routine. So, let's get back into the routine today with a glimpse back to a post in February 2018 - #1787 . I find it interesting that I have almost doubled the number of posts since back then in 2018. Just something that makes me think about how much this blog works for me.  Focus, MJ. The post from February 15, 2018 was a Thoughtful Thursday post. It was a two-part post - something that I do very rarely. I wrote a bit in the morning and then returned to the post later in the afternoon. It had been one of the days where I was dreading the interactions and the particular group of clients who were coming to see me. Sound familiar? I have these types of days still. Nice to know that som...

I woke up this morning at 4am - my regular wake-up time, but I spent two more hours in bed doing social media, time-sucking things before I actually started my day. This is how I am getting back into my routine. I am pretty successful in setting up and following morning routines. I am less successful in doing the same type of thing in the afternoon/evening. I try and try to figure out an evening routine that allows me to be productive, but the fact is that I really want to just relax in the evenings after work. I rarely find things like cooking or cleaning a priority after work. I just want to play games and be an entertainment consumer and to sleep. I always want to sleep. I accomplished my five-minute clean yesterday, but today has to be dedicated to a deep clean of the kitchen. That area is a mess, so I need to get it under control. Many of my Christmas gifts this year are things for my kitchen, so I want to get the room cleaned up and organized to put the new pieces in when they ar...

I think I am at the second chapter of the Heretic part of my story. Search the term "fiction Friday" to see the other chapters of my story bits and pieces. CHAPTER TWO The Heretic awoke one morning feeling a bit off. She was unable to identify why, but she felt out of tune with the world. She went about her daily routine, taking her guitar and instrument bag from place to place. All day things just felt “off.” Clients who usually greeted her with enthusiasm complained about having to do music therapy. The teacher’s aides complained about how loud the students were singing. The sound of the ocean drum, usually soothing to agitated patients, elicited angry tears. Everyone seemed a bit off. Do you ever have one of those types of days? I do. There are times when things just don't coalesce into something that feels meaningful? These are things that happen in the life of a music therapist, and I don't think we talk about this enough. At least, in my experience, the inte...

Today is travel day again. I am going to an airport that I have only been in once before - a VERY long time ago - and will be cooped up in a plane for about seven hours in total. Once I get home, I have to remember which parking structure is mine, scrape off snow and ice, and then drive for an hour to get to my house. It's going to be a very long day. Yesterday, Mom and I had a quiet day. We only left the house to send my boxes back to my residence. That's it. No shopping, no food, just being at home. Mom made grilled cheese for lunch and spaghetti for dinner. Sister and Mom went shopping after dinner, and I just remained where I was. When I am on vacation, I need these types of days - the very quiet ones - to help me find my rest. Tomorrow is set to be a lazy day. I have a meeting with my financial advisor and that's about it. I will do some unpacking and some cleaning and then just rest for a couple of days before heading back to work for the long stretch between spring b...

I am currently sitting in my sister's old room (now, the guest room), listening to the rain fall and fall. I will be heading back to my place tomorrow, and I am about ready to go home to do things that I need to do back there. I will be heading to a new airport during my trip back to my land, and I am looking forward to some novel things during the experience. I love traveling. I don't much care what the mode of transportation is in my travels. I've driven completely across this country of ours, taken the train from several destinations to new locations, flown all sorts of places - in fact, across two oceans, and been on a boat for several days. I enjoy the process of travel - almost all of it - not a big fan of having to hoist my carry-on into the overhead compartments, but the rest is pretty good. I strive to have a life where I can travel to places I have never been before. I have that sort of life occasionally, and I enjoy it. I am going to be driving to a conference ne...

I received some disappointing news yesterday. Now, in the long range scheme of things, not having enough registrants to justify my CMTE is not a big deal, but for me, it is disappointing. So, I go into some of my coping skills and strategies to find my center again. Today is Tuesday, which means that I try to focus my writing on therapeutic music experiences (what I call the things I do with my clients in sessions - AKA TMEs). Today is a good day to talk about taking an idea and then making it into a TME - something that happens with music therapists all the time. Ideas can come from any place. There are times when I am driving home after work, and a song pops into my head. I scramble to get out my pencil and my post-its to notate it a bit before it fades into oblivion. There are times when an object sparks some therapeutic intervention ideas. There are other times when I hear a song on the radio, and I just know that a particular client will enjoy it and welcome the song into music th...

This year, I will be taking a work trip while my future intern is just a bit over a month into her internship. I will be gone for an entire week, and knowing my co-workers, I do not want her to be the sole music therapist in the facility. She will be pushed to do things that are not part of her volunteer role in the facility and will be expected to accommodate the needs of others in ways that she will not be prepared to do in that first month. In addition, being someone who is drawn to being a therapist, she will probably be too nice to say no, so that sort of thing makes all sorts of problems. My solution? She will work from home that week. The problem? I do not know exactly what she will be doing. The good news is that I have about two months to figure it out (and I do have an idea), but I have to figure it all out.  Taking vacations while being an internship supervisor is perfectly fine. There is absolutely no difficulty with taking and using the time that you have accrued in or...

Reminiscing with my parents has always been one of my favorite things about being home. Our early morning talks in the computer room have always been something that I look forward to. We just sit, each on our respective computers, and play games and chat. After Dad started living downstairs in his suite, the location changed, but the conversation didn't. Now that Dad is gone, Mom and I are back in the upstairs office - I'm sitting on the floor and she's at her desk - and we are doing the same thing - just chatting about all sorts of things...family members, current political situations, the cat. All sorts of topics. It has been some time since I have been home. Mom has made the place entirely hers, except for Dad's suite. The office has changed. Mom has taken the things that made sense for what she uses the room for now - quilting and cards and crafts of all sorts - but Dad touches remain. Sure, now the filing system has craft magazines instead of client files, but the ...