TME Tuesday: How Did It Get to Be Tuesday Already? Happy Music Therapy Week!!

It is Tuesday. I have decided to use the last bit of my sick time to do some breathing treatments because the Bradford Pear trees are in full bloom and have wreaked havoc on my breathing and my sleeping patterns. I will start my steroid inhaler and my nebulizer treatments to break my lungs open and get some rest. I woke up yesterday in high stress mode - I was exhausted and could not figure out what I was going to do with my students. It was a problem for me, but once I got to work, I was able to figure out a strategy that allowed me to have little energy expended from me and lots of payoff for my students, so the day went pretty well. Today, though, I can't catch my breath, so my breathing has to be my focus. I just took my steroid inhaler and will be doing the nebulizer treatment in about an hour. All medication has side effects and one of mine with the nebulizer is being shaky. The steroid tends to give me headaches. I prefer to be home when I am starting up the full regimen again, just in case. If I get tired, I can sleep. If I am overstimulated, I can clean. It works. Anyway...

The purpose of this post is to talk a bit about World Music Therapy Week and therapeutic music experiences. For the first time ever, the World Federation of Music Therapy designated an entire week to celebrate our profession. It started yesterday. No one at work knows that it is MTW, but that's okay. They also don't recognize OT Month very much, so there you go! I am celebrating this week. I put in my time-off request for the World Congress in July yesterday. It will be a good time, surrounded by some of my family and friends and by all sorts of music therapists from all over the world.

It is a bit of a humbling experience to explore the idea that there are music therapists all over the world who do what I do every day - well, when I'm not knocked down by pollen. There are music therapy pioneers right at this moment - people who are bringing the techniques of music therapy to people who have never even conceived of music as a therapeutic medium. While music therapy is becoming more well-known in the States, it is not something that is universally understood or acknowledged.

Happy Music Therapy Week!

Now, let's get to the TME part of this post.

One of my students' favorite openings right now is a song composed by my last intern. The song is called, "There are Many Ways to Say Hello," and I will not be including it because it is not my work. I have a bunch of "Hello" cards up on the wall next to my Promethean Board that share how other people greet each other in different countries. During the song, my students select one of the cards, and we sing about how you would greet someone in that country. It goes along with my focus on different cultures. We practice the greetings and then speculate a bit about life in that country. What a great way to exemplify World Music Therapy week!

I am working on a corresponding closing TME that includes the ways we end interactions in various languages and cultures, but that song is not finished yet. It is time to sit down and do some composing.