TME Tuesday: I Have Now Remembered Two Days in a Row...May the Fourth...

Oh, goodness. I have remembered to write in the afternoons now two times in a row. My views have gone down significantly, but I think I know ways to get you all to see my posts on various social media accounts... we'll see.

Okay. Today is Tuesday (and my brain is working a bit better today than it was yesterday), so that means it is time to talk about therapeutic music experiences (TMEs). So, here we go.

This week, the first week in May, is always Star Wars week in my music therapy room. It will always be so - I have decided. We are exploring elements of my favorites stories and some of my toys, and it is music therapy because of the goals behind it all. My groups are getting to spend some time in a galaxy far, far away because I am just a bit of a fan.

We have a presentation that introduces some of the music of the series and some of the planets that the creative people behind Star Wars have developed over all these years. We talk about how it would be difficult to take instruments to the planet Hoth because of the ice covering the planet. We listen to the cantina song (the original one) to illustrate music on Tatooine. We listen to some of the ceremonial music from Star Wars Republic to show us how music changes from place to place. At that point (depending on the group), we are introduced to my favorite character...

I have an interactive R2-D2. It was a gift from my father and my sister several years ago, and I love bringing it to work to see how my students respond. R2 is a stubborn little robot who makes all sorts of choices - good and bad. I bring in an original song, Choices, that discusses the consequences of the choices that we make every moment. I change the lyrics to the verses of this song to reflect things that each group of clients struggles with during their days. (I have tons of verses for this song!) That stubborn little robot ignores students, makes rude series of beeps, and just does his own thing. We have lots of opportunities to talk about frustration when other people don't listen to what we say.

Some groups are just playing Boomwhackers. Others get short movement lessons with Boomwhackers as their padawan learner light sabers (we don't do this for long because it always goes into fights which we do NOT condone). We also spend some time talking about the stories - because I can.

I haven't written all of these TMEs into my format and my database. I really want to do so, but I haven't had the time lately. I will regret this decision next year when I am trying to remember what I have done this year. Fortunately, I am writing about this now - so, I may remember it later...

My process for coming up for ideas for sessions is pretty simple. I brainstorm. No idea is a bad idea. Any thought that falls into my brain is fair game for brainstorming. If I don't use an idea today when I am sitting down with my ideas book, I still write it down because I never know when I will be ready to develop the idea into a full TME. This means that I have lots of ideas at any given time. When I am a bit more disciplined about my TME development process, I always have ideas that I can take and flesh out.

I do the same thing when I am developing materials to supplement my TMEs. I have a completely arbitrary rule that I have to think of six separate things to do with anything that I keep in my music therapy space before I can keep it. I currently have two giant slinkies that are at home for a couple of reasons. The first one is that these things are SO cool, and the second is that I haven't come up with enough things to justify their presence in my music therapy room. (I bought mine at Walmart, by the way!) When I have something cool (like my giant Slinkies), I start another list of ideas of what to do or which TMEs would accommodate this cool thing.

I always have ideas. I don't always have any sort of motivation or the time to get things finished up, but I ALWAYS have ideas. For now, it is enough to be running TMEs with my clients, but I will need some ideas to finish up when my intern is running sessions, and I am relegated to "woman who sits at the computer" for some of my clients. There you go.

It is time to rest my tired body. I will not write tomorrow unless I find a reserve of energy at the end of my long, LONG, LOOONNNNGGG work day. So, for sure, I will see you all on Thursday.