TME Tuesday: YouTube Inspiration

TME Tuesdays: Box with abstract background design including the following text: www.musictherapyworks.com; TME Tuesday; Therapeutic Music Experience Development for Music Therapists by Music Therapists; Tuesdays; Work smarter, not harder.
It is Tuesday again, and I am gearing up for five groups and one individual. Usually, I have two individuals on this day, but one is away for the week, so I get a bit of a break. Not much, but a bit. The temperature is cooler - both outside and in my music therapy room - so tempers seemed to have cooled as well. We will see if that continues, but for the moment, I am enjoying the more relaxed atmosphere in the rooms next to me. 

I felt the urge to sit down with my ideas book yesterday to record some ideas that have come to me as I have been moving into the role of observer rather than therapist. I am physically moving my body closer and closer to my office where I will spend most of the rest of my intern's time to provide supervision but not interference. I tend to be more likely to write TMEs when I am in my office for interns' sessions than when I am primary therapist. When I have to remove myself from client interactions, my brain starts to design things to do with those clients when I get back into the world of therapy!

I jotted down an idea for a music education game based on reading the staff. It is a combination of Wheel of Fortune (suggested by a client) and Name That Tune, and I think it will work well once I have a group of clients who can recognize notes on the staff. We are working on that concept at the moment. I watched one client have an 
"A-HA" moment when we were talking about the staff while using my Orff instruments. I love being able to see those moments of understanding with my clients.

I am also thinking about other tasks and projects that will help me get my TMEs organized and more available to other people (specifically, my interns). I can use my own intellectual property and publish it as I like, but I have to be careful because I have so many things that interns have shared with me over the years. I do not share their intellectual property at all because it does not belong to me.

Now, I still use those TMEs in sessions, but I do not publish them, record them, or give them to others without signed permission to do so. Their ideas are theirs to control, so I make it a priority to protect their copyright. 

The problem with that is my database has all of our TMEs all put together. I can always figure out who wrote what by going through the files, but I would like to share more of my TME ideas with other music therapists, so I need to know who authored each TME quickly and easily.

Wow.

I have completely strayed from the title of this post which is YouTube Inspiration. I started with that title because I spent my mid-day break yesterday going through YouTube videos. It started with Laurie Berkner and I Know a Chicken which my intern reminded me of recently. (Did you know that she is doing a CMTE through Music for Kiddos? Check out information here.) That video led me into some different children's songs and ideas.

My intern asked me where I get ideas for TMEs. This is one of the things that I do. I watch other people's videos and think about how I can either replicate or adapt the music that they share to benefit my clients. I start with the music and then move into my TME development system using my particular format. I then have to use those TME ideas in sessions before I can completely "finish" the TME.

(No idea is EVER completely finished, you know? There is always room for adaptations and extensions to accommodate specific client needs that I did not anticipate, so I ALWAYS allow myself to find other ways to get things done!)

I didn't take any official notes during my YouTube time yesterday. I can revisit that watching on Friday when I have lots more time to prepare TMEs for my clients and for other music therapists.

If you are interested in some of my TMEs - please check out my TPT (formerly Teachers Pay Teachers) store for my sing about songs series. sing about autumn is up already - lots of back to school and fall-related TMEs available for purchase! Membership is free, and you can find all sorts of cool things for free and for purchase! I will be uploading other books pretty soon, so check it out!

I am hoping to get some more TMEs put into my format soon. For now, though, it is time to head upstairs, get dressed in work clothing, start the dryer up again, get the mail, and head out to work. It should be a pretty sunrise this morning, and I am looking forward to it! Have a wonderful Tuesday.

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