music, therapy, and me

It is Saturday. I don't know if you noticed, but I didn't write on Friday - mainly because I was VERY crabby and in some pain after my Thursday sessions. Long story, don't want to dwell on it here.  I spent some time creating this past week, and I was very close to accomplishing my goal of five TMEs. I have 4.5 finished, but the song for the last one hasn't really solidified yet, so I cannot finish the last one until that song just becomes concrete to me. I took about 150 minutes to get the TMEs finished up (except for the last one - I gave up after about 30 minutes of trying to force it to be done when it didn't want to be forced). About 45 of those minutes were also combined with making a form to use on my Google Drive for my TMEs database which I have now shifted to my personal address rather than the work address. I now have my TME setup in a form rather than a word document. It is taking a bit of time to get used to the new format, but it is always good to try ...

It is finally Thursday. I have only six groups left in the week. That means that we have finished fifteen groups by this time every week. It is no wonder that Thursday usually includes some exhaustion. While we only have four groups today, our day is pretty full - in addition to our four groups, we have two individuals scheduled now. I am not the leader of many of these sessions - I do not have primary therapist responsibilities in our individual sessions and I lead half of the group sessions today. I am spending time this week, during my office hours (non-session time in the music therapy room), writing therapeutic music experiences (TMEs). My goal is to have five finished by the end of tomorrow. I have completed two of the five and have the other ideas identified but not in TME format. I established a new Google form to work in to generate a database in a form a bit different from what I usually do, and I am finding the task interesting. I am a creative person. I create all sorts of ...

Here it is, Wednesday again. We are still all messes at work - kids are not doing well on the whole. Everyone is tired and crabby and just plain old mean to one another and to staff. It's taking a toll on us all. Even though it is Wednesday and we don't have a day off until October 20th, I am determined to be less likely to complain about Wednesdays than I have been in the past. I have written two complete TMEs so far, spending a total of 90 minutes on both. I have three TMEs to go to get to my goal of five TMEs written in a week. I don't have much time to write TMEs today, but I might be able to get one in during my limited breaks on this busy group day. I am not expecting to write one today though. I think it is fine to save three TMEs for the next two days - I have lots more office time on Thursdays and Fridays than I do on Wednesdays and Tuesdays. I am feeling pretty good about my accomplishment. In addition to finishing two TMEs in my new database format, I also have t...

I am currently challenging myself to write 5 TMEs a week like I assign to my interns to see how much time it takes. Yesterday, I finished a Google form to input TMEs into a database and completed a TME from idea to documentation (all but the sheet music) in 90 minutes. That reminds me - I need to take a sheet music book with me to work. My composition software isn't on my work computer, so I have to write things old school. That means that my rhythms might not be accurate, but I will try my best. One down, four to go. I am trying the Google form with an associated spreadsheet to see if I can move from one way of doing things to another. It is not easy to reconfigure my brain to think and create differently, but I want this to replicate what I ask my interns to do as much as possible.As a result, I am changing my ways to see if that has an effect. So, if I go with my assumption that learning how to do this is more difficult than just changing how to do this, then the 45 minutes of t...

This is the first day of the second half of my intern's time with us. We reviewed the self-evaluation and my evaluation on Friday. We are sending it to my intern's academic director today after signatures are affixed to the documents. After all that, we will be focusing on refining the intern's skills and areas of focus for the last three months. I am glad that we have 1020 hours to work. I know that's lots of time, but it really is in the last three months that my interns become therapists. I don't have an intern on tap for this month or for January, so it looks like I will have a bit of time before I am mentor again after intern #36 graduates. I am typically a bit picky about who I accept to my internship - there has to be a good interest in my particular population rather than a "I want to be close to home and don't really care about the population" attitude. My clients deserve to have people working with them who are interested and dedicated to und...

Oh my! I had forgotten this source of inspiration for me. I am so glad that this was the randomly selected post for this morning because I need this back in my life! Let me explain!! Today's post comes to you from July 8, 2013 . It reminded me of someone I used to follow pretty regularly and someone who inspired me by his story and his art. Danny Gregory is someone who writes about some of the things that I experience - he calls his "monkeys" and I call mine "goblins," but they are the same thing - the thoughts that keep me from doing what I want to do... I had completely forgotten Mr. Gregory, and I am so grateful that this post came up again. I have signed up for a weekly essay and have bookmarked his YouTube channel. I will subscribe to his channel as well once I've moved to the television. I think the best thing about Mr. Gregory's work for me is the fact that much of what he used to write about (and that I hope he will continue to write about ten ye...

I went to Michaels on Tuesday afternoon to see if there was anything on sale that I needed. There was a bit of need happening, but only a bit. I have recently started my last blank journal and my preferred brand was on sale for 50% off, so I thought I would stock up. The best thing about buying blank books is that they do not go bad, so my stash can wait until I need the next one which will be next June. I also bought some markers to finish my collection - for some reason, all of my orange markers have disappeared or dried out. This is ironic because orange is my least favorite color but I need it for the rainbow colors that I prefer. The markers were "buy three, get two free," so I got five - three orange hues and two purples. I haven't used any of the items that I purchased yet, but that might happen this morning. This morning is going to be a time dedicated to relaxation. I have a car maintenance appointment this afternoon, but there is nothing that I have to do this m...

Today is the last day of the work week, and I am ready for my day off tomorrow. I have to leave my home tomorrow to get the tires rotated but I have nothing else to do. If I want, I can stay in bed until almost noon. I won't because I rarely do, but it would be nice... Last weekend, I managed to finish the book that I've been working on for about a month. I also put together another book cover that is waiting for the insides to be created. I need to take some pictures and post these books over on Etsy for people to look at. This week has been a much better week than the previous two have been. We seem to be settling down at work which is very helpful. My music therapy room is still cold, but I received part of my requisition of blankets yesterday, so I will be able to offer kids blankets if they complain. That will help a little bit. I am still waiting for the laundry basket and the other six blankets I asked for, but at least part of my order arrived. That shows a little bit o...

I just realized that I haven't written a post for the last two days. Here I am today, sitting here a bit later than usual, waiting for my head to clear from my late night medication routine, and trying to figure out what I am going to write about. My head is a bit foggy but is starting to clear out, so I have some thoughts about different things. I was interviewed for the Canadian Music Therapy Podcast on Monday. I had a good time answering questions and talking about my perspectives as a music therapist with some history behind me but still more music therapy practice in my future. I enjoy being able to share my opinions about things with folks who are interested in listening. I also enjoy hearing the opinions of others who don't agree with me! I feel that we, as a profession, need to become more tolerant of the fact that everyone has opinions that are relevant for them - your opinion is just as valuable to you as mine is to me. Neither opinion is wrong, but mine might be wro...

One of the best and most difficult parts of my job is evaluating the skills of my interns. This is mid-term week for my current intern, and it is time to get my trusty, competency-based evaluation ready to review.  My evaluation is 29 pages long. Now, I can do an evaluation, without commenting, in about 30 minutes. Commenting adds time to the evaluation, but it is an important part of this process - feedback, feedback, feedback. The reason my evaluation is so long is that it includes all sorts of information - every competency, operational definitions of each one, and where each competency is demonstrated in the assignments and situations that happen in the internship. Every single competency has multiple skills (well, except for those that we don't cover in my program) as part of the evaluation process. My interns get this from the beginning of the time - they know what they are supposed to demonstrate from the start of the program in order to pass their time with me. As indicated...

Time for another randomly selected post to spark some thoughts about the profession and about my role in music therapy as well as my role as a human being. Today's post number is 452 which takes us back to November 16, 2013 .  This particular post was titled, "An Introvert at AMTA," and it occurred right before the American Music Therapy Association's conference in 2013. I cannot remember where that particular conference was held but I know what it was like for me. I was rooming with someone who was about as busy as I was in the music therapy world, and I spent more time in meetings and conversations than I did in presentations. This was the third of five years where my role was to pay full price for the conference and not experience anything other than work for the association. It was simultaneously energizing and enervating. I am not someone who misses in-person conferences. I have no problem with virtual conferences because I can still see people and do not have t...

Saturday has finally arrived and is happening right now! I am happy to be in Saturday mode and will be spending some time doing some shopping in various stores that I do not frequent often and then running some errands. It is going to be a leisurely day, but a day full of things that need to be done. I got paid yesterday, so I feel like I can spend a little bit of money to get things that I want instead of only getting what I need. I, of course, have a budget, but it will be nice to go into the world and just look at things. I have some pictures to frame and put on the walls. I have some surfaces to clear and collectible ornaments to display. I'll be creative through some decoration on this day. I bought some wooden plaques at the Dollar Tree a couple of weeks ago, and I did a crayon rub to finish them (cheap way to add a patina to wooden surfaces - color the entire surface and then rub it with a tissue until the wax melts and becomes shiny). I am going to use them as makeshift mem...

I didn't blog yesterday or the day before because I was sick and then just tired. It has been a couple of days since I've felt like writing, but I feel like I can sit down and think again, so here it goes. This morning, I feel the need to write something, and I pulled off a post-it note from my blog idea board. "Things I Care About in the Field of Music Therapy." So, here are some thoughts about what I care about in this field of ours. Music Therapist Longevity - One of the biggest questions I have had in my career is "why do music therapy clinicians leave the field?" We have always been a young profession. It seems that the majority of clinicians that are out there are still in their first years of being professional. About half of my 36 former interns have left the field but about half are professional music therapists, so I think that is pretty good. I just wonder what happens during the fifth through tenth year of a music therapist's life that tends ...

Yesterday was a day when I was grateful for my TME database and idea book. I don't know about you, but I have times when I do not have any idea what I want to do for my group programming during the week. I sit and stare at my guitar. I wonder what I am going to do with the clients who will be arriving to my music therapy room.  I was in such a state yesterday, and I went to the places that I keep my ideas - my ideas book and my database. One of the quests that I have right now is to update my database so I have all my TME files listed. I am behind in that task - seriously behind - so it is something that I am spending time organizing. As I was looking through the individual letter folders, I remembered several TMEs that I used to use and have moved away from recently. I also flipped through my ideas book to see what ideas are waiting to be moved into my "Ideas for Development" folder in my TME folder. My ideas book and the Ideas for Development folder serve the same purpo...

It is Sunday, and, in an attempt to shake me out of a bit of depression this week, I am happy to look back at a former post. This post, #2515 , happened on a Sunday in August 2020. I don't know if you remember the dark times of August 2020, but I was in the midst of navigating ever changing ways to do music therapy and my church job and living. Every day was unknown and things were difficult to navigate. I wanted to do some music therapy videos which never came about. I was going to be tasked with doing church videos very soon, so all my video bandwidth went towards a paying gig rather than making videos. I turned my attention to different areas of the music therapy world shortly after all of this. Most of the posts from this time were reactive posts - concerned with things that were happening around us all. I haven't really seemed to get out of that attitude or mindset since COVID started. I feel like I used to be more proactive, and now I just react to what others do around m...

Saturdays are my favorite days. There you go. I have made it official. Of all the days of the week, Saturday is the day that I yearn for every single time. It is the day that I can keep for myself and myself alone. This is a definite advantage to being single and pet-less - I have the luxury of reserving one day every week for me-things. I have little that I HAVE to do today, but tons of things that I NEED to do today. I am hoping to get some things finished up and off the list for some time. I just have to get going and do something!   I tried to put together a book cover last week. I had some corrugated, sticky cardboard from the Disney Movie Club that has a cute design on the outside but is problematic on the inside. So, I wanted to add some paper to the inside to decrease the stickiness and make the cardboard usable as a cover. I had to put the paper/cardboard sandwich under lots of weight to make sure that it adhered, and I have not checked it since I put it under all the weig...

This has been a long week and a long month all at the same time. We even had Monday off, and it has still be a very long, LONG span of time. Between client concerns and gas leaks and dangerous air outside, it has been rough. I am looking forward to a quiet day today since my only scheduled morning group is for a classroom that is empty. We have two afternoon groups and that is all. Today is my planning and preparation time, and I have lots to plan and prepare for... Well... lots of things that I want to plan and prepare for... I am behind with my documentation for Wednesday, so that is first on the list - get documentation finished. After that, I will engage in my strategy for sessions for next week. It is an instrument week next, and I think that we are down to focusing on ensembles because we have covered most of the instrument families. This might be marching band month - I have to see. Administrative tasks, like session strategizing, finding and developing TME concepts, and repairi...

On Thursdays during the school year, I go to work late. This is because of several situations that happen on Wednesdays - a late night, strange medication side effects, and difficulty with vision and thinking after everything else. So, I take an additional hour to get to work in the mornings. It is easier to navigate a dawn-filled world rather than a pre-dawn world when my eyes are a bit wonky. So, I go to work late on Thursdays. Now, I still work my 8 hours on Thursdays because I have to stay until 4pm when I have interns, so it is easy to fulfill my contractual obligation, even when arriving at 7:45 instead of 6:45. My problem is that I cannot really think until well after my arrival at work. I cannot organize my thoughts very well, so I rely on session plans from earlier in the week to keep me going. I do not have to figure out what I want to do with clients on Thursday mornings - I have already come up with the strategy and can just go through the strategies. That allows me to focu...

It is Wednesday again, and I am still not feeling any sort of enthusiasm about going to work. I will go. It is important to go, but I am not happy about it. This is a big concern because I am feeling this way every single Wednesday and have for a very long time. When this happens, it is time for me to sit down and try to figure out what is going on that makes me feel the way that I feel. I thought it was a client-relationship that soured Wednesdays for me, but that client has moved to Monday groups, so that's not the reason why things are rough on Wednesdays. My next layer of analysis moves to the co-workers that I see on Wednesdays, and I know that there is one unstable relationship there. I wonder if that's what the issue is. I just want to figure out a way to be enthusiastic about Wednesdays again. I am tired of waking up and feeling like I want to be "sick" at the same time every week. So, what can I do to become a bit more enthusiastic about Wednesdays? I have no...

My current project is to put together a whole bunch of ideas for a cat-themed session. This is inspired by an early morning visitor who showed up outside my office door. I think it is one of the cats from next door, but I am not entirely sure. This cat does not wear a collar, but I'm not sure that either of them do next door. It comes up to my glass door and scratches but it will not allow me to pet it for long. It will not come into my home, though I did get a nose in the doorway this morning. I like making themed sessions, but I don't often use those session strategies in my music therapy practice. My adolescents are not always the most receptive to themes, and the amount of mood vectoring that I have to do on a regular basis often precludes themes or strategies. That doesn't stop me from thinking about themes, though. Perhaps I like themed sessions because it fulfills a bit of what I thought I would be doing as a music therapist when I started off. My dream job was, and ...

Today's Random Number is #894 - a post from July 30, 2015 .  Apparently, that date was the second day of my end-of-summer break, and I was in full-out rest mode. I tend to do very little during my breaks from being a school-based music therapist, and I have become a bit more allowing of that particular trait than I have been in the past. I often feel like I need to fill up my time off with tasks in order to be a good person. It has only been recently that I've changed my definition of what it means to be a good person. I was thinking about self-care on July 30th. Apparently, I held a webinar on the 29th all about the topic, so it was fresh in my mind. I think about self-care often. There are times when it feels selfish but there are other times when it helps me continue to do my job. I know that there are many different perspectives about what self-care is and whether it is something important or necessary. My perspective is that there are things I need to do to keep up my abil...