TME Tuesday: Who Knows Where This Will Go...

TME Tuesdays: Box with abstract background design including the following text: www.musictherapyworks.com; TME Tuesday.
It is Tuesday again, and I have not written down any TME ideas for the past... um... month. I am failing in my experiment to write 5 TMEs per week, so I am resetting this experiment. It is time to evaluate and try to figure out what is going on.

First, I am recovering from a broken finger that has impeded everything that I need to to do for this experiment. I am hoping to start occupational therapy very soon, so I can stretch this ring finger and strengthen it enough to get back into playing the guitar. I miss my guitar so much! My songwriting is only half-way done because I am not allowed to use my left hand fro anything at the moment. It is frustrating, and not being able to use my left hand means I am not able to play things in their entireties. I can hear the melodies and the accompaniments, but I cannot play them to see if I am correct. I also don't have any composition software on my work computers, so I cannot hear if what I am writing (rhythms can be my downfall when composing), so things are half done but not complete.

It is time to rethink this experiment and rethink the assignment for my interns as well. I am not sure what the outcome will be, but I definitely am not getting this done the way I was hoping to do when I started. I might end up doing themed assignments. Week One - transcribe or compose five opening and/or closing TMEs. Week Two - transcribe or compose five sequencing songs. Week Three - transcribe or compose five music-based games. That could work for both me and for my interns. I could even make it somewhat random and pick themes from a hat, if you will. I can get that type of experiment going right now.

Let's see - there are three and a half weeks before Winter Break - This week will be used to define the quest - things like making the themed assignments and setting up the quest itself. I have lots of empty pages in the back of my newish work journal that could be used for outlining this task nicely.

I am starting to get excited again.

So, the model would be the same. The short-term goal would be the same - five TMEs written per week. The impetus for writing the TMEs would be guided by an element of chance and themes. I like that idea - a bit of randomness is always something that piques my interest. This is something that I could do with my interns to model the process that I feel is so important for their future advocacy efforts. We could share our TMEs on Fridays to increase the number of TMEs that we have in our files. They would get theirs done, and I would be able to share mine with them so they would have ten TMEs to add to their file per week. Then, they would need eight weeks to finish the task - significantly less time than they have to finish the assignment. I will keep the requirement for 25 self-composed songs. That is also something that I do all the time and think is very important for my interns to do for their futures as well. 

Perhaps I am not communicating the reasons behind this assignment very clearly. This is something else to think about as I am evaluating my internship program for the next interns who arrive at my facility. I have lots of time coming up without an intern, and I am ready to make some changes with what I ask future interns to do. It is important for me to understand why I think these assignments are important to interns.

For me, the key to survival as a music therapist is being able to be flexible for your clients. To do that, I feel like a music therapist has to be creative and able to discuss the music and how it is used to assist clients towards achieving their goals. So, I have found that thinking about these things when developing TMEs is a valuable exercise for both myself and for my interns. In the recent years, I guess I have done less explaining and more writing about this. I also assume that professors don't use this type of planning to get their students to think about what we do with our clients. It certainly seems like a revolutionary idea to most of the interns I talk to and have talked to from other internship programs.

Lots to think about as I head out into the melting snow and slush of my part of the world. I know that I always want to do more, and I am never convinced that I have found exactly what I want for myself and for my interns.

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