TME Tuesday: Introducing Woodwinds to My Clients

I teach in a school setting. My clients are not easy to teach and often have aggression and significant difficulties with communication of emotions, wants, and needs. They often have not had many positive experiences in school settings and come to us for specialized special education services. One of those services is educational enrichment music therapy services.

Being an educational enrichment therapist means that I see every student for an hour per week. I do not have IEP goals for clients - music therapy is not considered a related service at my facility - I do not have to do eligibility assessments because every student is automatically eligible for music therapy just by being admitted to the school.

All of this is just to give you a glimpse into my facility and how I operate before I head into my current sessions.

Part of what I do in my sessions is introduce my clients to some general music education concepts because many of my clients have never been allowed to engage with instruments due to their pervasive behaviors of concern. So, I introduce them to an instrument family or music ensemble each month. This month is woodwinds, so I have looked for any and all therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) that support this educational enrichment experience.

To start with, I am playing the saxophone for my students.

Let me tell you, I am NOT a woodwind musician! My primary instrument in college was voice, and I play the cornet, so I am not a good saxophone player! I told one of my groups to prepare for the "squonks" that happen when I play. The saxophone that I have is my brother's instrument, and it is not in the best shape. There are bits and pieces of it that are falling apart, but it still works well enough to share the [ahem] music.

The problem with demonstrating woodwind instruments is that they are not easily shared so some of my clients will be very upset that they cannot also play the saxophone. I provide them with recorders and harmonicas that they can play, but there is no substitute for the real thing. I will have students who do not understand why I can make sounds, and they cannot. They will not be able to make the same sounds because I take off the neck piece and the mouthpiece to protect them from my germs. They will lose interest in the instruments very quickly, but they will be offered the opportunity to try.

With my students, I feel that having opportunities to try things is important. They do not have much choice when it comes to most of what happens in their lives. So, I respect choices (except in cases where safety is concerned), and many of those choices are yes/no choices. "Do you want to play the harmonica?" "No." "Okay, thank you for telling me your choice. If you change your mind, let me know." (I don't usually use all of those words, but you get the idea...) I do not penalize my clients for not wanting to try something new. I want them to be interested, but I also want them to feel some security when it comes to new experiences. I want them to feel in control of how they use their bodies and interact with musical instruments.

So, we are listening to some saxophone squonks, playing harmonicas and recorders - and the melodicas! We are also trying our best to expand our experiences from where we were into something new to consider and experience.

I wish I could find my clarinet and my flute. They are buried in my home somewhere. I have no idea where I have stashed them. I can't find them in my music room (which is a MESS) - that would be the logical place where they would be contained, but my home environment is not logical - YET!

Eventually I will find those instruments and put them in my music room. Will it be this week? Probably not, but who knows??

For now, my students will hear me play a bit and will get to play two other instruments this week. We will think about woodwind instruments and be exposed to information about the instruments that are part of the bigger world of music.

Time to get squonking!