...And I Thought Yesterday Was A Late Day...
Today is a four-group day. Three of my four groups have already been with me this week, so I have to come up with something new for them to do when they are in the music therapy session. The other group is my once-per-week group, so they haven't explored any of the things that I have available right now - yet. So, the first thing that I have to do is to figure out what I am going to do with my clients. They went through a series of silly songs with me on Tuesday, so I am thinking I will bring out instruments today.
It is always interesting to work on my session strategies because things rarely go the way I expect them to go. So, having a plan of sorts is often a waste of time, talent, and energy. Instead, I depend on the strategies that I know work with my population. Iso-principle, wiggle before thinking, humor, game theory - things that I can manipulate and use to my advantage when facing seven large adolescents who are angry about something that happened away from my session but who need to deal with the interaction before we can get to their therapeutic goals.
I can write a great session plan. This is something that was part of my training, but it is also an unrealistic situation to think that the client will not contribute to the session at all. (Now, don't tell your professors that I said this - learning to write session plans is a good foundational skill that all therapists should understand, but once you end up doing this job, you might find that your plans often go awry because the client responds in ways that you did not anticipate - being able to adapt in the moment is more important than writing immaculate session plans. Just my opinion, by the way. Others think differently.) Now, I prefer to have session strategies that go for every session and lists of musical selections that I can choose from during clinical interactions.
My list for this week has been - Make A Silly Sound, Old MacDonald Had a Funny Farm, What Do You Do with a Grumpy Kangaroo, I Like, I Like to Eat, Baking a Pie, and a couple of other songs that I have not used yet. All of these are songs that I can use and change to match the indicators I get from my clients. I can change tempo, key, mode, lyrics, timbre - you name it, I can change those things to best support my clients in the ways that they need in the moment. All of the songs have non-musical goals, but I am constantly scanning the group to see what types of changes need to be made during our interactions. Most of the non-musical goals are not affected by changes that I make in the music itself.
I still find all of this fascinating, even after 33 years of being a professional. It amazes me how finding the right tempo in the moment can change how my clients interact with me and with others. It is amazing to me that music can affect so much in our bodies.
I figure that the ability to adapt music to fit each client is one of my superpowers. I think it is one of yours as well, but I also feel that this focus has to be taught. I was not taught this - I had to discover it for myself. That was interesting, to say the least. I don't know if I would have been ready to learn it as an undergraduate, but I also think that I could have done more for my early clients if I had been thinking a bit differently about music elements and their purposeful adaptation during sessions. It wasn't until I was doing music therapy full-time that I started to notice these things.
Clear as mud?? This is what happens when my brain is foggy. I start to ramble more than usual. My eyes are still not focusing well, so I think I need to stay here a bit more before I attempt to leave my house and drive. Time for a shower and some food before heading out. See you tomorrow??
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