Therapeutic Music Experience Tuesday (AKA TME Tuesday)
If you have read any of my previous TME Tuesday posts, then you know that I have an organizational system for my ideas. I have a structure that really works well with my brain and my way of doing therapy. This system requires that I think through all sorts of musical and therapeutic elements to coordinate session strategies with specific clients. Now that I do not have clients, I have time to compose and write TMEs down again.
My current focus is the two upcoming events through my company, musictherapyworks.com, LLC. One of them is a conference focused on working with adolescents and the other is a creative endeavour that includes making visuals for use in sessions with clients. These are both things that I enjoy coordinating, but the latter is what is making my TME thoughts happen.
For Creativity Camp 2026, we are going to be making four or five projects, and one of them is just itching for a song to go along with it! I am going to sit down and make the project while figuring out some music. I will use my sheet music apps to make the music that I compose look professional, and I will go through my TME process. It will take about an hour (the most time is taken by the app use) to go through the entire thing, and it will be something that I can recommend and add to the file that I will eventually post in my TPT store.
So, here's what I'm thinking...
The project that is currently stirring my creativity is a Monster Face visual. I have a bunch of monster faces that I put together several years ago, and this visual is based on those faces. I usually use them with a piggyback to Monster Mash where we identify some of our fears and then name our monsters after those fears. We then stomp (mash) the monsters that we have named indicating that we can use our coping skills to help us when we feel these emotions.
One of my rules, though is in order to keep visuals, I need to think of six things I can do with them in music therapy sessions. This rule is going to be essential as I am striving to declutter and solidify my resources to what is most important to me and my way of doing therapy. Right now, I just have loads of stuff, so it is important to remind myself of this rule.
So, while I am making my visual aid, I want to also think about six ways I can use these in sessions with clients. I already have one idea rattling around in my brain, so I have to figure out five more before this visual becomes a permanent part of my collection.
As I collect thoughts, I will also start my improvisational composition strategy. I just sit near the keyboard and start singing things until I find a pattern or two to incorporate into TMEs. After I have the basis of a melody and lyric pattern, I head to the keyboard to figure out what I am singing. I note the melody and the rough rhythm on a post-it note before heading to the computer and the app. I am rotten at rhythmic notation, so I don't do much with that element until I start to put things into the app. I can tell when something is not what I want, but I can't always figure out how to write it without hearing it. So, I tend to tweak it in the app more than on paper. After that, I save it in jpg format for inclusion into the actual TME.
Then, the fun begins.
I used to hate the process of writing TMEs (back then, we called them applications, but I like therapeutic music experience as the term for what I do in sessions with clients better), but I have made it something that makes sense to me now.
Ha! A search of my current TMEs reveals that I have another Monster song TME almost finished, so I only need to find four more ideas so I can keep my Monsters (both the old version and the new version as well!)!! There's also the song, Monster, by Skillet that I could use to support a "make your own" version of this visual.
THREE IDEAS! Hooray!!
Three to go, which is manageable. I can come up with three more things.
You may be wondering, "Why six things, MJ?" It is just the number that feels right to me. Six things offers so many options for use in one session, so I could fill an entire session with just these visuals, but I won't have to do that. It's interesting to me that this is the number I came up with. It has been my habit for several decades now because I have always had limited storage space (there is NEVER enough storage!) to keep the things that I wanted for my sessions. I figure, if I can have six things for every item in my storage, then I can justify that the item is useful. I wish I could bring myself to do that with everything else that I am hoarding right now.
This is the second real day of being retired. My former co-workers went back to the second half of the extended school year yesterday. I had a couple of nostalgia moments and sinking into panic about not having a direction for my future, but I was able to rationalize myself out of those moments.
I have to leave my house to get a grocery order around 8am. After that, I have nothing else that incorporates human beings until next Tuesday. So, I need to establish some contact with other people outside of my home as part of my routines. Since it is summer here, and I hate the heat and humidity, I want to find something that is in the air conditioning and encourages me to find new people to be around. I might look at what is being offered at the library and the local craft store to find some ways to be around people enough to feel socialized.
My house still feels overwhelming, but I am getting to the point where there is an itch to go through things and make an inventory happen. This is good as it means that I am starting the process of making sense of what I have and what I can release to others.
Time to head off into this Tuesday to write some songs, some TMEs, and figure out what I can do with these visuals that I make! I have four days before I have to release the digital packet to my campers, and things have to be printed out and organized so it will be a smooth session.
Happy TME Tuesday!
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