music, therapy, and me

Today's Sentimental Sunday post is the most viewed post on my blog - ever, and I am glad that I happened upon this one in my morning perusal on this Spring Forward Sunday. Here it is - the 7 things I wish someone had told me about music therapy post.  The sad thing about this post is that I think we still do not talk about these things much in the music therapy world. It has been almost 10 years since I wrote this first post and not much changes in the world of music therapy...ever. I still think that we, as a profession, are on a precipice.  We have to do better, as a collective group of professionals, at preparing our future professionals for this life. I am reading through the report of the commission for the 21st century group very slowly. My initial reaction is that what I have read is very similar to what was recommended 10 years ago, but I haven't delved into things the way I should before I start to talk about it all.  I am frustrated with how long it takes to ge...

Good morning. After two days of seriously angry attitudes and just feeling like everyone and everything outside of my home was stupid and set to make me even angrier, I think I am coming out of the mood - we will see, though. I haven't left home since Friday afternoon, so I am not sure if my anger issues have receded or just been unchallenged. Today's foray into the world will let me know if I am actually doing better or not. My random number generator spat out post #1711 for consideration today. I went back into the archives and found this post from December 15, 2017 - titled "...The 'Must Do' Rather Than the 'Want To Do' List. "  I am always a bit amused when I read past posts because they remind me that I am always struggling and striving to grow in many areas. This post tickles my fancy because it reminds me that I try really hard to be organized and to get things finished up in a logical manner but... I haven't used my "want to do" ...

This has never happened before, but today's selected post is a Sentimental Sunday post. Post #3360 was written on October 1, 2023 , and it was all about a post I wrote back in 2011 (there is a link in post #3360 to the original post). Rough weeks happen, and they tend to happen quite often at my job. They seem to be happening more often these days, so it is nice to be reminde d that things really haven't changed much - I might just be more attentive to the continuing issues of the people that I work for and with right now than I have been in the past. All of these posts are concerned with figuring out what I need to do to engage my clients in their music therapy treatment process. I still struggle with this with some of my clients, but those clients are the ones that do not engage in any sort of education with any sort of enthusiasm, so I know that music therapy is not the only thing that they hate about school, but it still bores into my brain. I want people to love music and ...

I woke up a bit later than I usually do (for the second day in a row), and I started my blogging routine after checking email and fiddling around with social media and all that. Going to my blog archive and starting up the random number generator is just something that I enjoy, so it was fun to get started with all of this today. The random number generator spat out the number #2281. This led me to a post from September 16, 2019, titled "What Do I Really Want?"  I always find it interesting to see what I was thinking back when. This one is a good reminder of things that I am working on right now. My word for 2019 was "courage." I selected a second word as well; "renewal." This post is a bit of a revealing discourse about me and some of my attitudes towards things that happen in the music therapy world and things that happen in my own life. I tend to go into periods of reflection and self-recrimination, and this seems to be me on the verge of this thing. As...

It is here - the return of my nostalgia posts where I look back at a blog post that I wrote a bit ago. I select these posts using a random number generator, and today, I decided that I would start to select the number once I reached 24 seconds of number generation. Today's number is 3314 - a post from August 2023 - a recent look back.  This post is all about the topic meetings that I strive to use during the time interns are with me (- and, it reminds me of a project that I wanted to get finished for my fellow intern supervisors that I never started. Add it to the list of things that I want to do). We did some of these topics, my former intern and I, but we did not do them the two times that I would like to do with every intern. This is my way of ensuring that we talk about the administrative tasks that are part of being a full-time music therapy clinician. During topic meetings, we address how to do things that I do all the time. I would like to flesh this series out a bit more a...

Here is today's random number post - #1209 from June 12, 2016 . Over the years that I have been writing on this blog, I have changed the focus of the Sunday posts many times. During 2016, I was using my Sundays to show how to use some of the visual aids that I have generated over the years. Today's glimpse into the past shows a bit of how I teach my clients something about rhythm notation. Now, you may be thinking, "Mary Jane, you are not a music educator, so why are you teaching about rhythm notation?" My answer is pretty simple. Most of my clients have not had good experiences in general music classes. Most of my clients will be returning to music education rather than music therapy services when they leave our facility. Since their futures will not be music therapy, I try to give them some knowledge about music education so they have an idea of what is going on in music education - a VERY abstract part of education when you think about it. So, I try to teach them s...

It is Sunday, which means that I am diving back into the archives of my blog posts to see if past me has any information or insights for current me that I can take as I transform into future me. Today's randomly selected post is #2989 which spits me back into the world of July 2022 - so, not so very far away in the past. This post chronicles the beginning of my task box journey at work. I have continued the practices that I outline in this post - the yellow journal, making things for my students, and trying to think about what my students need to learn more than anything else. One of the things that has happened since I wrote this post is that I have moved to less box activities and into more file folder/binder page activities. This was primarily because I do not have the money to purchase many pieces of things. I am trying to figure out ways to keep going with this project without spending my money. I have made and distributed over 100 tasks and activities for my clients in the ...

This foray into my past was both fun and interesting. Past me had so many plans that were interrupted, but that's okay. The interruption was not personal - it was a global pandemic. ANYWAY - here's the post - December 10, 2019 .  I like making things, but what I like even more is making things that other people use in their music therapy work. I have a TPT store (that is Teachers Pay Teachers, but they rebranded), and I like making things to use in music therapy sessions. I didn't go into content creation to make money, so everything is very inexpensive for others. The products I write about in the post are available along with many others. Lately, I have not been making new things. I am in a bit of a depressed mode at the moment. This happens to me every so often, and this current mood has been influenced by a broken finger and limitations on what I can do with my hands. My brain has been languishing while my body is healing. I stopped making physical file folders and book...

I am currently involved in writing a large, very different project for me, so my blog is being neglected. I will try to post more in the upcoming week here because I am missing the routine of writing about music, therapy, and me.  It is Sentimental Sunday, and the random number generator sent me to post #2327 - November 11, 2019 . At this time, four years ago, I was recovering from emergency surgery and had found that someone had damaged the car that I was getting ready to trade in for a new car. I was hurt and scared and overwhelmed by it all. The accident was never solved. I spent money to repair the car and then traded it in for the car I have now. Looking back on posts like this one really reminds me of trends and situations in my life. I am not always the best person during personal emergencies. I do not handle changes in my schedule well. I also have difficulty focusing on more than one emergency situation at a time, but I always make it through with the long-distance support...

It is Sunday again, and I have a little bit of time before I have to head out into the time change world to try to sing enough to lead worship this morning. It is time to see what past me has to say to present me. I plugged in the number of posts that I have written on this blog about music, therapy, and me (3,393) into a random number generator and then started up the generator. It spat out post #2117 , so I am taking a glimpse back to February 27, 2019 .  Oh, February. It is usually the month where we get the most inclement weather. For it being the shortest month in duration, it always seems like the longest month of the year. This year was no exception. I was not looking forward to anything about February 27th - it was a Wednesday. It was a 12-hour day. It was a possible inclement weather day after a series of inclement weather days. I was not happy when I was writing. One of the things that I am noticing more and more about myself and about the people around me is when we get ...

One of the things that I like about doing these looks back into topics I wrote about before is that I have the advantage of hindsight to allow me to think through the happenings of those days. Today's randomly selected glimpse back into the past comes to us from March 3, 2020 - ten days before the world closed due to COVID. This was a chance to show off some of the work that I do and offer out there in the world for music therapists and others to get for themselves.  Now, I am not really good at advertising myself very well. In March 2020, I was planning on having my first exhibition at the Midwestern Regional conference, but that plan crashed when the world closed. I still have not had an exhibit at a conference. This past year was the first time I went to a live conference, and I was not ready to try again. My next opportunity will be in 2025, and I do want to try to have an exhibit at that point. I love making things for others to use for inspiration, and I want people to acces...

In August 2020, I received a hand injury that I thought was going to destroy my ability to do my job. Five days ago, I acquired another injury on the same hand and on one of the same fingers as in 2020. Today's posts are going to look at what I was feeling three years ago and see what I can extrapolate knowing how things turned out. There are times when hindsight can help. The first post happened on August 26, 2020 . The second post happened three days later on August 29, 2020 . They were both concerned with what I was going to do as a music therapist with two broken fingers - one actually fractured and one with a tendon rupture. Since I am in the same sort of position now, I thought I would take a look back at what I was going through with some ability to reflect. This time around, I have a fracture in the middle phalanx of my left ring finger. Last time, it was a fracture in the distal phalanx (if you are not sure what any of that means - middle finger joint and fingertip respect...

It is Sunday, so I am taking a glimpse at a random post from past me. Today's post (from the random number generator) was #1797 . I looked at the archives and found that this post was written on March 8, 2018 and was all about taking time to make things work. This same topic comes up again and again for me. Do I rush through something because I have to have some sort of product at the end of the process, or do I take the time to do things with thought and care? One thing that I have found is that rushing often means having to go back and fix things which requires undoing and more time. I think one of the benefits of living through a global pandemic where my job situation changed about every six weeks for about 8 months before going back to the "new normal" was that I learned to let some things go. I no longer want to do everything for everyone all the time. I am better about saying "no" when I need to do so. I was able to find new foci for my time and energy. I...

Wow. Today's look back into my thoughts and blog posts has hit me hard. Check out this post from July 14, 2011 to see what I was thinking and writing about back then. It is definitely a concept that I am still living, thinking about, and trying to figure out - 12 years later... The past week was a difficult week - seems like the same sort of week that I had back in July 2011. This time around, I don't think that I did anything wrong. The students that had a bad time in music therapy came in that way - they had decided that they were going to hate every single thing that they were provided before they even knew what was g oing on. There isn't much that I can do when students are bound and determined to hate what we do - I believe that music therapy is most effective when the client is interested and invested in the process - when clients are unwilling to participate, then are the things that happen in a session actually therapy? My intern is going through this situation wit...

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...

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...

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...

I am starting to think that my random number generator is a bit biased towards the posts I wrote in 2016 since this is the second number spat out in two weeks that came from that particular year. Today's sentimental post comes from October 21, 2016 .  On October 20th, I had a long day at work where I just had to sit in my room by myself. As a result, I was looking for some things to keep myself occupied, and I looked for the movie Alive Inside  - you know the one - the one with Henry who changes when he gets to listen to an iPod filled with music that he knows. It was the first and only time I have watched that movie. Once was enough to get the general idea of the movie and to come up with my personal opinion about it. Read a little bit about my opinion on the post at this link . I think the issues that so many of us have with this particular movie is that it seems to promise that an iPod will wake up our loved ones and restore them to communicate with us. We music therapists ...