music, therapy, and me

 Here you go! A demonstration of my new TMEs by the Numbers file in my TPT store! Available for free!!

Here I sit - again - staring at a blinking cursor on my computer screen as I scramble for something to write about. You know what? I am just going to go back to what I know the best - talking about writing therapeutic music experiences (TMEs and my selection for what to call what I do with my clients during sessions) and making sure that others can replicate those TMEs with their clients. So, TME Tuesday is returning - at least for today. I will try to make this a thing, but my brain is not tracking themes for writing very well at the moment. (It is now on a super-sticky post-it note on my monitor - that usually helps - super-sticky post-its are a wonderful invention for my brain and organizational needs!)   It has been some time since I created something completely new, from scratch, and then written it down so I could replicate it. I tend to engage in lots of improvisation in my work, but those songs just evaporate when I try to write them down. As such, I have to write things do...

One of the things that I enjoy is developing therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) which happens to be the term that I like for what I do with my clients during sessions. Others call these things interventions or applications or modules. I am currently designing TMEs to go along with a book that I bought at Thriftbooks.com. It is my goal to have one book organized with TMEs to go along with it for each month of the year. The first one is getting started, and I am revisiting my TME process and refining it all. So, let's catch up about this. I started writing TMEs (we didn't call them that back in 1989, by the way - we called them applications - I didn't like that term very much, even back then, but I didn't argue) in my second semester of music therapy education. We had to come up with 25 things to do with music therapy clients during the semester. It was rough to create that many ideas, but I did it. I wrote down my ideas on 4X6 inch index cards. I still have them, of co...

I am sure that I mentioned that I brought back an old closing TME (therapeutic music experience) this week. It occurred to me that I had not sung the song for years due to interns being in charge of sessions and bringing their own music into our music therapy culture. Many of my "standard" TMEs have gone by the wayside. Right now, though, there are no interns at my facility. I closed that program in October after having zero applications for a year. For the next year and three months, I am bringing back the TMEs that I love and that my clients have loved over the years. It is time to rediscover things that are long forgotten and to introduce them to my current clients. This week, as I have been encouraging my clients to select their own music interactions through decision making and exploration of the music room, they have been making requests. I currently have requests for using the parachute, using the traffic cones, and using the bouncy balls. Some of the behavioral health...

Happy Break for me, folks!! I took a week off from blogging - just because - last week. I have a week ahead of me to rest and work and make plans before heading back to work for our extended school year and an intern interview! Yep, that's right. As soon as I announced that I thought I would close things down, I got an applicant who finished all of my requirements and wants a place in the new year. So, that person is coming up for an interview on day 1 of our summer session - with a new schedule... oh well. That is not the topic for today, though. Today's topic is songwriting, and it is time for me to get some of that going again. I have a weekly reminder set on my work email to remind me to select a topic for my therapeutic music experience (TME) challenge. Here's what that is. I want my interns to complete five TMEs each week for the first four months of their internships. Sixteen weeks times five TMEs equals 80 TMEs for their file - I require 75 TMEs with 25 of them bein...

I stayed in my house yesterday, and I did absolutely nothing of note. Today, I am heading back to work because we are finally experiencing above zero temperatures and are having school rather than snow days. The snow starts up again tonight and tomorrow, so we may have more snow days this semester. In fact, I think this might be an eight-day snow day year. We will see. I used to drive in for snow days, and I have an overnight kit at work right now, just in case. I feel guilty that I am not going in for snow days these days, but I know that it is safer for me to stay home than it is to try to drive on ice. This year, I want the alternate days off, but I have to be at work to get them. In the past two weeks, I have not felt like leaving my house to try to drive on the ice, so I have remained home on our three inclement weather days. My rational mind knows that it is a safe plan, but my emotional mind is steeped in guilt that I am not there to provide music therapy for the residents of my...

Please forgive my change in topic as I am currently away from easy access to my documents and do not want to make something up. I am sitting on the 15th floor of a hotel at the moment, listening to the sounds of traffic and construction, and enjoying the opportunity of just being away. Away from work, away from home - away. I am awaiting the beginning of the Midwestern Region conference in Lincoln, NE, a conference that I seriously debated skipping but ended up attending. To my disappointment, not many people were interested in what I had to say about competency-based clinical training (I need to look at my description and amp it up a bit before attempting to submit it to other conferences), so I am here early with some time to kill. I could go crash the Passages portion of things, but that seems a bit strange considering it has been 30 years since I was even close to being an entry-level student of music therapy. I would probably stand out, and there are at least a couple of students ...

As Friday rolls around again, I find that I have done little to no organizing with my current system project - my visual aid files. I have, however, dived straight into one of my other systems - my monthly boxes.  Each month has a 13 in. by 13 in. by 3 in. scrapbook storage box where I stash things that are related to specific things that happen in the month. They are labeled with the month name and include copies of my sing about mini editions , visual aids that go along with specific therapeutic music experiences (TMEs), and anything that has something to do with the month or the theme or the holidays that are in each month. This is a system that I have had for many years and that I use at times to help me spur my creativity and get myself going again in the TME development process. On Wednesday, I took down the March box from the cabinet next to my desk at work and opened it up. Inside, there are St. Patrick's Day books and visuals and activities. There are some Easter things si...

One of the most popular Therapeutic Music Experiences (TMEs) at my facility is a children's game, "Doggie, Doggie, Where's Your Bone?" I am not sure why it is so popular, but it really is, so we end up playing it more often than any other game TME. It is requested by my long-term clients. The "I'm too cool for school" kids even play it and request it. It is an interesting phenomenon for me to see how this particular game makes the list of the top 10 TMEs at my facility - hands down! To play this game, we sit in a circle, and I get out one of my wrist bells. One person is selected as "Doggie." That person turns around and puts their hands near their eyes so they cannot see. One person is chosen as "Thief" and has to sneak up, take the bells, and then return to their seat. The bells get hidden behind the back of the "thief" and then everyone gets into the action. We put on our best guilty or innocent faces and start the chant ...

Every month, I sit down to write up a series of therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) to send out to subscribers. I enjoy the process of revisiting old ideas and making up new ones to go out into the world and help other therapists by sparking their creativity. I also have fun trying to write TMEs for a variety of client populations and clinical foci - stepping away from the clinical goals of my own clients to embrace other goals and ideas. I am getting ready for sing about february 2022. I like to release these out about three months in advance because I feel that folks can practice and revise and expand upon ideas when they are provided in advance. My subscribers don't seem to mind.  I have been thinking a bit about songs that I had to sing over and over again when I first started working at my current facility, and I've realized that I no longer sing those songs. Sings like "I Just Called to Say I Love You" and "Chapel of Love." My students now don't ...

My June box is a bit more full now than it was yesterday when I opened it up. Yesterday, the box revealed that I hadn't really put much into this particular box, so it was time to figure out some things to place into it. I started by printing off my sing about june editions for 2020 and 2021. These books contain several unique Therapeutic Music Experience (TME) plans and some visual aid options. Now I have lots more information available to me for strategizing purposes. I then finished up and printed off a summer music rhythm post that needs to be laminated and cut out to be complete. You can see some of the icons and one of the rhythms ready for the laminator. That is my job for today - laminating everything that I want to use this month. There is a bunch that is not included in this post because their permanent homes are not in the June box (yet), but this file is part of the laminating stack.  One of my TMEs in June 2020 is Bowling for Boomwhackers. This chance composition, let...