music, therapy, and me

So, you might notice that I am a prolific blogger, but that I do not blog every day. I have a couple of rules for blogging that I have developed over my years. They are completely random, personal, and vary based on my mood. These, however, tend to be the rules that I look for in the blogs of others - even though they are completely my own. If you cannot write something that sounds coherent to you, then it probably isn't understandable by others. - This explains the gaps that I have in my blog at times. Take yesterday, for example. I started several different posts, but I just kept babbling and burbling my way through random thoughts. So, I gave up on writing. It just wasn't what I wanted to put out into the world. There are some topics that I do not want to write about. Politics is at the top of that list. It is rare that you will hear much about what is going on outside my immediate world because that type of conversation tends to make me feel more stress than specific things...

Walter - just because I love him!! Well, that was a rough week - I had food poisoning last Sunday after eating something I made on both Saturday and Sunday - only got food poisoning on Sunday for some reason. I did not go to work on Monday - it is hard to sing when nauseous - I slept instead. Last week went slowly and culminated with my second-to-last Talent Show. Nothing happened at the show, thank all things good and wholesome, and now we are on the downward slope to next week when all the end of the school year stuff happens. This week has a field trip for one group of students this morning. As far as I know, there is nothing else happening. Next week is a different story. We have graduation and then the end of the school carnival. After that, we will be done for a week before coming back and doing things all over again. Since I work in a psychiatric residential treatment facility school, my students are in school year round. That means that I am working year round. I really don...

Okay, all. I am here, trying out a new blog series that I haven't really tried out yet, but that is something that supports what I am already doing as a music therapist. Here we go - Songwriting Sunday !! Now, songwriting is something that I do all the time. I hope I'm not alone in this, because songwriting is also something that is just fun. After all, we had to go through all of our music theory courses, so why not use that knowledge for something that enriches our professional existence and that makes others look at us in awe. Songwriting is a superpower! Seriously. Who else can figure out melodies, harmonies, pitch centers, rhythms, tempi, lyrics, dynamics, styles, forms, and all that in a short amount of time. There aren't many people out there who can take an idea and turn it into a piece of music. We are part of a small group of people who have these skills. We need to celebrate that as much as possible! (Is anyone's imposter syndrome starting to rear its ugly he...

Dearie, me. It is already Friday, and I have blogged about three or four of the last seven days here. I am getting closer to figuring out what I want to start writing about as themes (which is something I find I need in order to keep going with music therapy related topics on this blog - otherwise I end up just babbling on and on and on...). I am wondering if writing about composition from a clinical perspective would be something that would help me figure some things out. I used to write monthly therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) for sing about songs , but I stopped doing that on a regular basis a while ago. It would be nice to get back into writing music as a part of my regular routine. So, how about Songwriting Sundays? (I like alliteration, so something with an "S" at the beginning HAS to be on either Saturday or Sunday - it's corny, but it makes my heart happy, so...) I enjoy writing songs. I enjoy making things up as I go along as well. So, having a songwriting to...

Hello. My social media name is MJ, and I am a middle-aged woman who is also a music therapist. I work with persons with a variety of complex diagnoses, and I have a huge interest in all things music therapy clinical training. I am an internship director as well as a staff music therapist, and I am currently recovering from Influenza A - something that is going through my facility and my communities right now. I am currently feeling very tired, and I have neglected my writing habit woefully for the entire past week - something that is very unusual for me. The title of this blog is music, therapy, and me , so if you are here, I assume that you are interested in one or more of these categories. I know my sister reads the blog occasionally - I assume that she is more interested in the me  part of the blog than the other two categories, but I haven't really asked her about that... Hey, sissa!! I have been writing this blog for the past 17 years, and my writing habits have varied over al...

Most of the posts that I have written over the past several years have been me-focused. Of course, this blog actually functions as my online journal, so the "me" parts are part of how I identify as a human and as a music therapist. I have a feeling that there are times when people are just not as interested in my personal feelings as they are in my ideas and opinions about music and therapy. I try to focus on music therapy things on four days of the week, but I forget sometimes (like yesterday) and end up nattering on and on about what is happening in my life or about bullet journaling or about my back aches. I figure three days of personal stuff is plenty for this blog. So, if you are interested in specific posts, here is the way I approach my writing (most of the time - I am striving to get back into a set pattern of topics): Sunday - Synthesis Sunday - I like to think about something and try to figure out my stances on that topic. There is some news from AMTA that was rele...

When I started this blog forever ago, I wanted to find a title that would help me focus on what I really wanted to write about - the complexities of being a music therapist in this world. There are three pieces of this blog, and I find that, for the past year at least, I have been focusing more and more on the last part of this blog title - the me part. I will still be writing about me - that's a part of this entire blog, after all, - but I want to also up my post count on the other two parts of this blog. I already have TME Tuesdays going, but I think I want to go back to what I used to do - offering ideas to you, fellow music therapist! I got away from that because I got sucked into some social media trolling that insisted that it was the responsibility of music therapists to give ideas and intellectual property to other music therapists without the expectation of payment. I find that I miss the opportunity to share ideas here, so I think I will go back to offering ideas - not th...