music, therapy, and me

Oh dear. I have not really been in a consistent or interested writing mode lately, but I think this might change. I am starting to get more interested in writing things about music, therapy, and me again. We will see, and there will be interruptions to my writing since I have some stuff to go through in the next couple of weeks, but I am starting to get more interested in different topics. I may be doing more themed posts in the near future. Who knows? Thank you for being here - for reading the things that I post, even when they are not all that applicable to music or therapy. At the moment, I am getting ready for new adventures. It seems like a good time to do this pivot while I have a full-time salary and can build things up without making money from it all. So, be prepared for some advertisements from me in the near future - showcases of the things that I already use in my life as a music therapist that might make your music therapy life move a bit differently. It is time to get goi...

It is Wednesday morning - very early. I have not been sleeping as much as I like lately. This will be helpful next Sunday when my part of the world changes to Daylight Savings Time (ugh!), but it is not really helpful right now. Last night, things were complicated by high winds and blizzardy conditions at my home. Things were wuthering all over the place, and my neighbors have a trash bin in their backyard that had a banging lid each time the wind caught it. (The wind caught it many times!) The one good thing about this particular blizzard is that my power has not gone out... yet. I am really hoping that I will not have to go out into the high winds, but schools are not closing around here. I will plan on going really slowly as I travel the 50 miles to work this morning. The winds are going at 30 miles per hour with gusts every couple of seconds that are around 60 miles per hour. I have a little car that catches every piece of wind that is out there. My job is located in a place where ...

For a long time now, I have been writing songs for thematic TMEs (therapeutic music experiences) and collecting them in my ideas book - the TME section. I haven't put them into a formal collection, but I am on the verge of getting this project started. There is lots of discussion about thematic programming in my parts of the music therapy world. There are loud voices both for and against using themes. I am neutral in the conversation - I am always for whatever makes any music therapist's life a bit easier. If you are a thematic music therapist, I would love to hear what themes are your favorites. If you are not, then do what you do and do it well! I have some themes in my clinical practice at the moment - they tend to be music education themes more than any other, but I also use my umbrella goal areas as themes for programming. As an educational enrichment specialist, I have great latitude in how I arrange my music therapy sessions, so themes help me stay organized. I tend to t...

If you have been reading anything from the past couple of weeks, then you know that my water heater sprung a leak and the water went all over my library closet and in part of the room itself. Today, I have a water mitigation company coming over to work with the now-dried but very mildewy carpet. I have been moving boxes and sorting through things for the last two weeks. I am hoping that everything will be finished up by the end of today, but who knows?  The good news is that I am finding all sorts of things to put into my music therapy room. The bad news is that I am finding all sorts of things to put into my music therapy room. Yesterday, I started brainstorming some uses for some visual aids that I found one of my many boxes. ( See the post here. ) I was able to find four ways to use the airplane and banner visuals, but I am still figuring out two more things to meet my self-imposed "six things" rule. If I can't find two more ideas, then I will try to give things away. ...

As I have been going through boxes and bags of things as a result of my recent water emergency, I have been finding all sorts of things that I have purchased and then packed away. These are things that I had been able to justify purchasing at the time, but that I have not actually used yet. So, as a result, it is time to start working on my Six Things Rule again. Just to refresh your memory (or introduce you to this rule that I have created for myself because I tend to hoard things and keep buying more and more things to use), I have established a "Six Things Rule" to help me figure out if I can purchase things for my music therapy clinic. This rule helps me a bit when it comes to impulse buys, but not much because I can think up six things to do with just about anything when motivated. Right now, though, I need to decide if I can keep these things that are taking over my very being and all my space. These bulletin board pieces, for example. I bought some paw print calendar n...

For the near future, I am going to take something - some object, instrument, or visual aid - and develop TMEs through the use each thing. This is a concept that I share with music therapy interns during one of my presentations, and it seems to be a huge revelation for many of them. I'm not sure why that is, but if you are one of the people out there who have never really considered some of these things, then allow me to show you what I do and how I think about my materials within my music therapy session. I have some ground rules for my brainstorming and a form that I put things into when I am ultra organized (as I laugh to myself about the ultra organized part - I am NEVER ultra organized!!). I share this with my webinar participants on a regular basis, and I am going to add it to my internship bundle on my Teachers Pay Teachers store and into the Internship Handbook that I am still writing for music therapy interns... Anyway, here are my ground rules... No idea is "wrong....

It is TME Tuesday, and, as predicted, I am less happy about being up and getting ready to go. I have been tied to my asthma medication in order to not be coughing all the time and wheezing, so there are things that could be better, but there are things that could be worse, of course! Today's focus is my typical Tuesday focus - therapeutic music experiences (TMEs). There are many ways to come up with ideas, but I find that most of mine either start with a goal or with an object of some sort. Let's focus on how I start with an object and then figure out things I can do with clients and the object. This requires some post-it notes or my Ideas book, a PENCIL, an eraser, and an object. I usually start with brainstorming some sensory information. What can I see? What can I feel? What can I hear? How do I move with or to use the object? What is the payoff for using the object? Other questions come about as I go through this process. I start to fill out my brainstorming post-its or pag...

I have a rule or system or whatever that I try really hard to live by in my music therapy life. It has to do with what I can keep in my music therapy spaces. I call it my "six things" rule. To keep something in my music therapy storage (which is usually pretty full and somewhat disorganized and ever challenging to me), I have to think of six distinctly different things that I can do with it within a music therapy session. If I cannot find six things, then I cannot waste the space on the item or material or device or whatever. I use this rule when I am creating visuals, when I am shopping and want to get something new, when I am clearing things out of my space. I have been able to put things back that have not sparked these ideas in my brain. So, what does this have to do with TME Tuesday? I printed off a series of leprechaun/March themed visuals that I have posted in my Teachers Pay Teacher store. I spent some time cutting them out, laminating them, and brainstorming about wh...

This week ended well - with a sigh rather than a storm or a whimper. While I was exhausted when I got home last night, it was a good type of exhausted; the type where you feel like the day was spent in good things. I fell asleep early and then woke up early (around 1am-ish). While I am still tired and would LOVE to be back in bed, that is not going to happen, so I am sitting here at 6:06am watching the sun start to lighten the sky. It was stormy this morning, but it seems to have quieted down significantly. There are (officially) 10 more work days until the end of the regular school year. That number does not include weekend days, but I do, so there are actually 13 days left until the school year is finished, and I start my first summer break. I will have another one in July, and that will be the break where I "vacation." This break is for decluttering and organizing and being creative in my home. I am looking forward to it all the more because I am planning to go to be with ...

I woke up yesterday in a down mood. I am not sure if this is based on my hormonal cycle or the circumstances that are happening around me, but it is not my preferred state of existence. I do not like being someone who is on the periphery of situations - I prefer being in charge and making essential decisions. That is not the case right now. I am an extra in the drama of other people's lives, and that is not the place I prefer to be. I am also lonely with all the working from home stuff. I miss my daily interaction with my clients. It is difficult to find songs to sing that provide them with something to do where they cannot engage in choice making or providing input. I have to change my way of thinking about what I am doing in order to make it make sense for me. This is a complete tangent from the title of this post, but I think it will make sense if I write it down. Bear with me. I have always loved the idea of writing music to supplement educational curricula. My first thesis pro...

I get half a day off this week, disguised as a full day off because I worked an additional half day last week and will be doing the rest of the half day as a 12-hour day this week. I am not really looking forward to it, but it is a necessary thing, I guess. It was easier when I had my church job on Wednesday evenings and worked the extra hours during the entire week rather than having to sit through mindless and irrelevant meetings with the faculty. Alas, that is no longer the case since my Thursday evening job has turned into a video interaction, so I don't even have that obligation to keep me safe from the mindlessness. Oh well. During this four and a half day work week, I am going to be working on a new series of videos reserved completely for my co-workers' use. Since I cannot expand my services into individual sessions due to COVID restrictions and the schedule that I have for groups, I am facing lots of time just sitting being paid for doing nothing. This does not sit wel...

I often find myself writing a post titled this at about this time every year. It is almost the end of the regular school year - we have three more days - and I usually start my reflection process a little before all of this stuff happens, but this is not a usual type of year, so I'm a bit late. One of the things that always goes through my head at this point of the school year is how much my teachers must have been happy to see the end of me and my classmates every year. Until I started to work in a school, I did not realize that teachers looked forward to the same things that I looked forward to - the start of school, breaks, the end of every year. Now, my students have a little bit of a different type of situation since we don't really have grades or the end of anything, but I still feel those same feelings of excitement and closure every year that I am a school-based music therapist. This year is a little bit different but only a little bit because I am still working i...

Today will be a day of conference preparation and continuing education thoughts and work. I had originally arranged for this day off significantly before all this happened, and I decided to continue to take this day as a preparation day yesterday when I realized that I had lots to do to get myself ready for conference. Most of what I will be doing on this day involves continuing education in one form or another, so I think it definitely falls under the category of professional development. If you haven't heard yet, the AMTA national conference is going to be online this year. I am actually pretty excited about this. Nothing will change the excitement of being completely surrounded by living, breathing music therapists, but AMTA is FINALLY joining The Online Conference for Music Therapy, inc. in the 21st century! Welcome!! I am going to spend some time sending in presentation proposals to AMTA today. I have a couple of ideas (finally) rattling around my brain that I can easily ...

It's a good morning for me. I am feeling pretty rested these days - thanks to enforced time away from my job and a body that is craving healing that just stops at random times. I actually feel a bit of energy today, and that is something that hasn't happened for some time now. I have an appointment for lab work and a post-surgery follow-up this afternoon, so I have something to do later that will keep me going throughout the day. I have spent several hours doing some brainstorming about various and sundry things lately. I am narrowing down my word of the year for 2020. In fact, a bit of time with thesaurus.com, and I think I have my word. I'm not going to reveal it until closer to the end of 2019 and the start of 2020, but I feel that this word will be an effective prompt for me for this year. Hmm. I've enjoyed having a word to guide me through this year. I was able to refer to it several times as I was trying new things. I also consider the fact that I took m...

I've decided to write about my idea process for this entire week, offering you glimpses into how I create visuals, therapeutic music experiences, and songs for my clients to experience during music therapy to get them close to their desired outcomes. It sounds pretty impressive, doesn't it? It's not all that unusual (I think) for music therapists to do any of these things, but here is how I do things.  Today, we will be focusing on my system of taking an idea of mine and making it happen. (Yep, there is a system for this!!) Think about what you do in this type of situation, and let me know what tips you have for us as therapists - things that work for you!! The things that I talk about are the things that work for me - they are not going to be the same for others - THAT'S GREAT!! Find your way (but share your way, okay??). Yesterday's post was all about my initial thoughts about what I want to do and what I want to make. I am in a making type of mood, so I st...

I spent some of my planning time yesterday looking at Pinterest, time sucking device that it is, for some creative inspiration. I'm in the mood to make some things, so I am searching for concepts, and there is no better place to look at stuff than on Pinterest. I now have lots of ideas, and it is time to flesh them out into realities. This is fun part! So, I have lots of cutesy clip art that I've purchased, so it is time to start putting my ideas into that clip art pool and then see what comes out of the mixer. I tend to go towards two poles - really cute and really functional. This help with my students - some like the cute, some absolutely do not - so, I can find use in both types of resources. The things that I want to focus on right now are multi-step and multi-functional activities. I did some work box activities like this for a co-worker who had absolutely no clue how to assemble work boxes, and I found it to be an amazing thought process. Here's how it worked. ...

I am ready to make a change to my Sunday posts. I try to do some themed, predictable posts during the week - I used to do a TME Tuesday, I do a Thoughtful Thursday, and Sunday has been all sorts of things - Song Conversion Sunday, Synthesis Sunday, Just a Song Sunday, Supplemental Sunday. It's been all those things at one time or another. It is time for something new. I like having a theme to write around on these days in the week. It helps me to focus on what I want this blog to be - a place for me to center my writing on music therapy and on what it means to me as a middle-aged woman in the United States. This is the place where I post my opinions (as I am no longer looking at certain social media feeds due to some people who are [in my opinion] acting like trolls out to quash anyone who doesn't see their way as the only way. Themes give me a focus that help me contribute my thoughts in a way that is easy to track through the blog - I use the same labels in the posts, so a ...

Last week, I analyzed a song from my sheet music archive. I separated all the musical elements that I use during music therapy sessions, and I organized my thinking into a graphic organizer - the likes of which I use quite often. Here's the picture: So, I've been half-singing this song to myself all week (when it has defeated the therapy songs that my interns have been using), and I've been spending a bit of time thinking about what I could do in therapy, with my clients, while using this song. In this stage of TME-izing a song (do you like that new term? It started here, folks!!), I engage in creative brainstorming and just go for every and any idea possible. Here's the process in prose (this is often a picture-type process as well): Lyric analysis - the lyrics talk about a woman waiting for a man who is at war. It talks about generational trauma and ideas that are prevalent in trauma-informed care such as acknowledging the happenings and making decisions to ...