music, therapy, and me

So... I feel like I need to be totally transparent about something from the get-go of this particular series... I am not good with identifying songs with their performers. I can't identify the song names, but I can almost always sing the song. As I was trying to figure out what song to select for this series, I remembered being in a session last week, listening to a song by Billie Eilish. I really liked the lyrics to the song, but for the life of me, I cannot remember which song it was. I remember thinking, "that would be a great song for our self-awareness monthly theme," but I cannot find the words that I remember in the lyrics search that I am doing of Billie's songs.  This is a common situation for me, but it's also common for my music therapy clients. We can remember things about songs but can't remember names or musicians. We spend lots of time engaged in clue hunting. I ask questions like, "Is the singer a man or a woman?" (I know, those aren...

Ooh, boy. Songwriting is not for everyone, and that is okay. It is not always easy, but I think it is an essential skill for music therapists to be able to write goal-focused songs for clients. Like every other element of music, this is one that gets better when we practice. And practice. And practice. So, if writing songs is challenging, there are some tasks that you can do to make it easier. Here are the ones that I use, but I would love to hear what you do when you need a new or very specific song to support your clients in achieving their goals. When I get into a situation where the creativity just isn't happening, I take as many elements out of my decision tree as possible. I use dice or pull notes from a hat. I use piggyback songs. I write nonsense songs about strange pictures. I get into a repetitive chord progression and go into some word association strategies. I have figured out things to do that shake me out of my slump and back into composition. These are skills that I ...

I have today and tomorrow off for a medical procedure, so it is time to do some reflection to keep myself from going into an anxiety spiral. The next two days are going to be lots of "hurry up and wait" situations, so I have to spend some time engaged in distracting myself so I don't eat and so I take what I need to take when I need to take it. So, I am going to focus on what is happening in my music therapy space right now. This week is my music education focus week. I have a different focus for every week to help me organize and to give us all a starting point. Within those foci, I tend to vary my treatment to reflect what is happening with each group that comes into my space. I figure a session is a success if clients leave in a calm manner after their time with me, so I use that as my focus for treatment. I do what I feel I need to do to get clients to that point. There are times when I throw out my determined focus the moment the group enters the room. There are othe...

Gentle reader. If you are here, seeking some music therapy thoughts or wisdom, please know that this is not that kind of post. Well, maybe it is, but it's not going to be entirely focused on music or therapy, but on me.  Yesterday was Talent Show day, and every Talent Show day comes with a special type of melt-down for my clients. Usually, my day is full of kids yelling at me because I don't have exactly what they envisioned (but didn't write on their sign-up forms) or panic-induced meltdowns that happen as soon as they see the entire school looking at them (we did have two of those). One kid got angry because I do not play Cardi B at all - not even the "clean" versions at school. I had the karaoke version for the student's dance, but that wasn't good enough for the student who wanted to sing but had not indicated that singing was what the talent was. I had the petty satisfaction of being able to show said student the filled out sign-up sheet, in the stude...

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...

I have entered the season of boredom as an internship supervisor - the intern is doing their full caseload, and I am on light duty. These two things are combining to my time during every intern's time with me where I am no longer "therapist" for the group but am "lady sitting in that room, occasionally yelling things." This is not my favorite time as a music therapist, let me tell you! I am on the brink of making some decisions about my internship program. I am not sure that my program can sustain two interns at the same time anymore. We have recently lost another classroom, so we now serve our client caseload in eleven groups. This is down from fifteen groups four years ago. Since the pandemic, we have not been able to have a full census due to lack of staff members, so our school has shrunk as well. In addition, our population is not an easy one to work with, so our teachers are moving on to new jobs in other districts where there is more funding and better st...

I am not always comfortable improvising. My jazz band teacher in junior high made me very nervous about making up any sort of solo and my perfectionism sealed the deal with that anxiety. My teacher would bark that it was my turn to improvise, and everything I knew about music and music theory would dribble out of my ears and I would end up crying (well, in seventh grade, I did - I found a backbone in eighth grade). This pattern of panic and loss of knowledge continued until my internship when my internship director gave me the best way of thinking about improvisation in music therapy sessions. "Just match your music to what you see your clients do, and then sing about what is going on."    - Sheryl L. Kelly, RMT-BC When she told me that little bit of reframed information, I felt that it made sense to me and my brain. I could do that. It wasn't rooted in perfection or following someone else's theory rules, it was rooted in my clients. Now, I still don't like jazz i...

Ah. It is Sunday again, which means that I go into my post archives and focus my attention on past me to see what lessons I have learned from past me... Today's post is #2576 . This post was written on November 28, 2020 and was two days before my Dad's last hospital visit and his death six weeks later. I was finishing up my Thanksgiving break and was bemoaning (a bit) my lack of organization and desire to clean my environment - common theme on this blog - I was also advertising my sing about songs  - something I do on an occasional basis.  Poor past me - there were lots of changes coming for her. Lots of things that we have to figure out very quickly in the next six weeks - lots of things that change because Dad will be gone soon. Even two and a half years later, the emotions are always there. Reading through all of these older posts help me identify trends in my current life that are ongoing. The theme of physical decluttering is one that always comes up in this blog - it is...

Me in my almost house! After a long, busy weekend, I am heading back into my regular work routine. It is 4:24 am, and I am sitting here, gazing at my blogging post wondering what in the world I might have to say to myself at this moment. My home is a mess because I have started packing for the move that I will be doing next month. The to-do list is getting longer and longer as I try to sort through all the things that I will need to do during the next 30 days. I have my checklists to go through and get myself organized with, but I am also feeling a bit overwhelmed about stuff. When I get this way, I tend to try to compartmentalize myself a bit more than I usually do, and it gets very overwhelming very quickly. I am also a bit hesitant to commit to leaving my apartment and to make arrangements for things like utilities because of my parents' experiences losing houses after offers had been accepted and all that. So, my music therapy routine is a bit off kilter because my life routine...

Am I the only music therapist in the world who still has books upon books of CDs? I hope not. I hope that many therapists still have CDs and make CDs of legally purchased albums to use with clients. I broke my Spotify computer last week, so we have been exploring the CD library that I have at work. I keep CDs there for the days when I am gone and clients still want music to listen to in their session time. Since the computer is broken, I am using old music in my sessions with my clients, and it has been an interesting exercise. Usually, listening to preferred music is a reward for completing "work" in my sessions. I work with adolescents, and they tolerate my singing their preferred music, but they state over and over again that they prefer the original artists' versions of songs. Rather than taking this personally, I agree with them. While I enjoy singing songs by various performers, I think that those performers do a better job of singing (and I like their arrangements)...

As I was on my way to work yesterday, I remembered that this would be the day that everything at work would be changing. I mean everything. None of my students have the same classrooms that they had last Thursday when we were last in school. Everyone has either a new teacher, new actual classrooms, new classmates, or new classroom support staff members. No classroom has been left unchanged. So, three snow days, one holiday, and two weekend days ended and we then changed every bit of familiarity that my students knew for all sorts of new experiences! Apparently things were a bit strained in classrooms as clients are trying to figure out their new situations. We had three groups in music therapy and folks seemed to be glad to be with us. We had no issues with engagement or stress behaviors in our sessions. Kids who do not always engage got involved in what we were doing. New kids were demonstrating their skills in music therapy where they had just sat quietly in their new classes. It was...

Yesterday was a day that broke me. Not because of the inauguration - I am thrilled for our country and our direction at the moment - but because of something that happened 1500 miles away from me at my Mom's house. She had a huge tree fall in a wind storm and fall onto the neighbor's property, taking out a satellite dish and other stuff that hasn't been discovered yet, I am sure. My sister sent me one picture and I lost it. I started into hysterical sobbing and just couldn't fathom being able to lead music therapy sessions while snorting and crying and being completely taken over by my emotions, so I left my intern alone and drove home to sob in private rather than in public. I am still a bit sobby, but I have to go to work - I have no choice. I am hoping that there are no more incidents at Mom's house because I just can't cope with the things that I already have to deal with. My plate is full.  I know that this is part of the grief process. I know this. I know ...

I spent my first day at home yesterday, attempting to work a bit on music therapy planning, resources, and interaction options and opportunities while not being able to go into work. I now have a three day work from home edict from my administrators, so I am trying to figure out how to translate a service that is very much "in the moment" into something that can be easily accessed by clients who are scattered around our state. Everyone else is doing worksheets, but there aren't many worksheets available for what I like and feel like music therapy should be for my clients, so I am trying to figure out alternative methods for getting materials and interactions out into the COVID-19 world. I set out my intentions for the day right after I finished my blogging process, and I started working on work tasks at 5:46am. That's a positive about working from home - I can work when I am most effective and productive (early mornings) and be finished by the time I am at my most ine...

THREE AM MUSINGS IN THE MIDST OF MY BRAIN... Oh, silly rabbit. You thought, just three days ago, that there would be some definitive answers and clear plans to work on by now, but shouldn't you have just realized that NOTHING in 2020 is going to be simple?? So, in the midst of all the drama which is 2020, my own little drama is continuing as I try to figure out my near future. I made my way to the hand specialist on Wednesday, and I got some of the answers that I was seeking, but only some of them. The answers I got were mixed as to whether they were affirming or disheartening. I am still digesting all of the stuff that I was told and am trying to figure out what this means to me as a music therapist in my particular setting. The good news is that I have permission to take broken finger out of the splint occasionally to "manipulate the joint." The bad news is that the fracture is not completely healed so I still have to wear both splints for at least another month. The te...

Inside cover of a new project I am in a season of introspection. This has quite a bit to do with being socially distanced and also with an upcoming birthday, and it also has to do with being middle aged and not liking it one whit. I am feeling lots of stuff - mostly negative emotions at the moment. I don't like these feelings, but I am striving to learn as much about myself as I can during this down time. Since I am bored with all this stuff happening but have no control over it all, I am trying to find some things to do that are outside of my comfort zone. I examined my social media feeds, and do you know what I found? I only really use those feeds for music therapy things. That is not a surprise but rather just an observation that I had never really paid attention to before. Outside cover in progress I have started to fix this by joining two paper crafting groups. They are groups that encourage folks to make things out of paper. I am simultaneously cowed and challenge...

Am I part of a reality show that tests morals and ethical behaviors?? If so, am I winning?? For the last three days, there have been two packages outside my door that are not for me. They are from Sweetwater which is a music equipment company that I have never been able to order from - they tend to be a bit more expensive than I can usually afford. When I walked into my hallway on Wednesday to see these boxes sitting outside my door, I was thrilled! Someone decided I needed a new guitar!!! Joy! Rapture!! What?? My rational mind knew that these were not for me. My family knows not to buy me a guitar - guitar selection tends to be a pretty personal process - I'm not usually too picky, but my Dad (who is the only one who would even think about doing this) knows that I would rather choose my own instrument than just to find one on my doorstep. My emotional mind, on the other hand, was jumping up and down! A new guitar!! What was in the other box?? Maybe an amplifier?? I could use...

On Tuesday evenings right now, I am hosting a series of intern webinars. We meet in a non-recorded, totally confidential setting that allows us to discuss all sorts of things. (Oooh, that reminds me, I need to send my powerpoint to them...be right back...) Okay, I'm now a bit off my morning timeline, but that's okay, I can get things finished. I have LOTS of time in the mornings now - I have cut my hours back even more because of the Department of Health's requirements for folks coming in and out of our building...ANYHOO... Back to talking about talking with interns. Last evening, we talked about time management and organization - two of my personally most challenging tasks, especially right now when everything changes on a moment to moment basis. I am currently trying to navigate working from home, and it is not easy for me, especially since I am also working at work. My concentration at home is horrible, and I haven't figured out what to do so I can get more eff...

My school district has closed for the next week for sure and probably for the rest of the school year - well, at least if the governor has anything to say about it. My administrator sent out a copy of an email "sent to all USD staff" (not sent to my email address) that states that we will be extending our break for another week as we come up with a plan. Our school, being a public, special purpose school housed in a residential treatment facility, will not match any of the decisions made by the superintendent. So, I'm not sure if I'll be trying to do teletherapy with my groups or just stay at home. I don't know if I'll have a salary for the next two months or not. I don't think I'll be paid by the church since the church is closed and I'll not be needed during this time. I only have two more months with that paycheck anyway, but every little bit will help these days. Uh-oh. I'm starting to spiral.  Here's what I know for sure. There i...