music, therapy, and me

One of the things that always seems to surprise music therapy students when I talk to them about becoming interns is that there are some responsibilities that they have to follow in this entire process. There are times, when I am talking to internship supervisors, that I have to say the same types of things - there are responsibilities that internship directors and supervisors have during the internship as well. One of the things that I try to do before each intern starts with me is to re-read all the documents that are required reading. After teaching the AIAC continuing education course for about 10 years, I know what the expectations for all parties are pretty darn well, but it is always good to review them on a regular basis. I do my best to follow all of the National Roster Internship Guidelines throughout the intern's time with me. They are pretty easy to follow, but there are some folks who just don't bother or who are unaware, I guess. The thing that continues to be th...

Aren't human beings fascinating? We've gone through ten chapters of musical development in Music, Therapy, and Early Childhood: A Developmental Approach by Elizabeth Schwartz, and we are just now getting to the end of the early childhood developmental process. This last bit, responsibility, indicates the time when the young child starts to work within the group structure and is able to start playing an individual role within that group. This is the last of developmental stage chapters, and it illustrates the ideal musical development - that of being independent in making music, but also being able to use that music within a group context with others. For this chapter, Schwartz illustrates the fact that goals are individual, for the individual within a group, and that there are also group goals that the individual also addresses. Music becomes purposeful for many during this stage. We sing in a choir. We play set patterns on the drum. We make our patterns match the ones pla...

After the week I've had, I am going to spend some time trying to work on my graphic organizer (a tool that I use to organize my thoughts) for the text that I am currently reading, Music, Therapy, and Early Childhood: A Developmental Approach , by Elizabeth Schwartz. I'm going to add to what I have already started, trying to fill out the smaller parts that make up the whole. There is so much information contained within these chapters, that I am finding it interesting to watch the developmental process start to develop. The problem? There is so much information that the graphic is getting larger and larger all the time. The nice thing about my program, Inspiration, is that I have all the room I need! Here's the updated graphic. Hope that it makes sense for my fellow visual learners out there! Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Happy Sunday.  

Control is an interesting concept, especially for the child. In Chapter ten of Music, Therapy, and Early Childhood: A Developmental Approach by Elizabeth Schwartz, we take a look at how young children develop and demonstrate control through musical interactions and explorations. As a therapist who works with persons on developing impulse control, this chapter has been extremely relevant to my work. One of the resources that was sorely needed and lacking during my undergraduate education was the Briggs/Bruscia stages of musical development. I wish I had been exposed to these ideas way, way back. They were around when I was in school, so it would have been something we could have accessed, but it wasn't part of my class work. Oh well. Maybe it was better to wait until now to access that information - I can synthesize it much better as a seasoned clinician than I would have as a novice music therapy student. If you are currently a student (and reading this book - Hello, all from ...

It is Sunday, and that means time to do some synthesis, AKA reading something and then internalizing it within my own clinical practice to make some sense out of what happens during music therapy. So, off we go into the ninth chapter of my selected text - Music, therapy, and early childhood: A developmental approach. Written by Elizabeth Schwartz, this text organizes several ideas about musical development into a book that is a practical guide for music therapy clinicians who work within early childhood populations. With a bit of synthesis and lots of thought, I use this text as a guide for my work with children, adolescents, and others with developmental disabilities. Like all of my synthesis texts, it takes some extrapolation to get from the intent of the author to my own population, but that's what I'm here for - to figure out what is applicable to my students. Last week, I started an infographic for myself to help me organize my thoughts. Here's the graphic from la...

Last week's chapter in Music, Therapy, and Early Childhood: A Developmental Approach by Elizabeth Schwartz addressed awareness and the reflex phase of musical development on the Briggs/Bruscia stages of musical development. This week's chapter, Chapter 8, addresses the concepts of trust and the Briggs/Bruscia stage of reflexive child to intention child.  "Trust is the structuring and organization of response to awareness" (p.59). For my clients, this idea is manifested through the development of the therapeutic relationship as well as through the concepts of music itself. This is one of the reasons that I use opening TMEs as part of my session planning and strategizing. I know there are many people who think that singing an opening song is inappropriate, but I find that my clients respond to that familiar process and often protest when it doesn't happen. There is trust there - trust that I know the process that they expect and that I will support them in the...

Today is the day that I dive back into my synthesis textbook - Music, Therapy, and Early Childhood: A Developmental Approach by Elizabeth Schwartz. I am up to chapter seven, Awareness, and I am looking forward to reading these 10 pages. We are starting with the development of awareness in early human development - something that is important when working with persons with developmental interruptions or challenges. A long time ago, my facility served persons with significant involvement due to developmental situations. These persons often required 24 hour care for all activities of daily life, and this group of students seemed to be one of the most challenging for my music therapy interns because they responded to things very differently from all the other students. This chapter is reminding me of those students. According to Schwartz, awareness is linked to the "reflex phase of musical development" from Briggs and Bruscia (p. 49). Children respond to the stimuli presen...

It is Sunday again, and I am skipping in my reading a bit. I've been talking to my intern about human development and musical development, so I skipped into the appendix of this particular book where Elizabeth Schwarz has compiled all of the information in the next several chapters into a checklist. The appendix contains Music Indicators of Early Childhood Development , a three-page list of information that operationalizes specific characteristics of musical behavior in a way that allows me to evaluate some of my students even though they are way older than early childhood. Rather than focusing on age, this list of indicators focuses on musical behavior.  I use this at times. I go through the list of items contained under the three categories, singing, playing instruments, and music movement, and I use this appendix to figure out strengths and next steps in music experience. The indicator does need some more knowledge of the rest of the book - you have to read the rest of the b...

Chapter six in Music, Therapy, and Early Childhood: A Developmental Approach, by Elizabeth Schwartz, is one of my favorites (so far). This is a bit facetious as the chapter is only two pages and sets up the next several chapters very well. Today, I am all about thinking briefly. The other part of it is that this brief chapter sets up the other part of book and leads me into thinking about what will be happening in the other chapters of the book. This is my type of chapter! In these two pages, Schwartz sets up the framework which is the reason for the entire book. This chapter starts the synthesis (is it any wonder that I like this book so much??) of the information touched upon in the first five chapters. This chapter sets up the concept that the framework itself will be based on "the Briggs/Bruscia theoretical model of musical development" and will group common goal areas including "singing, playing, music movement, and musical understandings" (p. 48). This se...