music, therapy, and me

I spent yesterday listening to the thunder of gathering and bass drums. We drummed in every session, and we will be drumming in today's sessions as well. Rather than going into a completely new therapeutic music experience (TME), I decided to go into the basics of my music therapy training. My TME of choice this time around is simple. I get out my gathering drums, one of my bass drums, and enough mallets for everyone in the room. I turn on my favorite drumming music - Planet Drum by Mickey Hart - and off we go. We drum in small groups. I put no more than four people at each drum, and it is fun to watch the community start to form. My clients start to entrain to each other - it may only be for short periods of time, but there is social awareness there. When the interest in drumming starts to flag, I place a shaker egg on top of the drum. Interest renewed. After that, I place wrist bells on the top of the drum. We don't talk. We drum. We're going to do the same typ...

I am full up of the music therapy goodness that happens often for me - it is a refreshing change from the goblin-filled thoughts of a day ago...   Yesterday was a good therapy day.   I actually had a chance to run music therapy groups (with drums) during my day, and I spent some time with some great kids! It was the perfect way to banish that shoulda goblin from the forefront to the background (but he hasn't left entirely yet...). We used a variety of drums yesterday in my two groups. With my students, I typically do not do anything really fancy with them until we can entrain to a steady and common beat. This is always an interesting exercise. Some of my students entrain quickly and easily - others do not. It seems that most of my nonentrainers are higher functioning, need less supports, and have diagnoses on the Autism Spectrum towards the Asperger's range. Sometimes they seem to be fighting the urge to entrain to a beat. If I change my pattern to match theirs, they cha...