music, therapy, and me

I just have time for a very short post today, but there have been many things that I have thought about wanting to write about but those ideas slip through my head when it is actually time to write. I need to write them down - that is the best way for me to remember things that I want to remember... ANYWAY... The reason that I have a short amount of time is that I wrote a long email to a friend of mine. She has lost her husband quite suddenly and is trying to figure out how to be a single parent. We found out yesterday that my sister's best friend from elementary school had a husband pass away. This summer has been difficult for friends' husbands. I am finding that my own grief gets restarted when others experience their own losses. I have to remember that my grief is different from theirs, but I often find myself back in the throes of my own grief when I am thinking about children losing their fathers. I lost mine when I was 50, but Dad's absence still affects me. I am so ...

It is time. I have neglected my therapeutic music experience (TME) database for the last three interns, and it needs to be updated! So, today is the day that I start to get that process started. If you are a new reader, then, keep reading the next paragraph. If you are familiar with what I do and how I organize my ideas, then you can skip the next paragraph and not miss much of anything at all! I have been collecting ideas for my therapeutic music experience (TME - what I call the things I do with my client during sessions) since the second semester of my freshman year. I had an assignment to come up with 25 ideas of things I could possibly do in sessions with clients. I remember that assignment as being extremely difficult, but I did it, and my TME file was born! I put in all sorts of ideas and situations into my file, and I add the TMEs that my interns share with me during their time at the facility. It has been a long time since I have linked TMEs into my file, so I will be spending...

You know how you sometimes find things and think, "Wow! That's a GREAT idea. I wish I had thought of that!!" This post is all about those things that I wish I had thought of that actually are present in the world.  [NOTE: If you decide to take advantage of these, let me know what you think, but also know that I get NO financial benefit from any of my recommendations.] The Music Therapy Activities Wiki - So, this is a good idea in concept and theory, but it hasn't really taken off (as far as I can see). This is a repository for therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) and offers several ways to search through the ideas contributed by others. There is an opinion survey that I just finished. This is the type of resource that I will start to recommend for all those requests for "I need a song to sing with my population" that happen on my social media feeds all the time! Music2Spark - This blog, written by JoAnn Jordan, offers ideas, situations, and opportuni...