music, therapy, and me

As a vintage music therapist who has invested in records, cassettes, CDs, mp3s, and now streaming services, I have lots of music around my house. I have managed to give away most of my cassettes, but I have all of the records of my family as well as my extensive CD collection lurking in bookshelves in corners of my home. I have started the process of ripping my CD collection onto my computer to store that music on the cloud. This is not a process for the faint of heart, and it is taking lots of time. I have a CD drive in my computer - I bought it specifically because it had an integrated CD drive because this is a quest I always have at the back of my mind when I am purchasing things. I want to have my music available to me the next time I get a computer. This is a long introduction to the benefit that I am finding with this task. As I put on the topic line, I am finding old favorite songs again. Part of being a music therapist is a love of music, and I have many pieces that I have lov...

I have been saying and saying that I would be synthesizing reading during these Sunday posts, and then I haven't done any reading, but no more! I have selected a book and actually cracked it open this week! I have since stalled in my reading, but that's okay. There is no timeline other than the one I place on myself. I am reading Wellness, Wellplayed The Power of a Playlist !! by Jennifer Buchanan . This book is not a music therapy text - it is not written for someone who has studied music therapy. It is written for everyone else, and I really enjoy those types of books. My first ever foray into the world of music therapy was a book called, The Music Within You by Katsch and Merle-Fishman , and that book was also written for people who were interested in music but who weren't music therapists either. I like to think of ways to get other people to incorporate music into their own lives purposefully. I am of the opinion that music is for everyone and can help people reach go...

I have spent quite a bit of money on iTunes lately - on music that I can justify due to the need for a therapeutic interaction, intervention, or relationship, and on music that I want just for me - and I have lots to listen to in order to really get to know this music. I have lots of new stuff - music by Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby, Linda Ronstadt, Elvis Presley, Straight No Chaser (they are fun, check them out!!), Josh Groban, the folks over at Now! That's What We Call Music!, The Four Seasons, the Andrews Sisters, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and "today's hottest music from today's hottest stars!" If I started my "recently purchased" playlist now, I bet I would still be hearing new music at the start of the upcoming new year. I've purchased new holiday music this year. That was something that I really didn't do much of in the past three years, mainly because I didn't have lots of spare cash for things like music, but also because I have...

I'm having some difficulty with my iPod. Again. It is currently re-syncing everything that was on it before because it all of a sudden just stopped working. Things went missing and stuff just left. I've found out that this has happened to others as well, so now I'm not feeling like iThings have a personal vendetta against me, but still... I have become accustomed to the convenience of having my music library at my fingertips. It's nice to have a small device that stores ALL of my music during music therapy sessions. I can arrange playlists during the middle of the session and have them for all the subsequent sessions. It is a great device. ...when it works. I've always had better luck with Windows stuff, but there are n't any Windows-compatible devices with the storage that I want for my library. For music therapists, the convenience of portable music files is wonderful. No more CD books full of music to lug around. No more cassette tape devices and ta...

This is a strange therapy week. I was gone on Monday for a post-surgery appointment and x-rays, and yesterday, I had no voice, so singing was completely out of the question. I still have no voice today, so my session plans very much revolve around karaoke and Peter and the Wolf , things I can run without having to sing or talk. I think I am feeling better, but my throat is still sore and my voice is completely uncooperative. The medication I am on hasn't really done much to kick out this yuck, so I need to go back to the doctor this afternoon (oh joy!!). I am hoping that my issue from last Wednesday was resolved in a meeting on Monday. I need to check in with the administrator to see what happened during the meeting so I know what the plan is for a particular client. He will NOT be happy with the options that I have available for me right now in music therapy, so it would be nice to know what the intervention plan is to run as soon as he walks into the therapy session. I receiv...

I did something to the iPod during my medical leave (You can certainly see my continuing struggle with iThings in posts in this blog, if you are interested). As a result of whatever I did, my music library on the computer went from 22 thousand songs to 2 thousand. I made 20 thousand songs and files - POOF - disappear!! So, now I am in the process of re-establishing my music library on the computer. Fortunately, I started my music therapy career a long time ago, so I have many, MANY CDs in my library. That is a good thing when it comes to disappearing music, but a bad thing when you are trying to re-rip everything that used to be there. You can see, in the picture above, some of the CDs that I am going to rip this weekend. This is a small percentage of my collection, but these are the second round of essential CDs to load onto the iPod. I went through several of my CD books and pulled out CDs that clients asked for over this past week. There are CDs of The Beatles, The Beach Boys,...

So, about once a year, I get into some sort of kerfluffle with my iPod. It's happening right now and continues to simultaneously baffle and confound me. I have said before (and I'll say it again and again), the logic behind iThings is not my logic. My current struggle? I've gone from over 21 thousand songs on my iPod to 3 thousand. I've lost 18 thousand songs. I did this somehow, but I can't figure out what I did or how I did it. I just know that things have left the iPod to the ether of my failed Apple experiences (there are lots of them, let me tell you!!). Somehow, iTunes has put two different music libraries on my iTunes account. I have multiple copies of music lurking in several places in my computer pieces so I have multiple copies of things taking up valuable space. I am trying to consolidate but can't because I don't have enough space on either hard drive to put things on just one. What to do? Lots of gnashing of teeth, going to the interne...

Dramatic? I don't think so. I think I will really suffer significant grief due to Apple computers and my lack of intuition when it comes to iThings. Now, I know lots of people out there who swear by Apple products and love everything possible about them. I refuse to get into any other conversations about how everyone in the world should use iThings, especially music therapists. I am a proud PC-user and will always be a PC-user. This may be a bit strange since my first computer (in my fifth grade classroom) was a Apple II-e. I was able to navigate through that operating system without a problem, but then came the era of the Macintosh. That advance in technology changed how Apple computers navigated the computing world, and that's where I was left behind. My journey into iThings has been complex and varied. I have tried everything and anything to see if I can change, but I can't. I currently have an iPod that I use at my facility for playing music. I purposefully chos...

I am still updating my digital copies of CDs that I have stored around my home. I went through each album stored on my computer, and then started to go through the books and books of CDs that I have here. I am actually looking for one particular song, requested by one client (over and over and over again). I am pulling out CDs that I don't remember seeing in my music library. (I am going to go off on an iTunes rant now. If you are a fan of iThings, you may want to skip this paragraph as I am sure to offend you in my intense confusion and hatred of all iThings.) One of the things that drives me crazy about iTunes is that it often misnames the tracks on my CDs. Someone somewhere entered the playlist into the database wrong and it stays that way forever! I am not sure how to fix it, but it really puts a crimp in my music-searching skills! I do not remember having this problem with Windows Media, but maybe it was present there as well. I must say, iTunes does recognize more of my obs...

I am sitting in front of the computer today (on my day off, I might add) adding music to my digital library. This seems to be a never-ending process since when I rip music, it tends to disappear from the computer for various and sundry reasons - I don't know why, but it does! Right now, I have the excuse of having a new computer with oodles of storage, so I am going through my CDs and am adding music to my iTunes library. Like everything else in my life, I have my own form of organization for my music collection. Several years ago, I decided to eliminate all of the plastic CD cases from my life. I placed all of my CDs into large books. All of a sudden, I had some space in my music area again! (It has since been filled up, but there was space for some time!!) So, I have a book full of Holiday music, two for Soundtracks, one for Country, one for Popular music forms, and a miscellaneous book as well. They are large books - some are canvas, some are pleather, but they are functiona...