music, therapy, and me

I have a series of music therapy resources for music therapists out there that no one has ever really heard about - sing about songs . These collections are sometimes theme-based, sometimes released monthly, and sometimes just my collections of therapeutic music experiences (TMEs - AKA what I do in sessions with clients). I always write out procedures and provide sheet music for original songs or full source materials when using other music, and I think out all sorts of therapeutic functions for the music provided as well as for the clients engaged in the TME. These editions are labors of love - a passion project - for me, and I always feel a bit queasy when I talk about them, but I am finding that I need to get more comfortable with the idea of promoting my intellectual property to a target audience. sing about songs   is the fruit of my first thesis idea. I wanted to design a music-enhanced education resource for music therapists and non-music therapists, and I had it most of the...

The best thing about being on vacation for a long period of time is that I start to get new ideas and start feeling the itch to be back where I have all my stuff around me to accomplish those new ideas. (Does that make sense?? I am still jet-lagged and exhausted - Mom and I went to bed around 7pm last night.) I am getting to that point now, but I still have a week at my destination, so I have to write things down and defer them until later. A friend and I did some peer supervision on Saturday, and she mentioned that she was introducing the concept of instrument families to her clients. That started my brain, and now I am designing an instrument family edition of sing about songs . I could start the visuals here - I think all of the instrument clip art is in my cloud - and will probably end up doing that this week. I have all sorts of Zoom things happening this week - an interview, an I/DD support meeting, another for a discussion about music therapy influences and mentors. I have alrea...

Good morning, all, from a quiet-ish hotel room where I spent the night away from my mother and her best friend. We flew to the East coast on Sunday, drove to her friend's house yesterday, and will be going to the lake house to visit one of her stepkids today. Tomorrow will be some shopping and then we will go to a church service at her community facility. After we finish the trip, we will head out to visit my aunt and uncle before heading back to the West coast. I will stay for another week and then start the journey back to my home to figure out what I am going to do about money. In the midst of all of these plans, I have been offered a job interview for a position out west, so there are lots of things happening out here... Right now, I need to take a shower, go down and eat breakfast, and then prepare myself for yet another trip performance. It is interesting how much energy it takes to travel, but I do enjoy it. Seeing "Aunt Mary" has been good for Mom and for me. She ...

That's right, folks. Today's post is coming to you from a brand new laptop since my Chromebook got a disturbing bulge under the case and started to get very hot. It also reset all of my saved passwords and refused to connect to the internet. I do not have the time or patience to fix it right now, so I used some of my business money to purchase a new way to compute. To be honest, I prefer laptops to Chromebooks, so this was a good step up. I now have a reliable device to use for my various projects while I am here. This will be a business device for later, so I can write off a bit of the cost when it comes to tax time. That will be helpful. The thinking and brainstorming continues, and I have stated my intentions to move back here and start a business in Rancho Cucamonga to my mother. The next step is to get my sister going because she is a doer not just a dreamer. She will probably have me signed up with several realtors before I finish the sentence (she reads the blog occasion...

Let's dive into the archives for this week's post. Here we go in our way back machine... There are so many ways that we, as music therapists, can adapt and apply music and different elements to support our clients' journeys towards their therapeutic goals. I find that writing things down helps me remember the options available to me when singing and playing a song in sessions, so this is how I think of music. This particular format is not something that everyone relates to, but it fits my brain very well. Each of the elements of music that I know about is on this chart, and I think through my options. When I am using songs in therapy sessions, I can think through the work I've already done, and that thinking helps me be a more effective music therapist (in my opinion!). So, this song, Old Friends , performed by Simon and Garfunkel, is one that is not familiar to many of my clients. If using it in a session, I would first need to introduce the song to them. I do this by ...

It was move-in week in my college town, so I know that classes are getting started and students are getting back into the routine of school and all the things that come with being a music therapy student. So, if you are a teacher or a music therapy student, check out this format for thinking through how you can develop ideas for use in pre-internship, internship, and professional clinical interactions with clients. Here is the format along with an explanation. Please note that this was directed towards interns working at my former workplace, so things might not work for every population served. I think it is a good way to think through the process of doing things in the clinic, and the credit for this goes partially to me and mostly to my supervisors over the years who made me do most of these processes and thought exercises over the years. Here goes... (By the way, comments, questions, and criticism are welcome here. Let me know what I am missing, what you have never had to do, and wh...

I enjoy composing music. Most of my music is for clinical application, so the songs tend to be simplistic in nature rather than complex or orchestrated. I have lots of repetition, simple sentences, and goal orientations in my pieces, but I still love writing songs. There are times, though, when I am unable to get my brain going to compose things. This usually leads me into a bit of a spiral and causes more stress than I really need, but one of the good things about being a vintage music therapist is that I know several things will happen: Creative blocks happen. They will end when they end. It is okay to take a break from composing when the ideas seem forced. There are ways to compose things when your brain will not work the way you want it to. Not every song you compose has to be wonderful or even relevant. Sometimes, just getting a song out of you is the way to unblock your creativity. So, how do I get out of a composing block? I have several different ways to help me write songs whe...

Most of this weekend was consumed with running my first ever solo conference, Rhythm to Results: Clinical Innovations for Music Therapy with Adolescents, but I also had an email from someone who was watching my Creativity Camp videos and wanted some thoughts. That started my own creativity going, and now I have some things to start generating for my TPT store and my Etsy shop! I love it when collaboration with other music therapists helps me figure out what to do next. The project that I have in front of me now is something that can be sustained almost indefinitely. I am looking forward to parsing the project, setting up templates, and then getting going on this project. I will be asking for ideas once I finish my own list, so stay tuned!  My book needs some love. Time to project plan the new ideas and continue to work on my current projects. I am going to see Hadestown, the musical movie, this morning, so I cannot spend all of my morning at my desk. That's a good thing. My sister ...

Today is the day before one of the biggest things I have attempted solo in my small business journey - the day before a brand new conference! To say that I am thrilled, terrified, and absolutely counting on this experience becoming something that I just do from now on is an understatement. I am hoping that things will go off without a hitch, but I have contingency plans -- just in case! If this was a physical conference where we were going to sit in the same room and do things, then there would be many more things to coordinate, but this is an online conference so there isn't that much to do before things get started tomorrow morning. That is the benefit of doing online conferences, most of the work is done before the conference starts and then you go into monitoring mode. This will be the first conference where I am acting without a group helping out. That is a bit concerning, but like I said, I have contingency plans. This is where being part of the Online Conference for Music Th...

I have to write several songs today. I have a self-imposed and totally arbitrary deadline of tomorrow for sing about october , and I have a couple of ideas that need songs to go with them. It is time to get to the keyboard and start to write songs. I have the rough ideas started already. I used my project book for brainstorming and came up with several new ideas for the month. Now it is time to put the finishing touches on the edition and release it out into the world. This is the part of being a music therapist that I love the best right now - writing songs and finding things to do with those songs that support typical goals and objectives of clients from all sorts of populations! There is something really satisfying about writing music for clinical application that just fills my cup. I will grab my songwriting kit (more about that kit here ) because my composition process always starts by writing songs using a pencil and paper of some sort. I will sit down with the keyboard and just ...

I am always the most content with myself when I am thinking through a big project. This type of project can be one that allows me to fix a pain point for either myself or for others. It is something that is just interesting to me and something that makes me want to engage in problem-solving. I am developing several projects at the moment, and this is something that is becoming an interesting exercise in project management as well as in attention. I have things to do with various thoughts that I am having - mostly in the realm of "let's talk about this" projects rather than "let's make this" projects, but it is interesting to me how my brain flits from place to place. This is one of the reasons that I have my book to write things down as they occur to me. At this moment, I remembered that I have a Zoom meeting because of my book. I have to be there since I am moderating the session! I also have a couple of laminating projects to do to finish up another idea, ...

Happy - uh, I want to say - Thursday?  One of the things that is difficult for me right now is telling time - especially what day it is! The hours are not as difficult to feel, but the days are. I do not have lots of things that I have to get done these days, so the days just kinda slip away. Having appointments helps with discerning which day is which. Last night, I met with three others for a discussion about working with people who have a specific type of diagnosis. We had a good conversation about ways to work with this population. The other three music therapists were younger than me by about 15 years at least, so it was interesting to hear them speak about their own music therapy tools and materials and to contrast them with my own. I am a vintage music therapist. I wear that title proudly because I have been a clinician for 33 years now. I have earned the title of "vintage," and I am going to revel in the fact that I am still doing the thing that I love the most even a...

The second ever (and hopefully, the first annual) Creativity Camp by musictherapyworks.com is now finished!! I am exhausted, but I feel good about what we accomplished this weekend. I have a BUNCH of new projects that are finished that I was able to complete in the 8 hours we were together, and the pile is growing as I get more inspiration from the campers' projects. That is the best thing about doing creative professional development workshops with and for music therapists - the expansion of ideas based on a similar format. I have done this type of workshop at regional conferences twice now, and this was the second online version of making things that I have finished. I think this will become a yearly workshop that I run from here at home. I have TONS of ideas that I enjoy sharing as starting points, so why not?? Currently, all of the cleaning that I did in preparation is in shambles. One of the problems that happens when creating is that there are messes that occur. While all of ...

This weekend is my second ever Creativity Camp designed to challenge my fellow music therapists to design and use visual aids to supplement client goals. This is a passion project for me - something that I have dreamed about for many years, tried out once, and now have the time to focus on more and more. So, I am trying this again - the second ever Creativity Camp by musictherapyworks.com! The best part about this camp is that it is something I can do here from my own home. No bugs. No heat emergencies (I'm prone). No humidity that just does not go away. I am looking forward to this weekend, but camp is not the only thing that I am creating these days. I have found several completed projects and other unfinished projects. Finding things that I have started spurs my creative impulses and makes me think about how to finish these projects and send them out into the world. I have some resources that were designed by others - mostly files from TPT - that I have songs to add to the visua...

  As I go through my stuff here at home, I am reminded of the things that I have done with various instruments, materials, music. I remember specific clients who loved certain songs or certain instruments. I have the opportunity to find old things that have gone out of style with current clients, and I get to figure out new ways to use familiar objects. It is an interesting thing to revisit what has been important in your therapy life, and this is a season where I am doing just that. I started being interested in the ways we adapt music and musical elements during my graduate studies. In discussions with my fellow students, we determined that we did not often think about how we were changing the music to match our clients - we just did it. It seemed that we were missing out on opportunities by not really thinking about how we were using our primary therapeutic tool - the music. The fellow student that I talked to about this topic focused on the research to demonstrate how the eleme...