music, therapy, and me

So... I feel like I need to be totally transparent about something from the get-go of this particular series... I am not good with identifying songs with their performers. I can't identify the song names, but I can almost always sing the song. As I was trying to figure out what song to select for this series, I remembered being in a session last week, listening to a song by Billie Eilish. I really liked the lyrics to the song, but for the life of me, I cannot remember which song it was. I remember thinking, "that would be a great song for our self-awareness monthly theme," but I cannot find the words that I remember in the lyrics search that I am doing of Billie's songs.  This is a common situation for me, but it's also common for my music therapy clients. We can remember things about songs but can't remember names or musicians. We spend lots of time engaged in clue hunting. I ask questions like, "Is the singer a man or a woman?" (I know, those aren...

Oh my! I had forgotten this source of inspiration for me. I am so glad that this was the randomly selected post for this morning because I need this back in my life! Let me explain!! Today's post comes to you from July 8, 2013 . It reminded me of someone I used to follow pretty regularly and someone who inspired me by his story and his art. Danny Gregory is someone who writes about some of the things that I experience - he calls his "monkeys" and I call mine "goblins," but they are the same thing - the thoughts that keep me from doing what I want to do... I had completely forgotten Mr. Gregory, and I am so grateful that this post came up again. I have signed up for a weekly essay and have bookmarked his YouTube channel. I will subscribe to his channel as well once I've moved to the television. I think the best thing about Mr. Gregory's work for me is the fact that much of what he used to write about (and that I hope he will continue to write about ten ye...

Hello, there. It is Sunday which means that it is time to step into my Way Back Machine and travel back to the days of November 2010 . I wrote a whopping 3 posts that month, and had reached the big number of 147 posts by the end of 2010. Fast forward 13 years, and I am now writing my 3.209th post. This blog has really become a place for me to think "out loud" so to speak.  Back in 2010, I was getting ready to start my tenure as chair of the Association Internship Approval Committee. I had been a member for some time, and it was time to start my time as chairperson. I loved everything about that job - the work with the AIAC members, communicating with internship personnel and with interns, helping to navigate conflicts between members of each clinical training team, and working with the Education and Training Advisory Board. Leaving that position was one of the hardest things I have ever done, but I am glad for the opportunity to have served in this position. Check out the po...

This post started off very differently this morning, but my post on grief was making me cry, so I decided I needed to change topics to something a bit less maudlin and a bit better for a holiday. So, here it goes. This year is a year of firsts for myself and my family.  We are coming up to the first anniversary of my Dad's ultimately fatal fall. My cat died on Christmas morning. My father passed away two weeks after that, on my mother's birthday. This has been a year of grief and getting used to life without Bella and without Dad. It has not been easy on any of us. Because it is almost time for the first anniversary of my Dad's fall and because I am moving away from the home that I shared with my first ever pet of my own, I am feeling very sentimental and nostalgic. So, for this post, I think I will come up with several songs to help me remember and mourn and celebrate the lives of these two important souls in my life. Some of these will be funny, some will be sad, and othe...

SOME of my mess!! I've been spending some of this morning throwing things away. This is something that I struggle with on a regular basis. You see an envelope, I see pages for my junk journal. You see a very old notebook, and I see all the time I spent in class with classmates learning about music therapy. I have WAY too much stuff that I've justified as having to keep because it sparked memories in me when that's all that it has done - sparked memories. I mean, who needs journal references from 30 years ago? NO ONE!! So, I tossed out my papers from my freshman year of observation - the year when a client fell very loudly in love with me (and ignored EVERYONE else in the room!!). I found some of my first therapeutic music experiences and put them back in the card box where they belonged (I still use many of those TMEs to this day). I'm thinking about what I cherish more - the memories (which I have) or the old notebooks? So, I've taken one load of old pape...

One of my cards - the formal, neat, and finished version. If you have read this blog for a long time, you know that I started out writing all of my therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) on 4X6 inch index cards. I did that because that is how my first TME writing assignment was given - we had to use cards because that was what was readily available to us at the time. We got to choose which size card we wanted, so I chose 4X6 inch cards because they were the perfect size to sit on the sides of my guitar. This was before I found my need for super-sticky post-it notes (another tool that I love!).  I have made an effort to use my favorite and longest lasting music therapy tool this week - my index cards. While I've been sitting at my desk, watching my intern lead her sessions and thinking about my "NTM" TME challenge, I've been pulling out some index cards for notes. I've started lists, I've written lyrics, I've jotted down adaptation ideas. All of those...

I've been watching the latest news from AMTA and have been involved in a video challenge where I've been focusing on my future over the past month. As part of the video challenge, we've been asked to think about what we want our businesses to be to others and to ourselves. I've been constantly thinking, dreaming, and trying to figure out my answers - as I've been babbling in front of the camera for this challenge. One of the things that we spoke about was our reason for doing what we do in our businesses.  I've decided that my reason is to share information about music therapy - products, continuing education, information, and networking - to other music therapists. I figure that someone has to be out there, trying to figure out a time-efficient way to write goals and objectives, and here I am - with a kinda time-efficient way to write those things. Why not share with others? My vision for my business is for my website to be the place where music therapist...

I've been struggling with a specific group for a couple of months now. They were very socially aware of one another and found each other so much more reinforcing than anything I was doing in music therapy. They would enter the room, start laughing and being goofy, and they were so wrapped up in each other that I spent most of my time trying to get any scrap of attention that I could. It was difficult to corral them into any type of interaction, and I really felt lost. Yesterday, that same group had a near perfect music therapy session. I was a bit kerfluffled after the session - thinking that it was amazing how they engaged, interacted, and were focused on what we were doing. We had one small escalation where one particular client tried to get into his goofy pattern, but peers did not engage or give him attention because they were focused on what we were doing as a group. I was able to be the center of the session with one small trick - tempo. Now, I am not the miracle wor...

One of my friends recently posted one of those "tell me which song reminds you of me" requests on social media. It was interesting to see what songs people associated with her, including some that I taught her and others that I hadn't thought of for quite a while. Why haven't I sung Mister Sun for years and years?? I find it fascinating which songs come and go in my music therapy mind. For years I sang a specific song for a specific client. It was the first song that he sang in front of his classmates. He would look at me with a twinkle in his eye and start to sing the verses he loved the best (angry and sick). He passed away two years ago, and I haven't been able to sing that song to anyone else. I have a reason for not singing that song, but there are many others that I used to sing that I no longer use during therapy. There are many reasons why songs come and go in our music therapy lives. Some are associated with a particular client, others with a specifi...

One of my tasks this day is to rip music to my iTunes account from the CDs that I own. I'm doing this because I am always and forever screwing up my music library in iTunes and because I found that lots of my music disappeared again. So, I am sitting in front of the computer, putting CDs into the disc drive, and revisiting the music as I encounter it yet again. There's the CD that I bought for a client who communicated through Wiggles songs. There's one that the folks asked me to purchase to assist clients in falling asleep. Once folks learned that they would have to listen to the same music every single night to assist clients in falling asleep, they were no longer interested. The music was "boring" they said. THAT'S THE POINT, PEOPLE! Relaxation and conditioning - same thing, consistency, etc. Well, I now have a very relaxing CD to listen to when I need to be bored into sleep. I love the fact that music exposure leads to extra-musical associations. I lov...

I've been listening to lots of music lately. I left the iPod at work, so I decided to take some CDs, and I randomly popped in some Haydn. My first thought, "Okay, at least it isn't rap." My second thought, "Ooh, I could say this during my presentation." I talked to myself the entire way to work - all centered around my upcoming presentations, and I generated several new ideas! This led me into remembering the foundations of my music therapy theory. Here's the foundational thought that is my current focus - music is motivating. By listening to something that was inherently familiar to me, and not something that intruded too much, I was able to create some new ideas. Music engaged my brain and allowed synapses to interact in ways that they hadn't in quite some time. I had ideas and the music spurred my presentation practice. Well, duh, right? One of the presenters that spoke at last week's Online Conference for Music Therapy reminded me t...

I have made a recent decision that is really making a difference in how I am writing and composing therapeutic music experiences. Are you ready? I am going back to writing things on actual cards. Okay, it's not really all that earth-shattering, but it has really sparked my creativity and my ability to compose. I am no longer reliant upon a device of any type (except, I guess, a pencil would count as a device...hmm) - let me restate. I am no longer depending upon an electronic device of any type for my composition process, and the cards are something that I've had around me since the beginning of my music therapy evolution. I have two boxes of them on my desk here at home. It may seem pretty silly to those of you who have been fully immersed in electronic ways to learn and compose music, but I find that my cards are the best way for me to notate my musical ideas. They are inexpensive and plentiful, so I can rip them if something isn't really working. (There is someth...

I admit it. I did it. I spent an entire week improvising things during sessions. During (almost) every session, I picked up the guitar and sang something new and never to be replicated with the clients sitting in front of me. We sang about things we liked, about moving our bodies, about what we were talking about, and about nothing at all. We incorporated sounds - both silly and functional, went between major and minor modes, and just made music. I love improvising and don't do it quite enough when I get into times of stress. It's silly, but I actually have to remember to improvise during those times when I start to feel that I am not effective in helping my clients reach their personal goals and objectives. I think it should be a natural response by now, but I tend to get more and more into planning things out rather than using my tool to make music that is based on what is happening right there in the session. When I do remember, I improvise and am reminded of what a ...

I was talking to my choir members last night because, well, I sorta broke down during rehearsal. All of our songs were talking about the grief process and how faith provides support. I am still in the mourning stage of grief about my young man and just lost it. I was talking to them, trying to express some of what I was feeling, and we all started to talk about grief. I stated that I didn't like the custom out here of having a public viewing of the body, and the organist agreed with me. She said that every time she goes to the viewing of a person and then has to play for the funeral, she associates the music that she plays with that person forever after. She says she sees the person's face when she plays that music every single time after that. Isn't it amazing that our minds can make such strong links between our memories and our music? Many times, these extra-musical associations work well for us. I know things that I have not actively thought of in years because an...

Yesterday was Wednesday, the day that I dread more than the others because of one group of kids. They are not a cohesive bunch and just plain old need individual services instead of group services, but our service model does not include two music therapists, only one, and group services instead of individual services, so we're kinda stuck the way things are (run-on sentence, Ms. Stark would NOT be proud of me AT ALL!). Anyway, that group ran GREAT for the second week in a row, and the student who screams when no sounds are present laughed during the cacophony of "Big Instrument Exploration" with nary a complaint. I was singing and playing during one of my sessions (I can't remember which), when I had to cough. This is a persistent problem right now with the blooming and blossoming that's going on out here. I stopped playing and singing in order to cover my cough (which is just going on and on and on). One of my students said, "Why'd you stop playing?...

Last night was Back to School Night at my job. Now, I really do not like having to work 12-hour days, and, to top it all off, had a aggressive encounter with an 8-year old who beat my right side up, started a strange migraine (don't know if the two were related), cried when I saw my old principal (blaming the migraine and the beating earlier, of course), and had a severe case of the drops (where I cannot put ANYTHING in its place without it jumping back out at me and hitting me on the head!). Anyway, I had placed the sunglasses down since sunglasses are not considered "professional dress," and my intern and I were talking to parents and students about the music therapy room. Working in a special education facility, I do not often meet family members of my clients. About half of my students are part of the residential psychiatric treatment facility and the other half are bused from as far away as 70 miles from the facility. So, last night was a time to meet family me...

I submitted my first two manuscripts for review and possible publication just a couple of seconds ago... There is something really nice about being able to be informal in this setting, but there is something really thrilling about writing something that may be published in a peer-reviewed journal. This has been a long time coming, and now it is time to show my thoughts and the fruits of my research to the more formal world. AAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK!!! Moving on from this topic into another... I have started doing music therapy groups with kids who have never had me as a therapist before. These past two weeks have been interesting. I can firmly state that I am having to reestablish my therapeutic relationship with my clients. Every classroom group has experienced some sort of change whether it be changes in peers, in scheduling, in teachers - every group! In addition, I have only one intern right now, so I am taking back the groups that my recent intern led. This means t...

Yesterday, I called my sister for a chat. I found her in the midst of a pain crisis - this happens quite a bit with my family. We all have strange aches and pains that are not easily explained by modern medicine. It is not unusual for one of the members of my family to be the topic of an article dedicated to strange things...anyway... My sister and I were talking about things just strange and typical for us when she mentioned an old record we used to listen to when we were kids. Feeling helpless to help her pain, I decided to see if I could do something for her, so I went to the computer. Lo and behold, iTunes had the album I was looking for, so I downloaded it and made a CD (which will be going to the mailbox to her shortly). "The album," you may be asking? Why, it's Mickey Mouse Disco, of course! I feel the guffaws starting now, but this record made a pretty big impact on the musical lives of my brother, my sister, and me. Imagine, if you will, three kids betwee...