music, therapy, and me

So, my sister likes Website Wednesday as a theme. I have done this in the past (check out the label for earlier posts), but it might just need to be something that I come back to. So, here it goes - the second attempt at this theme... It's Wednesday which means it is time to feature a website. I am currently paying attention to all sorts of music education folks - their blogs, posts, and classroom reveals. For some reason, I really like classroom reveals. It probably has something to do with hearing about my sister's themes and not being around her for the big reveal. Anyway, one blogger that I am enjoying right now is Mrs. Stouffer . Her website, Mrs. Stouffer's Music Room , offers lots of blog posts about things that are not relevant to music therapists but as many that are, especially if you are a school-based therapist like me! I am currently going through Mrs. Stouffer's Ultimate Book List.  This is a resource that will be helpful for me this year as I try to make ...

Well, it is Wednesday again, and I am getting myself ready to go to work for a day full of therapy groups. I am still walking gingerly with a pulled muscle in my side that complicates every move I make. Coughing makes it worse, so every time my asthma comes out to play, so does this pulled muscle. This is my asthma season, so you can imagine. Enough of that, though, it is Wednesday. My focus for today is always just to get through it all. For some reason, my schedule is overly full of sessions on Wednesdays and not on Thursdays or Fridays, I would love that to change, but it is not likely at the moment. This is the one day where I don't have many individuals and the two that I am supposed to have today did not do well in music therapy yesterday, so I am not going to reward them for their inappropriate engagement in group by giving them more time to do whatever they want. So, that time will be spent explaining to these clients why they don't get to go to music therapy. I will wr...

Every month, I sit down to write up a series of therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) to send out to subscribers. I enjoy the process of revisiting old ideas and making up new ones to go out into the world and help other therapists by sparking their creativity. I also have fun trying to write TMEs for a variety of client populations and clinical foci - stepping away from the clinical goals of my own clients to embrace other goals and ideas. I am getting ready for sing about february 2022. I like to release these out about three months in advance because I feel that folks can practice and revise and expand upon ideas when they are provided in advance. My subscribers don't seem to mind.  I have been thinking a bit about songs that I had to sing over and over again when I first started working at my current facility, and I've realized that I no longer sing those songs. Sings like "I Just Called to Say I Love You" and "Chapel of Love." My students now don't ...

Oh, it is break time, which means that I have lots of time to myself to sit and think about things. This year is a bit more quiet as Bella has now gone and isn't here to distract or argue with me. So, my brain is trying to fill the silence with interesting and distracting things to think about in the middle of other tasks. For example, I woke up yesterday very upset that I had missed Pi Day. Now, I never do anything interesting or special for this day, but I was sincerely disappointed in myself for missing it. It was all I could think about when waking - "Man, I missed Pi Day." I then went to my computer to see that it was, in fact, Pi Day, and I had not missed anything! Why did my brain focus on that particular thing to stress me out about?? Who knows? It's just the way I'm navigating life these days, I guess. Well, this morning's theme is "what do you really want to do with yourself?" It is conference season (and I am not attending ANY this year), ...

It is Tuesday, and that means it is time for me to make my way over to Teachers Pay Teachers and feature a particular person. Today, I will be looking at the many contributions of Tracy King, The Bulletin Board Lady ! Tracy King is a blogger, creator, and music educator. She offers lots of files on her page and many of those files can be adapted for use in music therapy sessions. A casual perusal of the home page reveals that she has scarf movement pictures, body percussion cards, and a series of growth mindset cards (originally for a bulletin board, but they can be made into file folder sized materials and thoughts. I get so many ideas for things when I browse her shop that it is overwhelming. She offers 35 - let me say that again - THIRTY-FIVE free files out of the nearly 800 files that she has available. Now, much of the stuff that she has is designed for school-aged humans, but I think that some adult music therapy clients would enjoy some of the ideas and files as well. With ...

There are times when my mind gets mired into specific trains of thought. This is one of those times, I think, and I am trying really hard to pull myself out of the quicksand that is inclement weather days into something else. I've been writing lots about the "me" side of this blog lately and not so much about the "music" and "therapy" parts. It's easy to do when your schedule gets messed up and all you see is more inclement weather in your future... Time to pull myself up and out. I love being a music therapist. I love working with other music therapists to help them get to the best type of therapist that they can be. I thoroughly enjoy working with music therapy students and helping them figure out how to become music therapists during their internships. I like doing these things both in person and via webinars/recordings. I love starting an idea, offering that idea to other people, and then watching that idea expand in ways I never would ha...

I need a picture to change my default. I have made a decision. This decision is not monumental, and I know people are out there who have been telling me this over and over again, but it took a post on social media and my subsequent response to finally encapsulate all things about this decision and make it easy to make in this moment, right here, right now. I've been on the fence about something for the past three days, but no more. On Saturday , I wrote about a giveaway that I want to do. You see, I like the idea of giving things away to deserving folks who may need a pick-me-up in the form of someone nominating them to get some goodies in the mail - for music therapists, by a music therapist. I've had two people respond, and both wanted to nominate themselves.  Not the point of the giveaway, folks. I want people to think of others rather than thinking of themselves. If you really want one of my products, then pay the money. Seriously. I price my things VERY fairly...

The upper portion of the closet Earlier this year, I transformed my front hall closet into a storage area for my music therapy materials. I have instruments, visual aids, and monthly theme boxes stored in there at the moment, and I am often getting in there to put stuff into the theme boxes. Since Halloween just finished, I found some 75% off children's books and went into the closet to put them away. What I found was astounding. Look at those theme boxes!! My library My October box is full up to the brim, and most of the stuff in there is Halloween-based. This is actually pretty interesting to me since I do not try to "celebrate" or "highlight" Halloween in my music therapy space - it just seems to hype my students up SO very much! There is just so much out there for Halloween that it makes it easy to fill up a box! Inside that box, I found lots of books, several copies of Halloween carols (that are not my work, so I can't share them), my ...

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...

Today, I am getting to my pattern of blogging much later than usual. That is because I hit the exhaustion wall yesterday morning when I woke up with a terrible headache. The day continued with an 8 hour training - having to sit in a chair and pay attention so I could complete my certification (which I did). I completed it, but it was a struggle to keep my eyes open at times. That was no reflection at all on the presenters or my table mates, but completely because of six days of sitting, listening, and receiving information that challenged my brain just wore me out.  I am happy to be at home for the rest of the week...well, except for my church work. I woke up before my alarm light turned on, used the bathroom, and then the cat and I decided to go back to sleep. Which we did. Until 6:30am! For those of you who know my typical schedule, you know that 6:30am is sleeping in late for me. I then left my home to do some grocery shopping and am now just starting to be a bit less exhaus...

I am a camp and scouting nerd. I freely admit it. Many years of being a Girl Scout, a very brief stint as an Explorer Scout, and years and years of camping in all forms and states has made me very appreciative of campfire songs. When I am looking for a silly something to lure my clients into interactions, I go for the Flying Pigs Campfire Songbook . (Don't you just LOVE the name of this book?) Now, I am the first to admit that I don't know all the songs in this book, but I've found YouTube links to most of the few that I haven't sung around a campfire in my life. For the ones that I just haven't found anywhere, I make up my own melodies! Some of my favorites for therapy? A Ram Sam Sam Boom Chicka Boom Come On and Sing With Me Doodley Doo - I know this one as Wadaliactcha ...oh, there are so many more that I love. The songs can be adapted and used for all types of goals and objectives. I can make any song work for therapy, and these tend to be funnier th...

I am going to start featuring a website every Wednesday morning. (Just so you know, I don't get anything at all for talking about these different websites. They are just things I've found and liked.) Here is today's featured site... Music Therapy Kids I often go on random Google searches to see what other people are saying out there in the music therapy world. These searches often lead me to the same old websites, but I occasionally find new ideas and new websites to read. I found music therapy kid s this way - through a simple search.  I like this site (and just realized we use the same font - I wonder if that's why I had such an attraction to the site to begin with!!), and I like what I can find there. There are products, suggestions, and tips for both the music therapist and for the parents and caregivers of persons with diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder.  Go check it out! See you next Wednesday?  

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...

Happy Groundhog's Day! In celebration of this silly, silly "holiday," here are some silly songs to sing to clients about this day... Enjoy! Groundhog Carols There are many different groundhog carols available on websites. Here are a few resources: Groundhog Carols - https://amyswandering.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/groundhog-carols-pdf.pdf John and Jan Haigis - http://www.pasttimespresent.com/GHD-PR.html 123Holiday.net - http://groundhog-day.123holiday.net/groundhog_day_songs.html Groundhog Day from A to Z- http://blog.al.com/techcetera/2008/01/web_surfing_groundhog_day.html Official Punxsutawney Phil Groundhog Website- http://www.groundhog.org/ CanTeach - http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/songspoems12.html Preschool Education - http://www.preschooleducation.com/sgroundhog.shtml DLTK’s Growing Together - http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/happy_groundhog-poetry.htm Songs for Teaching - http://www.songsforteaching.com/groundhogdaysongs...