music, therapy, and me

One of the things that I like about doing these looks back into topics I wrote about before is that I have the advantage of hindsight to allow me to think through the happenings of those days. Today's randomly selected glimpse back into the past comes to us from March 3, 2020 - ten days before the world closed due to COVID. This was a chance to show off some of the work that I do and offer out there in the world for music therapists and others to get for themselves.  Now, I am not really good at advertising myself very well. In March 2020, I was planning on having my first exhibition at the Midwestern Regional conference, but that plan crashed when the world closed. I still have not had an exhibit at a conference. This past year was the first time I went to a live conference, and I was not ready to try again. My next opportunity will be in 2025, and I do want to try to have an exhibit at that point. I love making things for others to use for inspiration, and I want people to acces...

One of the long-term goals that I had when I started this blog and way before that when I started my website was to publish therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) for music therapy students, interns, and professionals to use with clients that I will never actually meet. This was the tenet of my first thesis, but it was nixed by my second advisor who never actually looked at what I had done and was not interested in trying to keep me going. I ended up doing a thesis topic that was not a passion project for me at all. I was very disappointed about it all, but then I realized that I actually did not need permission from any professor to do this project outside of school Hence, sing about songs ! I have written several books that contain lots of TMEs. I have books that center around a specific theme, and I have changed from publishing entire books to a subscription service where subscribers get 4-6 TMEs per month. I offer this as a digital resource that can be printed off and includes all so...

I have been working on a stack of things to give away. As you know, being a reader of this particular blog, I love making things to use in my music therapy practice. One of the things that I really like is making things to send out into the world to have other people use them in their music therapy practices. I like making things and would really like to give them to other people more regularly. Today is the first day of my 2021 giveaway, and here are the details!! Read until the end to get the link to the entry form... So, I have made several of my generic file folders that I have used with my clients since I've developed them. There are things that can be used with clients from all age ranges, all goal areas, and all sorts of other types of situations. Each one of my original file folders includes either a therapeutic music experience to go along with it or an original song. All of these are included in the prize packet. There are eight file folder activities included in this pri...

For some time now, I have been wanting to give some things away to the music therapy community. I have decided that next month is THE month for my giveaway, and I am getting things put together to announce in about a week and a half. I am making things, collecting my items in one place, and am making all sorts of plans for this thing. A past giveaway - this one will be different. One of my passions is to make things that I use with my clients in music therapy. There is no better way to spend a rainy Saturday than to sit down and use my cardstock, file folders, computer, stickers, and laminator to make something new. I love figuring out how to use materials in music therapy experiences and interventions to supplement what the music does. I love trying new things and then sharing those new things with others! Some of the best presentations I have ever done (from my perspective) have been the Make and Take presentations that I have shared with other music therapists. There is something so...

Last week, I wrote a bit about my latest quest to organize myself and my ideas. This has come out of many years of using different systems and finding that I didn't keep going with any of them. I turned to what I do well - planning in my planners - and adapted that idea into a new system. It's been happening for two weeks now, so I'm feeling pretty good about this particular system. (If you are interested in reading the original post, click here .)  So, it has been another week of brainstorming and figuring things out on paper in my little book. I keep it in my backpack so I can transport it from work to home and back again due to the fact that ideas come to me at all times. I have found several song post-its that have made their ways into the TME book for storage until I transcribe them into my TME database. My ideas book has several thoughts about upcoming uses for my new technology. My calendar book is the most unused part of the book so far, but I anticipate it will be ...

I put together a couple of file folder choice systems for an animal theme yesterday, and I enjoyed the process. Of course, I stopped before I started the laminating and cutting things out part, but I still enjoyed making the animal themed choice boards. These come on the heels of the dinosaur choice board that I made a bit ago and are an extension of my major goal of increasing communication opportunities in my music therapy sessions. I am also almost finished with an animal system similar to the one that I have for food choices - several pages of animal pictures with corresponding labels for storage purposes. That file is just about ready to print out and laminate and the cut out again and then put into a binder for use in my clinic. I also need to print out another food item (the one small card that got soaked through with spittle because the client was enjoying being asked to put it back and wanted a reaction. I prompted and ignored and the client just sucked on the picture for the ...

Since it is the beginning of the month, I went to my thematic boxes with anticipation to see what I had stashed in the box for the month of June. What forgotten materials and TME ideas and visual aids would await me to jumpstart my creativity and give me some sparks for my session strategizing?? Wait for it...  That's it! That is all that was in June's box!! This is one of those months where I had not really thought much about what types of things I do in the month of June, and the box REALLY reflects this fact! There are exactly THREE things in this box for use during the month - all of them are orange for some strange reason, and none of them have TMEs attached to them, so that's not going to work for me! This month's "What's In the Box" post is going to be quite disappointing if I don't get to brainstorming and creating and thinking about what can go into that there red box!! For me, June is a month of summer school sessions. We have four weeks of o...

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), ...

Music therapy friends - I'm starting some monthly meets.   Our first Monthly Music Therapy Meet will happen on January 12, 2021 at 8EST/7CST/6MST/5PST.    Attendance is free for everyone. The meeting will be held via Zoom - I will be sending out links for those who respond to the survey link below on the 7th.   Please fill out the survey to indicate what you would like to get out of this type of community-building event. I am especially interested if you want me to turn this into an event that has CMTEs available - there will be a cost for the CMTEs but not for the Meets - anyone will be able to attend those for free at any time.   I will record these meetings, so you do not have to be present to get the CMTEs or to learn from us all.   Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeJ9MN1I0ihNKshFw26LIf14SdOvp7f8rGwbgFPfRRRsRMLGQ/viewform?usp=sf_link Happiest of New Years to you and yours! I am sitting in my quiet apartment, looking at frozen r...

It is the last Tuesday of 2019, and I am going to share with you some of the free stuff available to you if you join Teachers Pay Teachers . **Please note that I do not get any financial compensation or benefit if you join TPT or if you purchase anything from the site (unless you buy something from my store).** It is free to join, and there are LOTS of free resources available to you (over 18,000!) that you can adapt or use to enrich your music therapy sessions with clients. Here is a list of files that I have used for some of my therapeutic music experiences... Sara Bibee - Music Composer of the Month - Antonin Dvorak - Bulletin Board Pieces - I do a Musician of the Month series, and it is wonderful when the work is done for me. This composer's packet is free, and Sara has lots of other materials in her store . In fact, here's another free file - Colorful Pitch Circles . Who couldn't use these in some way?? Music Teacher Resources - Free Music e-book - This is less of...

Welcome to our first Tuesday at Teachers Pay Teachers post! I hope that this is a resource that you have already started to explore because it does two things that I am passionate about - supporting fellow professionals and visual aid making!! If you haven't been on this site to get access to lots of digital files that you can adapt to music therapy resources, then there are a couple of things that you should know. First, you need to register to access the files. It's worth it. There are so many free files available (the first thing anyone with a store has to post is a free resource) that signing up for the entire site is worth it. You do not have to pay to be a member, but there are costs if you decide to download someone's resources. Second, those of us who have stores get a cut of the purchase price. We don't get lots, but it is a passive revenue stream for those of us who post files. Third, there is almost everything that you could ever want on this site, espe...