music, therapy, and me

This is my first full week back in the clinic as therapist for some of the group sessions that we offer as a "specials" department in my facility. Last week was a partial week due to fall break, so we had Monday off. I was running my groups last week, but it didn't feel quite real to me since we only had four days instead of five. I know, silly to feel that way, but I own it. It's the way I feel when I have Mondays off. I prefer Fridays off. Anyway, I digress... One of the things that I try to do every week (that I am leading session, that is) is to write out a couple of ideas to run during my sessions. These fit on a small piece of paper or, you guessed it, a super-sticky post-it note, and they serve as a prompt for ideas. Right now, my post-it has some ideas on it about a skeleton song that one of my former interns wrote, a loud/quiet song, and rhythmic engagement as a prompt to remind me of options of things to do with all of my students. I do not follow formal ses...

I am officially finished with all of my full-time job responsibilities for the next 12 days, for the month, for the year, and for the decade! I have from now until January 2nd to do my regular Winter Break things - a bit of cleaning, some last-minute gift shopping, packing, traveling, and resting far away from the things that I "have" to do. It is not quite enough time to become completely bored with my own company, but it is a change from the day-to-day routine. Today is my first day of break, and I have one commitment and that is all! My schedule is pretty empty this time around, and that's a great sight to see in my planner. This has been an interesting year on many fronts. My health has been the biggest concern of mine for most of the year, culminating in the surprise removal of my gallbladder and a related procedure immediately following that surgery. I have been feeling much better - less fatigued with more interest in things - since that troublesome organ was r...

Yesterday was a very bad day. I had to write up eight students for severe behavior incidents, I need to write one more (at least), and I left the job feeling like a failure. After all that, I was doing my bus duty job and one of my co-workers found the arm from my Darth Tater keychain. I didn't even know I had broken it off, and there it was! That was the absolute last straw, and I ended up crying tears of joy and frustration in the hallway in front of five co-workers! What a day. I think I am going to spend my planning and preparation time sitting at the piano, transcribing songs that I've used in recent sessions. I want to be writing three therapeutic music experiences every week - getting them into my database and using them as well - but I haven't been writing things down very much. I think I'll take my jumpdrive to the laptop and sit in my big, beautiful music therapy room, and just sit down and compose some music. My Fridays are predisposed to chores like ...

I'm working on center ideas for the month of October this month. I'm doing this planning/strategizing 6 months in advance of the actual month because I find that I have more time to think about October things now (lots less pressure to complete session strategies when I have 6 months before completing the session). I have collected some materials and now I can think of therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) to go with those materials. So far, my storage strategy is working well - boxes for each of the months in my front closet. My October box is full - I have lots of materials for this month, books and carols and visual aids and pumpkins. I'm now putting together my October-themed TME options. All of this to introduce a Pumpkin TME in April rather than in October. Therapeutic Music Experience Gonna Carve a Pumpkin  Mary Jane Landaker, MME, MT-BC Purpose : To address recognition of emotion; discussion of emotional states; holiday reference Source : © 2...

Yesterday, I walked into my sessions with no clear plan for how music therapy would progress. I ended up with some new TMEs that worked well. Most of my more reluctant music therapy participants stepped up and actually engaged and the regular participants expressed appreciation for every TME presented during the sessions. This doesn't happen often, let me tell you. I usually have a strategy in place before I walk into a music therapy session. I have a list of fully developed TMEs to choose from, and I have an idea about which clients will be walking into the room and their typical responses to music therapy intervention. I don't usually have absolutely NO idea what to do with my clients until after they arrive (I did yesterday, for sure!).  When my panic situations happen, I take some time to sit quietly and review my TME list (in my head if I can't access my electronic versions). What are my options? Can't use instruments with group one because of the one client wh...

This week, my session strategy consisted of a post-it note stuck on the side of the guitar. Fancy - that's how I do things - purple post-its in the shape of a square on the side of the guitar. I went through my TME file and wrote the titles of TMEs that we hadn't experience in a long time - some singing TMEs, some games, some general ideas - and then led the ones that I thought would work the best with each group. Things have gone very well, considering that my students have been extremely grumpy and short-tempered with each other, considering that staff members have also been very grumpy, and I have had to deal with rude comments, people who think that they are in charge of what I do (when they are NOT!), and two fire drills in 10 minutes yesterday (I was in the middle of My Aunt Came Back. My aunt never even got to go anywhere...). In between all of the grumpy responses to any and everything, we've made some music. I've used all of my knowledge of music as a therap...

I am heading off to lead sessions today with a limited plan. It is Musician of the Month reveal week so I've got that, but there isn't anything else written on my session strategy planner for this week. This is something that I do every once in a while. I head into my sessions without a set session strategy. Instead of writing things out, I spend time engaged in improvisation with my clients. We will probably work on some of the concepts that we've addressed recently - belly breathing will make a return appearance (coping skills are important to review often with my clients). By the end of today, I will probably have more of a plan than I do right now. Maybe I won't. I've found that improvising sessions is something that keeps me paying attention to my clients. It is easy to get into a routine, but heading into a session without a plan allows me to focus on my clients in their groups. I can shape the music to the group without having a specific theme or TME to ...

So, I tried this fancy thing using my document camera and taking me through my bullet journal-type planning strategy process, but I lost the video somewhere in my computer, so that won't be happening this morning.  Now, I am not a traditional bullet journaler - I just can't spend lots of time drawing things into my journal, and I don't have the disposable income to buy all the stamps and stickers and fancy pens to be a true bujo'er, but I'm okay with that. My system works for me. I have a page in my journal/planner for idea development. I have calendar pages and weekly pages. There are lots of other pages in my planner that I don't really use because it is a teacher planner, not a therapist's planner. I'm thinking about what I would like to have in a therapist's planner and then design that for me (and for other music therapists out there). As I am dreaming about this, I envision a place where I have the Music Education standards that I am focusi...

I have a little secret - something that I have kept close to myself for many years. I NEVER liked writing session plans. Wow. It's pretty nice to be able to admit that to someone other than my family members. Let me say it again. I have NEVER liked writing session plans!! Oooh, the more I say it, the easier it gets. My frustration with writing session plans started way back in my sophomore year of college when I started leading practicum sessions. My practicum supervisors would send back my plans and say things like "there needs to be more detail." I struggled with what they wanted, so it became a task that I dreaded. I finally figured out that the level of detail that my supervisors were looking for was a prose flow chart, and I was able to produce plans that satisfied their need for detail and my need for flexibility. (No one would let me draw a flow chart, though. I still had to write it out in a way that they understood. Interesting, isn't it?)  My ...

Yesterday was a horrible day. I have a feeling that this is going to be the way Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to go for a while due to the classes that I see on those days. My afternoons now have three groups in them, and the groups are not the easiest groups to see. I tried REALLY hard to see those groups in the morning when they are less tired and cranky and a bit more ready to engage in therapy. At this time, I think therapy will be just separating kids from each other and keeping them from engaging in social interaction. They just cannot seem to be in the same place for more than 2 minutes. I left work with the news that we are now replacing 4 of our 12 teachers in the next month (if we can find folks to take those teaching positions). More upheaval for my students who do not deal well with change to begin with. More upheaval for me and my co-workers. We already had a new teacher beginning, a new Speech-Language Pathologist, and a new COTA starting in July - now we get to add ...

I took a day off from writing yesterday because everything that came out on the keyboard was just whining. Today may be little to no different. I am coming down with something and it affects my thought process. Anyway, enough discussion about this. Let's figure out what to talk about today. How about a post from Pinterest that tweaked my interest enough to follow up on it... https://thesongswesing.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/silly-songs-kids-love-to-sing-lyrics/ Have you seen these posts? They are bright and colorful and attract my eye every time I see them on my Pinterest feed. I admit, I click on these posts more than the more neutral posts (or the ones that I've seen a million times - I am no longer interested in the "bible" of music therapy songs - been there). So, I tend to go for these posts. This one has a list of songs, coordinated with links to musical examples and sheet music of children's songs. It leads me to another link: https://makingmusicfun.n...