music, therapy, and me

When I am writing music, I tend to do one of two things. I either start with a specific client in mind and write for that client's goals and objectives, or I start with an idea and let the idea grow regardless of the clients that I am serving at the time. I spend time with lots of hypothetical clients - thinking about the vast number of clients and their unique goals as I develop songs and therapeutic music experiences (TMEs). Today, though, I would like to start with the first focus - that of a specific client and his or her or their goals. Currently, I am sharing a wall with a class of students who are experiencing lots of life and school changes. Two students have transferred from residential care to home care and are now day students. One student is brand new to the classroom. Another student recently left the class. All of these changes have shifted the dynamics in the classroom group, and old behaviors of concern have reemerged as well as finding new behaviors to contribute. ...

When I sit down to compose something, I tend to write the music in C Major or a minor, but I rarely use those keys when I sing the songs I write. This simple thing is based on the idea that it is easier to write music when there are no accidentals, but C Major and a minor are not keys that are good for my voice. I do better with D, E, and A major and e minor as my singing keys, but transposition is especially important when I am working with my singing clients. When my clients are singing with me, I keep an eye out for muscle strain, head posturing out of optimal positioning, and I listen for client who are not able to sing at the pitches that I am using. If any of these things happens it is my job to transpose the music to a better key for my clients - ESPECIALLY when the goal is for my clients to sing or use their voices. I think that there are two different camps out there for transposition. In my experience, this seems to be split between those who play guitar before piano and thos...

It is the first official day of school today. Teachers and therapists have already been back to work for two days, but students and behavior health technicians arrive this morning to get back into the routine of school work and socialization. It has been a "rough" break, according to those who have been there the entire time, so we should have a pretty smooth day today. Usually the first day after break is a wonderful day - very few issues - and the second day after break is usually very difficult - lots of issues. We will see if this particular week follows the same sort of pattern or not. I am going back into the start of this school year without an intern. My next intern doesn't start until the first Tuesday in September, so I have three weeks of being the only music therapist on campus because the other person who had a degree in music therapy (but didn't work as a music therapist) has now retired. I have three sets of sessions with all of my clients before I ...

Last week, I analyzed a song from my sheet music archive. I separated all the musical elements that I use during music therapy sessions, and I organized my thinking into a graphic organizer - the likes of which I use quite often. Here's the picture: So, I've been half-singing this song to myself all week (when it has defeated the therapy songs that my interns have been using), and I've been spending a bit of time thinking about what I could do in therapy, with my clients, while using this song. In this stage of TME-izing a song (do you like that new term? It started here, folks!!), I engage in creative brainstorming and just go for every and any idea possible. Here's the process in prose (this is often a picture-type process as well): Lyric analysis - the lyrics talk about a woman waiting for a man who is at war. It talks about generational trauma and ideas that are prevalent in trauma-informed care such as acknowledging the happenings and making decisions to ...

It's time to start putting all of the things that I've been writing about into actual practice. Next week, I start a new way of doing therapy with some of my students. We are going to do one station - explore - while others are doing some active musicking with me on the carpet. I will be monitoring what all of my clients are doing and will also be using the music to support and promote specific actions and responses from all of them. I intend to run different songs during center times - each group that spends time with me on the carpet will have music that is shaped to them and that will be different than the music for the other group that comes to see me. Everyone will be able to hear all of the music, so it should work well to have different music for the different groups, but I haven't actually tried this particular setup yet, so I'm not exactly sure how things will end up going. We are starting this by making some shakers in the explore center. I'm going t...