music, therapy, and me

I am really bad at self-promotion. I mean, REALLY bad! I have had a music therapy website based business for the past 29 years, and no one knows about it. I write books of therapeutic music experiences (TMEs), books for interns, forms for music therapists in all sorts of roles. I blog, I do some YouTube content, and I work full and part-time as a music therapist. When it comes to letting people know what I do and what I love to share, it is nearly impossible for me to promote and market to my targeted audience. I wanted to do an exhibit this year, but I did not get organized enough (or produce enough things) to get that done. I am not all that disappointed by this particular situation - after all, I could have done it, but I just wasn't all that interested in working on the project. I still have that on my quest map, but I might wait until next year to get things going. I am getting better at sending people the link to my TPT store which is where I am putting all of my products. So...

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...

My current project is to put together a whole bunch of ideas for a cat-themed session. This is inspired by an early morning visitor who showed up outside my office door. I think it is one of the cats from next door, but I am not entirely sure. This cat does not wear a collar, but I'm not sure that either of them do next door. It comes up to my glass door and scratches but it will not allow me to pet it for long. It will not come into my home, though I did get a nose in the doorway this morning. I like making themed sessions, but I don't often use those session strategies in my music therapy practice. My adolescents are not always the most receptive to themes, and the amount of mood vectoring that I have to do on a regular basis often precludes themes or strategies. That doesn't stop me from thinking about themes, though. Perhaps I like themed sessions because it fulfills a bit of what I thought I would be doing as a music therapist when I started off. My dream job was, and ...

One of the things that I always include in my sing about songs editions is a section with different lists. The first list is of silly or not so silly holidays or remembrance days for the next month (it's hard to describe how this works - I try to send out ideas three months in advance, so this list is for four months in advance). The second list is songs that work with a particular month. For theme packets, I add a list of songs that supplement the theme. I enjoy making these lists for several different reasons. I like finding new songs to listen to and to introduce to my clients. I am often reminded of songs that I have come across and later forgotten. I like having silly things to acknowledge when I am putting together things for my clients to do during sessions. A little bit of silly goes a long way when working with adolescents. It is also fun to challenge myself to design client-specific, goal-based therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) around unusual topics - like National Ch...

I am formally announcing the newest part of musictherapyworks.com on this TME Tuesday, right here, right now, as I enjoy a couple of apple fritters and wonder how I can get rid of the ants that insist on liking my kitchen more than the rainy outside. I was going to launch my newest binder system this morning, but I do not have my jump drives so I will have to do some more steps before I can move forward with that project.  As a result, I have to figure out something to write about today, so here it is!  I have been offering my sing about songs for many years now. This is a collection of original therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) that I have produced for sharing with other music therapists. I have books, I have subscription series, and now I have thematic packets! Do you ever have a time when you are stuck for an idea for a specific client or group of clients? Do you ever have to work on diverse clients goals during sessions? Do you ever feel like you are in a rut doing the...

It is time to be stuck in my office more than I am actually working with clients right now, so I will be taking some time to update my therapeutic music experience (TME) database. I am several interns behind on cataloguing and linking things into my database, so it is way past time to get this finished...well, started. I love the memories that come up when I delve into my TMEs. I get a chance to remember interns who are well-seasoned professionals now. I get to remember clients who are in their late 30's and 40's as well as the ones that are still in their teens. I stroll down memory lane while I am updating ideas and looking through different ideas. I have so many ideas generated by so many music therapists over the past decades that I can never get through them all! I love this type of idea bank to deposit ideas into and to withdraw from whenever I am in need of some inspiration. So, what does this all look like? Well, it has varied greatly over the years, but I now have a sy...

Therapeutic Music Experiences (TMEs) are my foundation for everything that I do in my music therapy sessions. I do not make formal session plans. I haven't really done that since I had to as a practicum student way, WAY back, so I have to have something to organize my thoughts and experiences for my clients. My TME plans do that for me - they organize me and allow me to provide robust treatment for my clients in sessions. (As I am writing this, I am hoping that the recent font issues that I have had have been rectified.) I have kept the basic format of writing the things that I do in sessions that I learned way, WAY back. I start off with a purpose statement - this is where I brainstorm all of the goals that will be addressed by the TME. I rarely write clinical objectives in this area because I believe that objectives have to come with the client - it is my job as the therapist to make the TME match what the client needs. Instead of trying to anticipate future objectives, I look at...

It is time to take something that I have been doing for a while now and make it something different. I am taking a little bit of a break from a long time project of mine to shake it up a bit and make it better for me and for others. This is the type of project that I love. I get to make something that I already love into something that does more for me, and I hope, more for you as well. I sat down with a brainstorming book last night and started framing some ideas for changing things up a bit. I am currently getting my sing about mini editions updated and am making them a bit more robust for others. I am toying with the idea of including lots more things in each month's edition. There are so many things that I wish I could find when I need them. So, I am going to strive to make them. In the meantime, though, I am going to share one of the TMEs that I shared a long time ago... I hope this works for your clients! Happy Tuesday - here is a song that is part of sing about travel . If...

As Friday rolls around again, I find that I have done little to no organizing with my current system project - my visual aid files. I have, however, dived straight into one of my other systems - my monthly boxes.  Each month has a 13 in. by 13 in. by 3 in. scrapbook storage box where I stash things that are related to specific things that happen in the month. They are labeled with the month name and include copies of my sing about mini editions , visual aids that go along with specific therapeutic music experiences (TMEs), and anything that has something to do with the month or the theme or the holidays that are in each month. This is a system that I have had for many years and that I use at times to help me spur my creativity and get myself going again in the TME development process. On Wednesday, I took down the March box from the cabinet next to my desk at work and opened it up. Inside, there are St. Patrick's Day books and visuals and activities. There are some Easter things si...

I released my sing about may 2022 edition on Saturday, a bit later than I usually release these subscriptions, but on the 5th which is my release date! I looked back at my releases in May over the past several years, and I noticed a trend. Every year, I have a release during my busiest weekend in February. I didn't really thing my release date completely through when I decided that I would make it on the fifth of every month, but this only happens once per year, so it isn't really a big deal. There are implications, though. In February (when I release sing about may editions), I am always in the midst of the Online Conference for Music Therapy's annual conference. I rarely have time to do much other than conference stuff, so I end up with less ideas to share. As a result, I end up padding the May edition with some of my other writings. Last year's edition included my music compilation of popular music from 1900 to 1979. This year's edition included my Music Therap...

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...

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 ...