music, therapy, and me

I would really like to have some dedicated time to work on my songwriting, but I just don't do it. This is a situation where my brain thinks something that my heart just isn't interested in. My brain has many of these types of thoughts. Writing songs, even the types of songs that I write, takes time. There is no way around that. To get a song from concept to print, it takes time. I need at least an hour to take an idea from concept all the way to publication every time I sit down to write TMEs or just to write songs. Now, my songs are not complicated. They tend to be no more than 30-36 measures, they have lots of replicated elements, and my music is not extremely sophisticated. That is what my clients respond to the most, so that's what I write. Easy songs for my clients to understand and to sing. So, if my songs take at least an hour, imagine what the songwriting experience is like for longer, more complex songs. One of the things that I have learned through my songwriting...

Two weeks ago, I shared music from people born in the month of October with my students as part of our Musicians of the Month series. One of the musicians that I shared was Weird Al Yankovic - one of my favorite people since I met him in a sandwich shop at 2am in West Hollywood in 1986. I put "Eat It" on the playlist, and my clients got angry! They were upset that the song that they were listening to sounded like Michael Jackson's song, but it wasn't. For those that were able to listen rather than just engage in bluster, I explained the concept of a parody song, and I remembered that I haven't written about this valuable tool in this blog series. I combine the concepts of piggyback and parody songs into one. It just makes sense that I am doing the same thing when I use a melody for a piggyback song or a parody - they are the same things. I have used piggyback techniques for myself, with my clients, and with my interns over the years. How do I do this? I strip the ...

Some time ago, I set myself a TME challenge and then found it difficult to keep up with because I was really disinterested in the challenge itself. This happens to me on a regular basis. I set myself a challenge and then don't bother to do it. I still try, though. Perhaps I just like failing - who knows? I do, though, continue to develop new TMEs (the term that I use to describe what I do with my clients during sessions - therapeutic music experiences), I just don't write them down which is a shame because I could easily get my TME challenge finished if I just sat down and wrote them.That is where the difficulty lies - sitting down and writing my ideas down. I have started to look around for a music notation app that I can use on various devices to help me finish up my notation and that allows me to hear the rhythms the way they need to be presented. This is the most time-consuming part of any composition for me - getting the rhythm on the page to match the rhythm in my head. A...

One of the things that I find to be helpful with my client population (children, adolescents, and young adults with dual diagnoses) is repetition of phrases, lyrics, and music. As a result of 30+ years of working with this population in various iterations, I have found that my clients respond the most to songs with three repeated phrases to prime their responses with a different phrase to communicate the important part of the experience. DISCLAIMER: This is not a definite way to write music for clinical interactions. This is what seems to work well with my particular group of human beings. Don't go to your supervisors and tell them that I told you that this is the ONLY way to write music - It is NOT! You have to find what works for your clients and for their clinical goals. Since my clients respond well to this type of song, I tend to write songs in this format more than any other. What I have found is that my clients remember these songs more than the ones that I do in different f...

There are times when I have little to no creative inspiration but still need to be writing music for clients. If I try to force things, I often feel more upset and more blocked than when I go through my techniques to help me figure out a way around or over my blocks. My favorite technique is writing a silly song. Silly songs do not have to make sense, they don't have to have any sort of therapeutic benefit, and they don't have to be shared or even written down (though my clients have often loved my silly song results, so I try to record the songs in some way - who doesn't love to be silly?). I usually start the entire process by focusing on something I can see. I tend to respond well to visual input, so looking at an item or a picture helps me in my process. I have a book of magazine objects that I have collected over the years that has provided lots of inspiration. I also just do random things that I see. Once I have the item selected, I just start my improvisation. The be...

Once again, it is Sunday, and once again, I am writing about my process of making up my own songs. It is time to revisit my Songwriting Kit - pictured here - and talk a bit about why I have it to begin with... I sing about all sorts of things in the progression of the sessions I lead, and I collect all sorts of ideas for therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) when I am outside of those sessions. Ideas will pop into my brain at any given time, and I've found that having a dedicated kit to songwriting and another one to writing down TME ideas and others for other ideas help me remember and act upon those ideas. When I try to rely on my memory, I am often disappointed with myself. Writing things down helps me to remember, so that's what I do. The kit offers me a chance to write things down in my solfege format, in formal notation, and as plain old ideas - in pencil, of course, because every musician knows to use pencil rather than ink. I like the kit because I can use it anywhere - ...

I recently saw a request for s specific type of song for a specific goal, and I did not respond to the request because my response would have been rather snarky. I wonder why people do not make up their own songs in these types of situations. I really do. Why do you need to ask for songs when you could write your own? Were these music therapists not taught to write music as students? Are they laboring under some imposter syndrome symptoms that tell them that they cannot write their own songs? Is it easier to ask for others to give them something than it is to spend some time making their own thing? After I abstained from responding in a vein similar to the paragraph above, I started wondering if I just do this because I haven't always had the ability to ask others for their work.  Gather 'round, children, as I tell you a tale from the 20th Century...   In the days afore email, social media, and home computers, we music therapists had to create our own songs, take them to confe...

I am a person who enjoys writing songs. They are never really deep - most of the songs that I have written are of the "social-emotional learning" or "task analysis" types, but I enjoy the process of composition from start to performance. I haven't always enjoyed this process, but I find that this is one of the creative things that I enjoy about the job that I have at this point. In my various roles around the music therapy world, I have taught others how to write songs, and that is a part I enjoy playing. There is something quite nice about watching others be creative within boundaries that I set up. I enjoy seeing what someone else thinks about the prompts that I provide versus what I think and create during the same exact process. This is part of the reason that I am writing about composition on Sundays right now. I enjoy the process. One of the techniques that I recently shared for inspiration for composition is picture-inspired songwriting. There are times t...

I want to focus on some fun things, and what better day (especially with the alliteration that I love so much) to focus on fun than on Fridays? I am filling out my blogging schedule with some themes, and this is one that I want to bring back. My word for 2024 is "play." I have been trying to focus on things that bring me joy and fun, so I think I will take Fridays as a day to focus on the things that I find fun in our profession - there are plenty of things that are a natural part of this job that are SO MUCH FUN! Today, I want to talk to you about improvising. (How many of you felt a cold chill up your back when you read the word, "improvising." like I do?) I promise, this is a good thing. I had a jazz band director that made me very afraid of improvising way back in junior high. That fear made me very anxious each and every time anyone told me to improvise in any situation because I was convinced that I could not do it. My internship director, Sheryl Kelly, fixed ...

Okay, all. I am here, trying out a new blog series that I haven't really tried out yet, but that is something that supports what I am already doing as a music therapist. Here we go - Songwriting Sunday !! Now, songwriting is something that I do all the time. I hope I'm not alone in this, because songwriting is also something that is just fun. After all, we had to go through all of our music theory courses, so why not use that knowledge for something that enriches our professional existence and that makes others look at us in awe. Songwriting is a superpower! Seriously. Who else can figure out melodies, harmonies, pitch centers, rhythms, tempi, lyrics, dynamics, styles, forms, and all that in a short amount of time. There aren't many people out there who can take an idea and turn it into a piece of music. We are part of a small group of people who have these skills. We need to celebrate that as much as possible! (Is anyone's imposter syndrome starting to rear its ugly he...

I had a webinar yesterday with music therapy interns. We spent some time going over some of the silly techniques that I have to break myself out of creative ruts and still have to make new music with clients. We did a bit of songwriting last evening, and it helped me find some creativity. One of the things that we did was develop a chord progression. Here it is: iii I iii I vi IV V I Now it is time to figure out what I am going to do with this progression. I like the way it sounds, so I will write it down and figure out something to do with it.  That's often the way that these things happen - something strikes a chord (pun intended) with me, and then it becomes a constant quest to finish it up. With a chord progression, it can fill so many different functions just by changing the pattern of the changes or the accompaniment. How do you write music? I don't attempt to write a permanent song without a post-it note, a pencil, and a piano. Oh dear, now I need to explain what a perm...

Ever have an idea that just sits on the edges of your brain, not really moving on or out? I am in that particular situation right now. Let me explain. So, I am currently involved in a songswap challenge run by the good folks at Music Therapy Kids . Our first challenge was to share a song that addresses communication - I shared one that I use quite often, but it started my composition process going. I have an idea for a song that incorporates articulation drills with Halloween, but it hasn't really solidified for me yet. I know most of the words that I want. I can hear the harmonic progression in my head and can put it onto the guitar, but the melody has not firmed up yet. It probably won't become reality until I take some time to sit down at the piano and make an effort. This is a common situation in my music therapy journey. I will get ideas, write them down, work on them a bit, find that they just don't gel for me, and then leave for a while. I keep all of my sc...

One of the benefits of being an Internship Director is the opportunity to learn new songs and ideas from interns. I require that interns write 75 therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) during their internships, and they submit their files to me during their fourth month at the facility. Twenty-five of the TMEs have to be original songs, and the others can be a combination of original ideas and things the interns learned from other people (including me). I have every file from every intern that I've ever had work with me, and their work is one of the best resources that I have. (That reminds me, I need to take my TME file list for my current intern - she wants some of my resources for her file...) Now, I have a very strict policy that I will not share any of their ideas or TMEs other than within music therapy sessions. All resources that I have contain their source materials, copyright information, and relevant contact information as well. If someone indicates an interest in a TME...

Usually, Tuesdays are my easiest post days. I simply pull out something from my TME file and copy it into the post and, voila! I am finished. During summer, however, I am all off my regular schedule due to changes in my work schedules and the abundance of sunshine and all the darn pollen out there, so I get a bit discombobulated when it comes to having my plans finished up. I think I may take a bit of a TME Tuesday hiatus this summer - I will try to focus on things like writing TMEs or coming up with ideas - or, I may just do TMEs, who knows, but since it has been a bit of a surprise to me that Tuesday comes around every week, it seems for the best. Of course, that means generating material for these "not necessarily TME Tuesdays." This may be more difficult than I originally thought. So, since I've made this decision this morning, I guess I'll go with it. Today's topic? Hmmm. I firmly believe that every music therapist who works with clients should hav...

I am currently in a period of creativity and songwriting. I spent many therapy hours improvising with and for my clients in the past couple of months, but I haven't done much on formalizing these new songs and therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) yet. It's time to start fixing these TMEs in permanent form. My process of doing this is simple - I use my TME form and get things written down. Sounds simple, doesn't it? And it really is, but it is very time-consuming to put together all of the different elements and get things ready for others to use or replicate. When I am in this type of creative, songwriting bent, I produce lots of music, and I do not often set that music down on anything other than a post-it note or my favorite 4X6 inch index cards. It takes me about an hour for each TME that goes into my database. That includes the writing, the use of the music software program, and putting everything together into a file. That's lots of time, and I don't of...

One of the things that I struggle with is getting my students, all with a developmental disability and at least one psychiatric concern and about 75% with an additional intellectual disability, to engage in making original music. They all want to be songwriters, but no one wants to work at the actual process of writing music. They all like the idea of making up raps and songs and being famous, but they are often uninterested in learning how to do those things. I get frustrated with the disconnect between what they KNOW to be true (they will be rich and famous musicians) and what I know to be true (being a rich and famous musician isn't an easy path). Most of my students want to be Luke Bryan without realizing that a) that role is already taken, and b) that Luke Bryan did lots of work in music areas, networking, and other jobs to become the country star that he is today. It wasn't simply a matter of thinking "I'm going to be famous," and POOF! There were lots of ...