music, therapy, and me

It is the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend here in my part of the world, and I have done very little in the past two days, including writing. I am currently participating in NaNoWriMo - the National Novel Writing Month, and I have not written much in the past three days, but I have done some. This is the first time that I have participated in this particular event. The goal is to write 50,000 words in a month. I am at 32,648 words written this month. I have stories that total 51,563 words all together, so I feel like I have won, but I am only counting the words that I add in this month. The purpose of NaNoWriMo is to get me into a writing routine of some sort. If I manage to write the remaining 17, 352 words in the next six days, I will be amazed. Since I haven't done this before, I am proud of what I will get finished at that date.  I am enjoying the writing - mostly. As always, when I have something that I want to do - a goal, if you will - I tend to lose interest and start to re...

While I enjoy writing a bit of fiction now and then, I find myself getting caught up in details that are not necessarily part of the big picture but will inform my ideas about what should happen in my story. It's called character and plot development, right?? I'm at that place right now.    I am thinking about the first course that I named in this thought experience - "A Continuum of Music and Humanity." In my post on Tuesday , my hero, Persephone, was sitting in her assigned seat in the auditorium, one of four thousand music therapy students (could you imagine a gathering of music therapy hopefuls THAT big??), getting ready to hear from the person in charge of it all, Dr. Licar. What would this course cover, do you think? I am fleshing it out in my head - writing a syllabus and doing some light internet research to find references and resources for a course titled something like this.   One of my favorite courses from my undergraduate days was "Soci...

Have you ever written a Social Story ? I guess what I do is not really a social story but an expectation script of some sort. I guess I shouldn't really call anything that I write an actual Social Story. Here's why . It pays to delve a bit more into anything that you are thinking about to see if your concept is actually correct according to the original authors! ANYWAY - I've written (what I originally thought was a pretty good social story but I have now realized isn't a social story at all - sigh) a story about expectations for playing instruments. I've posted this on my website so you can see it, adapt it for you, and print it out. I usually read this to my kids with more impulse issues BEFORE (that is very important - BEFORE) I give them an instrument. This story is seeking a song to support it. So, at some point, I'll rewrite the words a bit and make it into a music-supported script of expectations. Then, I'll be able to sing it instead of reading ...

As I was starting this post, I noticed that that I have posted 1701 times on this blog since it started. That amazes me. When I started all of this writing in the year 2006, I wanted a place where I could write about what I was going through. I never anticipated that I would still be writing eleven years later, on an almost daily basis, and that people would actually read what I write! I love writing, and my favorite topic is, of course, my life as a music therapist. How could it be any other way? I'm sure that there are other professions where the practitioners get joy out of the everyday interactions, but I'm sure that there aren't that many that would give me the same sort of joy. Yesterday, I was thinking about my music therapy origin story. On my way home after working at church, I often hear part of the program Snap Judgment. Yesterday's program was about moments that changed lives. My music therapy origin story is like that. It changed my life. I love hea...

...to come up with a presentation proposal for the American Music Therapy Association's National Conference. I have a music therapy friend who is relatively new to the profession (for me, that means anyone who hasn't had to recertify through the Certification Board for Music Therapy yet - just so you can have a reference point) who has caught the presentation bug. At first, this person felt the way I felt as a relative newbie - "Why would ANYONE want to hear what I have to say?" It took lots of persuading, but this person took the chance and sent in a presentation proposal for the regional conference that was not only accepted, but well-attended as well. When I was a newbie, I felt the same way about presenting for music therapists. "How could I think that I had anything to contribute to the lives of other therapists with more practice experience?" A friend of mine asked me to co-present and the experience was a good thing. Lots of people came to listen...

This may seem strange to you, since I have spoken about my medical related anxiety disorder, but I really enjoy Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI tests). I have one today, but I'm not anxious about it all. I am actually looking forward to this test, believe it or not. I had my first MRI when I was 16. It was a horrible situation that ended up completely different than the initial diagnosis (thank goodness) but I became fascinated with the entire process once I was in the device.  Way back in those days, MRI machines were brand spanking new and extremely expensive! The hospital where I went for my test was part of a group of hospitals who had pooled together their monies so they could buy an MRI suite that traveled from hospital to hospital. When my doctor thought I had a brain tumor (long story, but I didn't), my hospital had the suite, so we went from appointment to hospital pretty much immediately. When we got there, I checked in and asked the lady at reception if my mom ...

Last night was Back to School Night at my job. Now, I really do not like having to work 12-hour days, and, to top it all off, had a aggressive encounter with an 8-year old who beat my right side up, started a strange migraine (don't know if the two were related), cried when I saw my old principal (blaming the migraine and the beating earlier, of course), and had a severe case of the drops (where I cannot put ANYTHING in its place without it jumping back out at me and hitting me on the head!). Anyway, I had placed the sunglasses down since sunglasses are not considered "professional dress," and my intern and I were talking to parents and students about the music therapy room. Working in a special education facility, I do not often meet family members of my clients. About half of my students are part of the residential psychiatric treatment facility and the other half are bused from as far away as 70 miles from the facility. So, last night was a time to meet family me...

I find the origin stories of music therapists very interesting. You know, the stories of how we found out about music therapy, when we knew we needed to use music as a tool to help others, and how we found our preferred populations. I also enjoy the stories about how we sustain ourselves as music therapy professionals in our various facilities. While the origin stories fascinate me, the sustaining stories are part of what keeps me going day after day. I found music therapy at a Girl Scout Wider Opportunity.  I attended Studio '84 with 103 other Girl Scouts in Evansville, Indiana on the campus of the University of Evansville. I attended as a vocalist, and part of the Opportunity was to explore different careers in music and the arts. We had a lecturer come from the music education department who gave a nice talk about being a music educator. On her way out, she said, "Oh, there is another program here but the professor wasn't able to be here. It's called music thera...