music, therapy, and me

One of the things that I enjoy is developing therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) which happens to be the term that I like for what I do with my clients during sessions. Others call these things interventions or applications or modules. I am currently designing TMEs to go along with a book that I bought at Thriftbooks.com. It is my goal to have one book organized with TMEs to go along with it for each month of the year. The first one is getting started, and I am revisiting my TME process and refining it all. So, let's catch up about this. I started writing TMEs (we didn't call them that back in 1989, by the way - we called them applications - I didn't like that term very much, even back then, but I didn't argue) in my second semester of music therapy education. We had to come up with 25 things to do with music therapy clients during the semester. It was rough to create that many ideas, but I did it. I wrote down my ideas on 4X6 inch index cards. I still have them, of co...

One of the things that I have nearby me both here and at work is my songwriting kit. It isn't fancy, but it is something that I have found that I use when I am in a songwriting mood. My kits reside in the pencil bags that I have collected as part of my love of stationery items, and they are small enough to fit into my bag. Inside my kit, you can find post-it notes of various types, pencils (of course), erasers (of course!), index cards, and sheet music. I have decided to make some stickers to go onto my index cards or my idea books to help me keep the music going and flowing.  Making stickers is not something new to me, but making sheet music stickers is. I have stickers for project management, TPT files, and all sorts of things, but I have never made sheet music stickers. This is a bit of a "duh" moment for me. So, how do I do this?? I use labels and my printer. It is really simple to make these types of functional stickers. I use Word or Powerpoint most of the time. It ...

I had a chance to show off one of my organizational systems this week when I shared my songwriting kit with a group of students. Sharing something that works for me is just plain old fun, and I enjoy it greatly. I like hearing what other people do in their systems, and I like sharing mine with others. This little songwriting kit is not fancy, but it does work for me, so why not let others in on the secret? My songwriting kit is a pencil pouch that includes some sheet music paper cut to size for my cell phone camera to take pictures for sharing TME ideas, two mechanical pencils, a really good eraser, some post-it notes (of course), and some index cards. The pencil pouch fits in my work bag without taking up too much space, and it is a Star Wars themed pouch with my favorite character in it, so it always makes me smile when I see it. Sometimes the simple things are the best. I have this kit because I tend to have ideas flit through my head when I am not close to my computer or software. ...

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 ...

Oooh, boy. You know the speech I mean. You are sitting next to a stranger who insists on talking to you and THAT question comes up. "So, what do you do for a living?" There are many different variants of this question, but it all boils down to the same thing - what are you going to share with this stranger about a profession that everyone seems to know about but doesn't really understand? How far do you want to talk to someone about this profession and the things that go along with it? When I first started my career as a music therapist, people were often confused by the title, "MUSIC THERAPIST." It got to the point where I could predict when they would ask the follow-up question, "So, what is MUSICAL THERAPY, anyway?" It was a three second processing latency for everyone who asked me about my job. Three seconds to go through the mental database and then ask for more information. I would then launch into my elevator speech - the first little bit of inf...

Fridays are for focusing on things that work for me in my music therapy life which I then share with others in the hope that someone else might benefit from my lived experiences. Today, as I am surrounded by the leftover piles on the floor from my intense need to rearrange my office space, avoiding the thought of what I still need to put away and find places for in this area before the HVAC guy arrives at some point, I am thinking about my most successful organization tool - color-coding. It seems really simplistic, doesn't it? That's because it really is! I use color-coding for many things, but it really is most important in my storage and use of visual aids in my music therapy space. I have lots of music therapy visuals. Many of them I have purchased over the years, but many more are ones that I have made for my clients. All of my visuals are stored in boxes, but it is sometimes difficult to find what I want. As a result, I color-code things to help me find things based on pr...

Good morning. After two days of seriously angry attitudes and just feeling like everyone and everything outside of my home was stupid and set to make me even angrier, I think I am coming out of the mood - we will see, though. I haven't left home since Friday afternoon, so I am not sure if my anger issues have receded or just been unchallenged. Today's foray into the world will let me know if I am actually doing better or not. My random number generator spat out post #1711 for consideration today. I went back into the archives and found this post from December 15, 2017 - titled "...The 'Must Do' Rather Than the 'Want To Do' List. "  I am always a bit amused when I read past posts because they remind me that I am always struggling and striving to grow in many areas. This post tickles my fancy because it reminds me that I try really hard to be organized and to get things finished up in a logical manner but... I haven't used my "want to do" ...

I am happy to report that a system I put back into practice this week seems to be working!! That's really what you want out of a system, isn't it? Something that works. This system is time blocking. If you are unfamiliar with the term, just know that it is planning out any chunk of time that you have and matching it with the tasks that you want to accomplish. I have done time blocking this week during my non-session times. Today is the day where I have the most time to fill with tasks, and this is the system that helps me get things done. I set up my work journal twice per week. I set up the first part of the week during the week before. I tend to set up the second half on Mondays of each week. This helps me see the times that I have available for my tasks.  Today's journal entry has a time set aside for making task boxes and tools for others, another chunk (or block) of time for intern supervision, and then the last chunk is set aside for cleaning and documentation. We hav...

'Tis the season of watching classroom set-ups on social media. Do you know the videos I'm talking about? The ones where teachers set up their super cute classroom themes and bulletin boards in a fast-forward type video? My sister, who is an elementary school teacher, is currently in the process of getting her classroom theme put together. I always love watching the creativity of others in setting up their environments, and I am always jealous of their space and ability to keep things up on the wall with their students. My students and my space are not conducive to cute themes and color-coded, coordinated wall decorations. The things that I have up on the walls of my music therapy room are functional rather than coordinated. My room is already decorated with lots of paintings from various murals, so things are already as busy as I want them to be. These facts don't stop me from wanting a classroom where I could make my own cute theme happen though. As I am a week away from t...

Oh, goodness. I have remembered to write in the afternoons now two times in a row. My views have gone down significantly, but I think I know ways to get you all to see my posts on various social media accounts... we'll see. Okay. Today is Tuesday (and my brain is working a bit better today than it was yesterday), so that means it is time to talk about therapeutic music experiences (TMEs). So, here we go. This week, the first week in May, is always Star Wars week in my music therapy room. It will always be so - I have decided. We are exploring elements of my favorites stories and some of my toys, and it is music therapy because of the goals behind it all. My groups are getting to spend some time in a galaxy far, far away because I am just a bit of a fan. We have a presentation that introduces some of the music of the series and some of the planets that the creative people behind Star Wars have developed over all these years. We talk about how it would be difficult to take instrument...

One of the core concepts of my music therapy clinical work is "limited time without music present in the environment." This is something I strive for - I figure that my clients deserve to be immersed in musical experiences as much as possible because they are in "music" therapy. Now, there is no way to be at 100% in every single session (I have found), but I strive for as close to that as possible. In order to do this, I have developed some quick change systems to help me keep the music going without interruption. Here they are... in no particular order... just as I think about them... Organization - keeping materials organized based on how you intend to use them helps when you want to grab something from your storage. I like grouping materials in topic or TME categories. Session Strategizing - I try to make decisions about what TMEs I want to use throughout my day before my day starts. This helps me find materials and set them in the session area so I don't hav...

I am working on a handbook. It is geared for music therapy students and interns and is going to be focused on internships. I have been working on this project, off and on, for about 8 years now, but this is going to be the year it finally comes together, so here it goes. Today, I am going to talk about my tricks to organize my time and my stuff. As with most of what I write, these are things that work for me and may not work for anyone else in this music therapy world, but just in case they do work for you... Here goes. I use a logic-based organization system for my music therapy clinical area. How does this work? I group my instruments based on how I usually use them. For example, my rhythm sticks, jingle bells, and shaker eggs go into the same container because I like using that combination together and because my clients like choices. I separate things out when I have therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) that go with only one of the instruments, but I tend to use them together most ...

I am someone who yearns to be organized but who saves my successful organization systems for things other than my house. My clinic area is organized, arranged, and completely functional for what I use it for. My house is not, and my house is always a place where I want to be better (but rarely am better). My best organization system is my electronic systems. While I prefer paper and pen for my planning and brainstorming processes, I am all about digital organization structures. In my life, I use Google Forms, Access, and Excel the most. Of the three, the most enigmatic for me is Access, but it works for what I need it to do. Access is what I use for my clinical documentation. Each client has a file and the system allows me to make forms that keep records of all points of contact with every client for the duration of their stay with us. I can also move these files around as classroom assignments change and as clients leave and then return to our program. I do not know much, but I know e...

If you are new to this blog, then just know that I am a bullet journaler (sorta), and I tend to write about my journals on a regular basis. I love blank books - I make them, I buy them, I use them for all sorts of things. I have a personal journal that has a theme to it, but most of my journals are functional rather than decorative. What this means to me is that I don't spend much time making pages look pretty in my working journals. My personal journal, on the other hand, is a place where I spend some time with decorating my calendar pages - but, even that goes by the wayside when I am tired or pressed for time. So, let's get into the journal systems that I have in place. Journal #1 is my personal journal. Like I mentioned, it has a theme, and the theme I selected is Star Wars. Again, if you have been a reader of this blog for awhile now, you know that I am a Star Wars fan from the very first time I saw the first movie in a drive-in movie theater. So, having Star Wars as a the...