music, therapy, and me

One of the things that is interesting about this job of music therapy is that there are creative needs that never really end. I just finished my sing about the ocean  packet ( available here, by the way !), and now it is time to finish up the next sing about   songs edition for the month of October. If you are unaware, I try to release my monthly subscription about three months in advance so you have the resources available well before the month arrives. I find that composing music and coming up with ways to use songs in sessions with a variety of clients keeps me engaged and thinking. When I talk with other music therapists, I hear things like "I feel like I'm in a rut with what I do with my clients," and I get that. I understand that and have written about it over and over for many years now. Ruts happen, especially when the rigors of the job demand that the creative process take second place to working on the actual act of therapy. So, one of my projects for this week...

I am a music therapist who gets creative blocks at times, and that fact just annoys me. I do not like it when I cannot create something just whenever I want or need to do so, and I have explored many different ways to spur my creativity over my many years as a music therapist. The other day, I grabbed a set of Dungeons and Dragons dice at Five Below. I have followed several people on various social media platforms who use these to make decisions - I especially enjoy Roll for Sandwich - check it out! I thought that this could be a good format for me, and I turned it into a couple of therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) already! Now, I have released this as a free resource in my TPT store . (It will not always be free - get it now!!) You have to have an account in TPT to access the information, but signing up is free and there are tons of free resources that music therapists can use and adapt.  Here's how it works. I have determined a criterion for each die value. Each die has a diff...

It is almost spring here - the temperatures are getting higher and the snow drifts are melting slowly. I know that there will be a return of the ick at some point, but spring is coming. I was speaking to a coworker yesterday about how much I enjoy winter but really like spring and autumn. I am not a fan of summer - especially where I live now. The humidity makes it difficult for me to breathe, walk, and exist without pain, but winter offers some respite to it all. If I have to rank my seasons in order of preference it goes autumn, winter, spring, and summer. With the return of spring-like temperatures, I am starting to get some itches to create routines and systems and get things going. This happens every year. The shift from winter and hibernation urges heads me into energy and planning urges. I completely understand the concept of a Spring Cleaning - I just don't like cleaning. Anyway... I remembered a song that one of my clients helped me write as a closing therapeutic music exp...

As I have been going through boxes and bags of things as a result of my recent water emergency, I have been finding all sorts of things that I have purchased and then packed away. These are things that I had been able to justify purchasing at the time, but that I have not actually used yet. So, as a result, it is time to start working on my Six Things Rule again. Just to refresh your memory (or introduce you to this rule that I have created for myself because I tend to hoard things and keep buying more and more things to use), I have established a "Six Things Rule" to help me figure out if I can purchase things for my music therapy clinic. This rule helps me a bit when it comes to impulse buys, but not much because I can think up six things to do with just about anything when motivated. Right now, though, I need to decide if I can keep these things that are taking over my very being and all my space. These bulletin board pieces, for example. I bought some paw print calendar n...

It is Tuesday again, and I have not written down any TME ideas for the past... um... month. I am failing in my experiment to write 5 TMEs per week, so I am resetting this experiment. It is time to evaluate and try to figure out what is going on. First, I am recovering from a broken finger that has impeded everything that I need to to do for this experiment. I am hoping to start occupational therapy very soon, so I can stretch this ring finger and strengthen it enough to get back into playing the guitar. I miss my guitar so much! My songwriting is only half-way done because I am not allowed to use my left hand fro anything at the moment. It is frustrating, and not being able to use my left hand means I am not able to play things in their entireties. I can hear the melodies and the accompaniments, but I cannot play them to see if I am correct. I also don't have any composition software on my work computers, so I cannot hear if what I am writing (rhythms can be my downfall when compos...

It is Tuesday again, and I am gearing up for five groups and one individual. Usually, I have two individuals on this day, but one is away for the week, so I get a bit of a break. Not much, but a bit. The temperature is cooler - both outside and in my music therapy room - so tempers seemed to have cooled as well. We will see if that continues, but for the moment, I am enjoying the more relaxed atmosphere in the rooms next to me.  I felt the urge to sit down with my ideas book yesterday to record some ideas that have come to me as I have been moving into the role of observer rather than therapist. I am physically moving my body closer and closer to my office where I will spend most of the rest of my intern's time to provide supervision but not interference. I tend to be more likely to write TMEs when I am in my office for interns' sessions than when I am primary therapist. When I have to remove myself from client interactions, my brain starts to design things to do with those cli...

Do you ever hear a song and think, "that would make a GREAT experience with ____. How can I use it in a session?" I had that experience yesterday with a client who loves all things Pokemon, Mario Brothers, and other things - this particular client always surprises me with session topics and I never know what is coming. Anyway, we started talking about chain chomps because that was what we needed to talk about. I know nothing about the Mario Brothers or Pokemon or any of that stuff - I've decided not to devote too many brain cells to these things since they have very little to do with my daily life. I am always willing to learn, though, so I learned about chain chomps yesterday at the end of the day. I found the musical theme from the game, and then my TME thoughts started churning. At this point, my TME idea includes some motor planning, some directed listening, and some attempts to sneak past a chain chomp. I might make an actual chain to rattle as part of our game - jus...

Making time is something that I struggle with on a regular basis. Making time to practice or to write things down or compose stuff for my clinical interactions with my students or...well, you get it. It's not that I don't have time, it's just that I don't always use my time wisely. My brain stops functioning well about 2pm, and that's when I have the time to sit down and do these types of tasks. It's a quandary, so I try my best to push thoughts into and through my head. I am currently in a TME type of creative slump. I stopped doing some monthly creation and have slipped out of the habit of writing my TMEs down. I haven't been trying to change this as of late, but I think that it is time to get back into the habit of writing TMEs and designing stuff for my clinic again. I wrote two TMEs last week. One was inspired by my intern's TME and the other was an idea that I started a long time ago and I was finally able to finish up. I had such a feeling of acco...

Last week, I started to describe how I strive to think about the stuff that surrounds me at my job. I started by describing my ground rules - No idea is "wrong." No list is ever completely finished. Clients will change my thoughts through their own contributions and use of the materials. Watch how other music therapists use their materials for more ideas. Generic TMEs are perfectly fine - for example, a "Novel Instrument Exploration" TME works really well for all sorts of instruments. Then I started to describe my process. It is time to further develop this into a series of posts. If you want to read more, here is the link to the first post in this new series . Once I have finished up the sensory exploration and listing, I start to brainstorm some treatment domains that go along with the information that I have collected. The last example, the rhythm sticks, offer plenty of opportunities for use in music therapy sessions. One of the reasons that I am writing about...