music, therapy, and me

The most important tool that I have ever developed for myself is my therapeutic music experience (TME) database. Oh, the benefits of this database!! Let me try to persuade you to set up your own database/system of keeping track of your ideas in the next few paragraphs as part of my TME Tuesday posts...are you ready? Here we go! When I was first offered the opportunity to write TMEs (now, it wasn't as much of an opportunity as it was a class assignment), computers were not really all that prevalent in our everyday world. Yep, I am that old. We didn't have cell phones that doubled as our storage link to the cloud and all that. I started writing my TMEs on index cards, and I continued doing that until I purchased my first personal computer of my very own. At that point in my life, I had two boxes full of index cards and lots of new ideas to put into the computer, so I started to figure out what I needed to do and then how to get those things done. I now have a database of TME idea...

Happy Systems Sunday!! I am enjoying the process of thinking about the systems that I use in the course of my everyday music therapy existence. I am in the process of identifying these systems so I can write this series of posts. When you consider that any sort of routine can be a system, there are plenty of things that we all do every day that qualify.  Today's system selection is my goal identification system. This is a crucial part of my therapeutic music experience (TME) format, and it helps me justify my selection of TMEs every single session. I use this system to ensure that every client in every single session is addressing the most important goal for that client, while all the other clients are doing the same. Now, I don't know about you, but my music therapy sessions aren't organized so that every person in the room has the same music therapy goals. My session members are much more diverse in the goals that they are working on than would be c...

Good morning, all. It is Tuesday here in the States, so I am posting my latest TME Tuesday video. For the past three weeks, I've been involved in a songswap hosted by Music Therapy Kids over on Facebook. Every week, we are challenged to share a TME idea (not the fully fleshed out TME) based on a very general goal (this week was academics). People are sharing all sorts of things, and I am torn between being excited about getting lots of new songs and being a bit sad because of how we are labelling these TME ideas. Here's my video - on academics. Sorry it is so out of focus - I am still learning how to use my different cameras - this is NOT one I'll be using again...(the camera, that is!) Academics is something that is part of everything that I do. I think through various subject areas with every single TME that I present to my students. Think we're just throwing balls at drums? Nope. We are experimenting with geometry, physics, scientific questioning, and throwi...

Found at the Dollar Tree - I hope I can find more! Have you ever found something that just makes you start to think about music therapy with that specific client who would really appreciate this something, and the ideas just start coming? It happens to me sometimes, but hasn't for a long time. I am happy to note that that spark seems to be back again.  In addition to finding ideas for things in my thought process again, I am thrilled that my song composition spark seems to be back as well. It's been on hiatus lately, but the ideas are back, and I'm starting to write them down again! Hooray! Over the years, I've found that I have periods of creativity and times of maintenance. Lately, I've been in maintenance. I've missed the time when ideas just come really quickly, building on each other, and fighting to be labeled. I am nurturing that creative spark, building on it generally, and hoping that it will continue for a nice long time. Anyway. I found th...

I am on a constant quest for organization. This has something to do with my pack-rat tendencies as well as my bent towards perfectionism, and probably lots to do with my mother and her mother and her mother before her. I want minimalism and end up with whatever the opposite of minimalism is all around me. In my quest to be a more organized human being, I have found that color coding is my key (especially in my music therapy environment). Two years ago, my facility went through a major renovation that led me to being more of an itinerant therapist than ever. I had to run sessions in four different locations, and I had to figure out how to organize myself so I could keep session plans and materials straight. Solution? Color-coding!! At the time, I had two interns who also needed some organization. Solution? Color-coding!! Each one of us had a different color box to use during the transition time. In addition, we each had a box for each session location. I could pick up the clear ...