music, therapy, and me

My mother asked me, just last night, if I would ever host a music therapy intern again. I am running out of time to do this because I will be leaving my current job in one year and nine months, and I will not be accepting an intern after October 2025 for sure. It has been some time since I have had a viable candidate and the last one decided not to come to Kansas for her internship. With a lack of applicants who can follow directions and finish paperwork or tell me that they are withdrawing their applications, I am inclined to close up shop and be done. It is time to get into the National Roster Internship Guidelines and see what the procedure is for closing down. This attitude and decision makes me feel pretty sad due to the fact that I enjoy being an internship supervisor, but since no one is interested, there is no reason to stay open. I wonder how many other programs have closed because of this. I know that there used to be nine National Roster programs in my state and now there ar...

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...

Forgive me as I sink into yet another "Nothing to do with Music Therapy - all about me" post for this Saturday. I am just getting excited about a little thing - my new journal. When I started my current journal two July's ago, I had big plans. I was going to use it to chronicle my re-watch of The Clone Wars, taking notes about the episodes that I watched. That fizzled out after about three months. I have no such plans for this book. I am keeping my Star Wars stickers on the front, and there are lots of galaxy and moon pictures inside, but I am not going to make any predictions or themes for this book. It is just going to be my personal planner. I am a paper/pen kind of planner. I do not like depending on digital sources for my appointments, so I write them down. I like choosing pens for each week and using stickers to decorate. At one point, in my first Star Wars planner, I was drawing different characters, but I am not doing as much of that now. At one point, I was drawi...

I am trying something rather new in my music therapy room this school year - leisure-focused sessions rather than just music therapy. Here is the deal - my students do not know how to occupy themselves in their leisure time other than with screens. They can watch television, movies, play video games, but they do not know how to use blocks or Matchbox cars or dolls or puzzles or crossword books or balls. Take away the screens, and my students cannot figure out things to do. This is not something that I have ever experienced. My life has been full of opportunities to get bored, to be away from screens, and to be turned outside to keep myself and my siblings occupied along with all the other kids in the neighborhood. We were supposed to be as safe as possible, but other than that, we had no real guidelines about what we should (goblin) be doing with ourselves. If I had been given a choice in the matter, I would have remained inside, reading, but I did not get that choice. Mom turned us ou...

So, how is your week going? Mine has included a near accident, hysterics for 24 miles, wishing that I could take a day off but knowing that I really can't justify it, wanting to get breakfast but the line being too long, long conversations with my family (which I love, but take time), interrupted sleep, beautiful weather patterns with just enough rain and sunshine to make me happy, one compliment, and some crabby students. I am so tired of everything, and I have been very isolated in my little therapy space. Everyone around me is sick, so I am trying my best to stay healthy since I've already lost one week to a strange virus. I don't want to use any more time this month. Every time this happens (and it is happening more often as I go through changes in my hormone levels and as I age), I have to figure out ways to break through the funk and keep going. For me, mindfulness practices help, and they mostly happen during my commute to work. Yesterday, for example, when the first...

Do you ever think about your hobbies? Are your hobbies expensive? Some of mine are, to be sure, but others are very cheap and help me stretch my meager budget as far as it can go. Hobbies are something that every person should cultivate for the sake of self-care, reflection, and pure enjoyment. Having lost a part-time job recently, my budget has changed significantly, and I am having to find ways to economize as I get used to the change in my income. So, I am scrutinizing my hobbies to see what I can do to cut back on my spending but still get the benefits that my hobbies give me. My hobbies are reading, making books, papercrafting, crocheting, and watching television and movies. The nice thing about my hobbies is that I have been doing them for so long that I already have everything that I NEED to make things and engage in my hobbies, but I do not have everything that I WANT! So, the first part of my thriftiness is to stop purchasing the things that I WANT and to focus on the things t...

A long time ago, I did a survey with the interns in the Midwestern region (where I live) of the US. One of the questions I asked was, "what advice would you give to current music therapy students about what surprises you about being an intern?" Almost everyone responded with a variation of "don't sell your music theory book back." They went on to comment about how much they needed the theory that they had learned and then forgotten after their last final. This is a truth that I come back to over and over. Music theory is important in the life of a music therapist. I know, having to relive the days of dictation and sight singing, keyboard harmony and learning typical progressions is not always a happy thought for many of us, but it is important to know those foundational expectations when you are trying to interpret the "can you play that one song? You know, the one that goes  duh, duh duh duh, duh." Well, keep singing as I figure it out... I use theory...