music, therapy, and me

This morning there are birds singing their songs outside. It is a little past dawn and they have found their voices. The world is full of music, whistles, toots, trills, chirps, and calls. There is a female cardinal (looks like an adolescent) sitting on my back fence right now. She's keeping an eye on the cat while we both sit and watch her. My life has been full of thoughts about birds lately. I started this month with a talk to the United Methodist Women about the power of music and the gifts that we get from music. My Fridays have been spent talking to my kids about Spring - we've been listening to different bird calls from the birds that have a presence in our state.  I've been trying to listen to bird songs. Many of my work mornings, I leave before the sun rises. Most of the birds have been asleep. There have been a few intrepid bird souls who are early risers like me, but they are not the big singers. This morning was full of bird song. There is something about ...

So, I'm late for work and not able to post a TME this morning, but I WILL get it done this afternoon... Check back in later?? UPDATE: So, if you looked at this blog yesterday, you were probably disappointed that I didn't do what I'd said I would do. Sorry for that. Life intruded, as life often does. Anyway, here is my TME Tuesday -  I love a song that I learned from John Lithgow's CD, Singing in the Bathtub - Big Kids Scare the Heck Out of Me. There is a TME on the website, www.musictherapyworks.com , at the Ideas and Experiences page. Please check it out! Now, I love the song, and I enjoy using it with my students. It's a way to address specific fears that we all have, and we re-write the words to include appropriate solutions or ways to express our fears, but it occurs to me that the original words work very well for a bullying theme or curriculum unit. In the song, the kid who is singing starts to talk about how he hates being around big kids 'cause...

It is Saturday morning, and I am in need of some motivation to do some chores that need to be done but that are no fun to do. My desk has been taken over by junk - things that I've just left there that need to be placed in other places. The stove needs to be cleaned and the kitchen needs some reorganization. The bathrooms could use a scrub down as well. I am somewhat disorganized everywhere these days. It is time to get started. So, what motivates me?  Interestingly enough (at least to me), not music. Pandora is not an option when I need to get things done. I might be able to get some movement going when listening to my preferred music on my iPod, but not for long. I start to think about how I can use the songs that I'm listening to in therapy sessions, I have to go write things down, and then I have an excuse to stop my mundane tasks "for the benefit of my kids." So, nothing distracts me more than music. I will watch streaming episodes of television shows to ke...

I am always on the lookout for new opening and closing songs. I use both openings and closings with my clients because I find them to be good times for assessing how folks are doing and where I want to go with them. This one is called We're On Our Way . I use an upbeat tempo and strum pattern to motivate my clients to leave the room and go back to their classrooms... Enjoy! Purpose : To provide musical support during transition to class; motivation to leave session; to illustrate immediate expectations for behavior modification; to encourage impulse control through continuing music stimulation Source : Original song written during Room 9 session. © June 22, 2010 by Mary Jane Landaker, MME, MT-BC Materials : Guitar; body percussion source Environment : Moving down hallway from one location to another Song/Chant/Words : We’re On Our Way – MIDI file; We’re On Our Way - .pdf file I             ...

Just returned from part of my regional conference. It was within driving distance (my major requirement for attending a regional conference is driving distance), and I passed through the towns where my dad's parents and grandparents lived. I enjoyed driving through those small towns. So, double bonus - trip to my past and time with music therapists. Regional conferences are VERY different from national conferences. They are smaller, so there are lots more opportunities to get to know people. They are also less hurried or rushed. We only had 4 concurrent sessions going on at a time, so it was easy to choose what to learn about. I could only stay for the afternoon and then the first morning of the conference, but it was a renewal of my music therapy spirit and motivation. The local committee did a wonderful job of finding a venue that functioned well, supported presenters, and had plenty of room. I didn't stay in the conference hotel, but I spent time in the space. My only co...

It is time for music therapy conferences. I have seen many, MANY posts about what my music therapy friends are doing all around the country, and I am looking forward to posting some of my own stuff from this weekend. It is my turn to head out into the world of music therapists and learning, networking, and experiencing those things that center around a music therapy event. There are rumors about swag - don't know what is swagish, but I know I like rumors like that! My sister laughs at me when I talk about getting a pen and a bag at conferences. She's a second grade teacher and gets things like jumpdrives, iPod minis, and fancy t-shirts in her swag bags. She just doesn't understand the excitement that a pen gives me when I go to a music therapy conference. That's one of the difficulties of being in a small profession - limited advertisement opportunities.  So, I'll go see some presentations on Social and Communication Pragmatics Theory and Music Therapy Supervi...

My Therapeutic Music Experience (TME) file started in 1989 with an assignment. We had to write down 25 things to do with people in music therapy sessions. I started my file with 4X6 cards. [Now, before you spend lots of time guffawing about my cards, please remember that this was before the days of laptops, apps, and iPads - WAAAY BEFORE!] We had to use cards, but we could choose the size that we wanted. I decided that 4X6 was the perfect size for me, and off I went!   As I went off to my internship, I was grateful for the beginnings of my TME file. I had to add to it and already had started to write down everything I used in my practica and just kept on adding to it. So, for this week's TME Tuesday, I went back into my card file and found one of the best TMEs I have ever written for my kids. This song has endured even when I have tried to kill it because it gets caught in my head and goes on and on and on and on...   As you can see, this was written back in...