music, therapy, and me

This week's intern webinar is focused on self-care for the music therapist. It's coming at a particularly difficult time for me as I am having anxiety attacks about everything from pneumonia, surgery happening in two weeks, and going back to work. I need to practice what I'm going to preach to the interns who will be present during the webinar. I need to make and follow a self-care plan for this week. I need to figure out how to do this and then do it. First, I'm going to identify all of the things that are currently interfering with my self-care. surgery in two weeks IF I get over the pneumonia currently happening the pneumonia currently happening not having any energy uncertainty being alone for long periods of time over the past two weeks constant coughing I tend to be a planner, so now it's time to start figuring out how to fix these things. Second, what can I do to work with these things that are interfering with my self-care... pneumonia - c...

It's time for Supplemental Sunday again, so here I am with an idea that I use with my students for all types of things. You can see a couple of examples in the picture. Introducing, the name plate. Name plates are brightly colored pieces of card stock that have places to write names on them. Elementary school teachers use them to identify desks for their students. They come in many different patterns and color schemes, and I like them for music therapy supplementals as well. Name plates are usually made out of card stock, making them a bit sturdier than sentence strips and they can be made into prompts, or signs, or choice strips, or sequencing patterns. There is no limit to how these can be adapted for use in a music therapy session. In the example above, you can see several of my movement stations (the pencil ones) and one of my center station signs. The movement stations have permanent words laminated onto the signs. I have about 20 of them - all different types of mov...

When I have lots of time on my hands, I tend to start philosophizing. It's never a great thing, but it always leads me into interesting paths. Sometimes the goblins take over - "I should be... I could be... I would be better if I just..." I have to make an effort to nip those goblinish thoughts right in the bud or I fall into a morass of guilt and feelings of inadequacy. Instead, I try my best to think about the unique things I bring to this profession. We all have unique things that we bring to our profession. Some of us are good at talking to others about music therapy. Some of us are better at composing engaging therapeutic music experiences (TMEs) for a variety of clients. Some of us are teachers, educating the next generation of students who will enter music therapy as a vocation. Most of us do the most important job of all - direct service to clients, showing individuals the direct benefit that music and therapy can have in their lives. If we didn't go to our ...

It is difficult to figure out what to write about at this time for several reasons. First of all, I've been home sick all week with a tricky bit of pneumonia, so my usual immersion in the music therapy world is not happening. Second, my brain seems to be atrophying with all of the staying home and avoiding other people and their germs. Third, I've exhausted all of my most obvious Favorite Things, so I'm grasping for a topic for today. Additionally, I'm just plain old bored with my own company, so nothing seems to be interesting to me. Rough life, hunh? - Ultra sarcasm here. My life is not rough, just different from the usual right now, so I'm wallowing a bit. Sorry about that. I'll stop now. So, something that I like that makes my music therapy life a bit easier... hmmm... Mashed potatoes - hmm. Doesn't really have anything to do with music therapy, but significant influence on my sense of well-being... nope, move on. Cat snuggles - again, not much t...

I am one of the lucky few who has had a glimpse into how hard it is to organize a conference for music therapists. (Now, in our defense, I don't think that music therapists are more or less difficult to plan for, but I've never really planned a conference for any other group of people - I did plan a couple of camping trips for 300+ girl scouts when I was in high school - they were probably as difficult as music therapists, and I had to dig latrines for them - entirely different story... good memories!). The conference that I help organize is nothing compared to the scale of the AMTA National Conference, but there are lots of things that go on behind the scenes of my conference that participants should never know about! In case you are wondering, the conference I help out with is The Online Conference for Music Therapy(OCMT) - check out the link! It is a pretty neat group of people to know and work with! Conference is on February 6, 2016 - plan on joining us!! I also have a...

Today's post brought to you courtesy of a contract that I did quite a long time ago. The contractee wanted me to design some music to enhance calendar time at a school. I came up with three different programs using music to enhance the educational goals of the students in the classroom. As part of that contract, I was able to do what I love to do - I composed and made visuals, and GOT PAID! They took my fees without blinking, and I reveled in the project. Here is one of those songs... This is all I'm giving you today. Just a song. What will you do with it? I know what I do with it, but I'm curious about how you will use this song with your population. Enjoy, and happy Tuesday!

Okay, I'm prefacing this with the concept that I am still very ill and not able to make it through a 4.5 hour church job without getting kicked out of CHURCH by the United Methodist Women, so I may be overreacting a bit to something that I read on Music Therapists Unite , but here's how I feel. The folks over at Metro Music Therapy did a "survey" recently about attitudes of therapists about conference. It contained three questions which should have been only two questions since the first question led to the others. Only 100 responses were tabulated which does not really indicate the entire survey pool (there were 182 respondents). There was no indication of whether respondents were AMTA members or citizens of the US, so it is unknown whether respondents would actually be likely to attend the AMTA conference. The comments are most revealing (I find that to be true on most surveys - always read the comments). Many of the comments indicate non-attendance due to financ...