music, therapy, and me

I've been thinking about origin stories lately - you know, the way that people become who they are. My own origin story is in this post here . I am writing a little piece of futuristic fiction about music therapy and where we are headed, and I flashed on the idea that my protagonist needed her own origin story a bit more fleshed out than the bare bones that I've already established. You see, Persephone first encountered music therapy when she met Evelyn (pronounced - Ee-vlyn - that's important to me!!), her brother's music therapist. Evelyn's big brother, Evander, is referred to music therapy due to his preference for music as an interaction to other forms of communication. Persephone barely remembers a time when music therapy wasn't a part of her life...More about that when I get my fingers a bit more limber to type it all out. I have an entire pathway laid out for Persephone's journey to her music therapy education which includes talks with Evelyn, observ...

It is Tuesday again, and that means it is time for another Teachers Pay Teachers post about my shop and the resources that I provide for your use! Rather than highlight a specific resource today, I am going to write a bit about how I get things ready for you!! If you don't know, Teachers Pay Teachers is a free membership site where creators sell learning resources to teachers. In the interest of full disclosure, Teachers Pay Teachers does not pay me anything to talk about the site here on my blog, but I do get a small piece of every file that you buy on my site. It's not much because I try to keep my prices low for other music therapists. This site is amazing. There are so many creators offering all sorts of resources that I can find just about any sort of visual aid that I want or need. Since I like making visual aids, moving into digital visual aid creation was something that fascinated me. So, I started to figure out how to translate my not-so-digital visuals into a digital...

By the way, this is an extremely opinionated post - I figure that this is my blog, and I encourage different perspectives and point of view, but, ultimately, this is my place to think about my profession and where I fit in it. Feel free to comment, unfollow me, or write responses to what I post - I will read everything and select what I want to share with the bigger world...Now that's been said...here we go. This has been a strange year for us all. The "way we do things" is changing in all aspects. I started crying a couple of weeks ago when I was watching a movie where people went to a restaurant to eat with people not in their immediate families. I miss just going shopping because it is Saturday, and I want to get out of the house. (I don't do that these days because of the need to remain as germ-free as possible due to my role as a live, in-person, essential health care worker. The responsibility is always there...) My sister has not met her current crop of second ...

It's that time again - time for my students to go back to school tomorrow, so rather than come up with a TME to share, I thought I would challenge you all to use a specific song and make it into a TME.   FULL DISCLOSURE: I will use your ideas in my music therapy interactions with my clients, but I will NEVER share them outside of my own clinic without explicit permission from you, and I will make sure that you are listed as the source of the TME idea in my TME file for perpetuity. I will NEVER profit from your idea in any way. Someone stole one of my songs and TMEs once - I don't want anyone else to ever have to go through what I've gone through. So, here's the deal. I have a song that could have so many different uses in a music therapy session, and I'd like to know what you all think and how you would use it. This is a participation deal. Please comment below. In your comment, tell me if you want me to publish it so lots of folks can see you...

When I last wrote, my future was very unclear to me. At this point, my future is still unclear, but I know that I will NOT be having to rearrange all sorts of stuff to accommodate surgery. Turns out that I have a partial tendon rupture in my left middle finger to go along with a fractured left ring finger, but my hand specialist thinks that three months of splinting will heal things up a bit. Now, while I am grateful that I am not trying to juggle two interns and significant time off from work, I am still a bit scared about what this hand injury means for my future, but I am going to try to focus on other things now. Thank you for reading about this. 2020 has really been strange, hunh? So, me and my very strong left-side dominant self are trying to figure out how I am going to do even the most basic of things. My recent self-care practices are on hold because I can't use my left hand to do much of anything. Writing is out, typing is difficult, but I still need to be engaging in sel...

I am probably not going to be writing lots on my blog for a bit - and here's why... I am currently having to navigate something that has only happened once before with me, and that is a life-changing injury. The last one was a total ACL repair on my left knee, and this one is a tendon tear in my left hand middle finger. I'm not going to share how this happened, it is not relevant, but I am currently wavering between "it will all be okay" and "I'll never be able to play the guitar again!" I think this will come out the former rather than the latter, but those pesky other thoughts keep bursting into my head! While there is never a good time for something like this, the timing of this situation has hit me hard. I now hove to figure out how to juggle a new intern, a current intern, AND my job in a way that will be able to fit around surgery, recovery, and rehabilitation. I have to find someone who can drive me to my appointments, and I have to figure all of ...

I LOVE it when someone wants a specific visual to go along with a therapeutic music experience (TME) that they have in mind. The next file highlighted in my Teachers Pay Teachers store and post series is the result of just such a situation. I am an internship director and in that role, I come across interns with a wide variety of experiences and interests. One of my recent interns had found the Pete the Cat stories and was interested in developing some TMEs to go along with some of the books. Now, I don't know this story at all, but when my intern mentioned the book, I started thinking about some of my own shoe songs and this file came into being.  As always, this file includes an original song for you to use in your music therapy sessions. I love it, and I hope that your clients will enjoy it as well.