music, therapy, and me

My last three days have been taken over by allergies, so I haven't been doing much writing... or thinking... or anything other than sleeping due to medication side effects. It is Easter Sunday, so I have to slog over to see if anyone will show up for Sunday School (they didn't last year), and then lead worship for a full house. I am not feeling great, but that is usual these days. I will bark through the anthem and all the hymns. I will excuse myself during the sermon so I am not coughing loudly while the pastor is trying to speak. I hope my voice will hold out through the scripture readings. We will see. Since I am not feeling well, this is going to be it for today.  I hope to be back into feeling like writing tomorrow, but we'll see... 

This week is where my two roles in the professional world collide into a very long schedule of work, more work, worship, more worship, interrupted schedules, and exhaustion. It is Holy Week, the week in the Christian faith where believers commemorate the last days of Jesus before his death and resurrection. For church employees, like me, it means at least two extra worship services and more church than is on our typical weekly schedule. It means different music, more time involved in spiritual focus, and different things happening at different times in the week. I work in a publicly funded, special purpose school. The roots of the facility itself are deeply centered in the Catholic faith, but we no longer have a Catholic focus. When I first arrived at the facility so many years ago, we did have that particular religious focus. Fridays were fish days. The annual Christmas program included acting out the Nativity story. (I stopped that practice because I didn't feel that it was right...

Today is the 31st anniversary of an important day in my life - the day I finished my internship and became a professional music therapist. I am proud of my career as a music therapist. I have been employed for my entire life except for about three months after my internship finished up. I have not been a music therapist for all of that time, but I have had the title of music therapist for the past 28 years. Before I became a "music therapist" in title, I was an activity director for children, a "QMRP" for adults, and a "Rehabilitation Therapist - Music" for adults. In the first and third of these jobs, I was able to do some music therapy, but music was not my primary way of doing my job. In the "QMRP" job, I was an administrator of three group homes and did not do any music therapy at all. My first two jobs did not last long, but they taught me some valuable lessons about myself as a music therapist and as a human being. I learned that I enjoy wo...

Does anyone else find that nothing happens for a very long time and then EVERYTHING happens during one week per quarter? This is the week that I am the busiest for my first part-time job, that of director of music at a church, so naturally all sorts of stuff is happening this week in addition to my full-time job and the events of Holy Week. It starts today, the ramp-up, and continues until next Saturday when I will finally get a rest from it all. After that day, then the hoopla of Sunday begins. This is going to be a busy week. I have appointments, discussions, errands, bills, all sorts of things that need to happen right now so they will get finished. To add to the stress that is coming, my allergic reactions to Spring are going strong. My lips are chapped, and I am coughing which is how all this always starts. So, I have exhaustion and breathing issues to look forward to as well. Let's hope that it will be better than I am thinking it will be. I get to do my taxes today. Last yea...

Oooh, boy. You know the speech I mean. You are sitting next to a stranger who insists on talking to you and THAT question comes up. "So, what do you do for a living?" There are many different variants of this question, but it all boils down to the same thing - what are you going to share with this stranger about a profession that everyone seems to know about but doesn't really understand? How far do you want to talk to someone about this profession and the things that go along with it? When I first started my career as a music therapist, people were often confused by the title, "MUSIC THERAPIST." It got to the point where I could predict when they would ask the follow-up question, "So, what is MUSICAL THERAPY, anyway?" It was a three second processing latency for everyone who asked me about my job. Three seconds to go through the mental database and then ask for more information. I would then launch into my elevator speech - the first little bit of inf...

I am a vintage music therapist. This is something that I take some pride in because it takes grit and guts and a love for this profession to be able to claim 31 years in this role. It really does. In my career, I have not been able to find a music therapy job in the place I wanted to work, I have had to move for schooling and for work, I have taken pay cuts to move into a music therapy role, I have lived paycheck to paycheck, and I have finally become financially stable and successful. I have lived through significant changes in education and clinical training with our professional organization, and I have volunteered many ideas and hours for that same organization. I am a vintage music therapist. Being an older music therapist has perks and benefits, but it also has drawbacks. I am a member of Gen X - those latchkey kids who had moms who worked and who had lots of independent hours to fill. We are not easily defined as a group, and that's okay with me. I am also an oldest child of...

I teach in a school setting. My clients are not easy to teach and often have aggression and significant difficulties with communication of emotions, wants, and needs. They often have not had many positive experiences in school settings and come to us for specialized special education services. One of those services is educational enrichment music therapy services. Being an educational enrichment therapist means that I see every student for an hour per week. I do not have IEP goals for clients - music therapy is not considered a related service at my facility - I do not have to do eligibility assessments because every student is automatically eligible for music therapy just by being admitted to the school. All of this is just to give you a glimpse into my facility and how I operate before I head into my current sessions. Part of what I do in my sessions is introduce my clients to some general music education concepts because many of my clients have never been allowed to engage with inst...