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Hello everyone!

 

These past few weeks have been filled with ah-ha moments. Things in internship are just starting to click. It’s such a great feeling to start piecing things together.

Symposium is a great place for these moments. The other day we had a discussion on music and the brain. I prepared and read some handouts and blog posts before symposium started. I understood the material, but during symposium something clicked. One thing that clicked in my mind this day was how the brain works during music and movement. I have used movement with music in a group for toddlers with speech and language delays as a practicum student. I was always so excited to see how these toddlers started babbling while we were singing and moving around the room. It fascinates me how hand movement can facilitate babbling. This group really sparked my interest in speech and language.

 When talking about music and movement facilitating speech in symposium, I had my Gestalt Moment. I was able to discuss with my supervisors about how movement and music can help develop speech. I was able to place this practicum experience into my internship in experience. Sometimes in practicum we are concerned about playing the right chord or what song comes next. Now that I am in internship, I am comfortable with my musical skills and I can focus more on my clinical skills. I am able to take the theories I learned in school and apply them in the clinical setting.

 

It is so exciting to take what I learned in the classroom and use it in a clinical setting!

 

-Rachel

Happy Tuesday everyone! 

A few weeks ago was something that I think will be my favorite part of internship: Camp Jam!

Camp Jam is a week long camp for kids with disabilities. These kids are able to come together and have a social experience through music. I’ll give you a break down of the days:

First, everyone meets up for circle time. Here we say hello, get the campers feeling comfortable in the new space, and have them interact with their peers. It was great to see the changes made form day one to day four. The kids were saying hi, giving each other high fives, and singing along by the end of the week. Not only did the campers get more comfortable, but the volunteers did too. It was so exciting to see the volunteers interact with the kids! 

When circle time was over, we got into small groups (older kids and younger kids). I was apart of the older kids group. I was thrilled to see the friendships formed within the older kids group. These kids created such a special bond through Camp Jam. The kids loved playing a large table drum. We all gathered around it to play together and listen to everyone play solos. It was a wonderful thing to see the campers cheering each other on! Small group time was a time for the kids to form connections with each other.

From small group we went to snack and then craft. Craft was always fun. We hung out outside and colored beach balls, wind chimes, and more! The kids left camp on Friday with a bag of goodies that they created! 

The campers also went to movement group. I’ve attached a video of one movement intervention. I loved this intervention. It got the kids moving and interacting with everyone. It was obvious that the kids loved movement, but it was even more obvious that the volunteers loved it too! On the last day we enjoyed the beautiful weather (luckily we had a cool week) and played with water outside. The movement group was great to get kids moving through music. My favorite part was seeing them smile and laugh. 

After craft and movement we headed to the playground. On the playground the campers were able to bond with their volunteer more. We discovered what each camper needed on their break away from all of the activities and sound. We also learned more about sharing (especially on the swings!). Even though playground was a short break we always had a lot of fun!

After playground we came back to camp and had a calm down time. The campers sat and relaxed while we all sang and played calming music. Calming instruments were passed around. We used bubbles and parachutes. The campers were exhausted after a full morning of activities! From calm down time we all got concert tickets and headed over to our own private concert. 

The concerts were awesome! All of the performers were great and interacted with the campers. Tuesday’s concert was lead by a former camp jammer! He was awesome and handed out coloring sheets so the kids could color an orange piano! Wednesday was one of the camper’s parents. They taught the kids about jazz, how to scat, and a chance to play the upright bass! Thursday the kids got to play the banjo and sing some awesome songs! On Friday Miss Ladybug showed us how to shake our shakers. Thanks so much to the performers for providing the kids with amazing music!

Not sleeping as much last week was 100% worth it. Over four days I was able to see these kids grow so much. It was an amazing experience.

-Rachel

I encourage everyone to check out Chelsea Davis’s Kickstarter campaign The “Caged Bird.” This EP is Davis’s way to raise awareness about sexual abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. These are all things that we hear about, but do not realize how often they happen. Davis has brought together an outstanding team of Grammy winners and nominees to help put this EP together. So, help set the Caged Bird free by checking out this soulful song, and sharing it with your friends!

-Rachel

As my internship is drawing to a close, I’ve been thinking a lot about closure. There are plenty of different ideas on how to facilitate a closure session; you can write a song together about your experience making music in your sessions; you can record a video of you and your client playing a shared favorite song; you can even write a new song about the transition and how it might relate to that particular client.

In my experience with children with autism, change and transitions can be very difficult to process. Kids in general are not usually familiar with the concept of “internships”, as they have no need of that knowledge yet, so it’s not exactly easy to explain why you won’t be in the session two weeks from now. One of the biggest challenges I am currently facing in trying to provide adequate closure for my clients is having to say goodbye to the clients who took a long time to warm up to me. Now that we are both comfortable with each other, I’m already having to say goodbye.

An insight I feel I have gained is to highlight the positives in the situation. Remind them that yes, soon you won’t be in their sessions, but they are going to keep working on a certain song, or they get to keep doing one of their favorite activities in the future. This can help give them a sense of continuity, so they know that not everything is going to change. Also, you can pose it as a helpful challenge, that they have to “help out” their new (or returning) therapist who may not know about everything we’ve been working on. Encourage them to show how much they’ve learned or progressed by “showing it off” to the therapist taking over! 

It’s extremely important to document and communicate the important needs of your clients to the incoming therapist. With some clients, it might be very important to them to maintain a certain structure; some need to mix things up in order to keep sessions interesting for them. Some clients need specific kinds of prompting in order to avoid over-stimulation; some kids are flexible and will adapt to therapists working with them differently. In any situation, it’s important to not only document, but to also make personal notes on helpful hints and specific interventions that you can email or hand off to the therapist taking your place. 

-Toby

 

DSC_0321Rachel Jacobson is an intern at the Music Therapy Center of California. She is pursuing her bachelor of music therapy from the University of North Dakota in with an emphasis in voice. Throughout her education, Rachel has been a leader at her school. She has served as a student ambassador and was the vice president of the American Music Therapy Association for Students at UND. She has also taught voice lessons in the Warren, MN public school system.

“After watching my grandpa battle Parkinson’s disease, I knew that I wanted to become a music therapist. What used to be easy, daily tasks for my grandpa became difficult and slow chores. Yet, when music was involved, he could sing, he could dance, and there was always a skip in his step. Music made a difference in his life. I want everyone to experience the joy he got from music. Not only does music therapy bring joy into people’s lives, but it is also an evidenced based practice. I know this is the right career path for me because I can bring science and music together in order to help many different people.”

Hello! I’m Rachel, the new intern here at the Music Therapy Center. I am so excited to be starting my second week here!

This week I learned how to play music on a banana. I never thought in a million years I would be able to create a sound by just hitting a banana. How did I do this? Technology!

Technology is so important for music therapists. It plays many roles within a therapist’s practice. A therapist could use a Q Chord for bedside music therapy, for different tactile stimulation, or for motivation to work on fine motor skills. A Yamaha EZ 220 has a follow the lights feature for step by step playing. You can use different beats and melodies from EZ 220 while a client improvises on the piano.

Apps have also become big in the music therapy world. There are so many apps to download. You can find the right ones for each individual client and the goals that you are working on. Plus, you can have a guitar tuner, chords and lyrics, and a metronome on your iPad too. Some good apps include:
-Speak up: This app is great to work on vocal volume. If you are working on increasing volume, the client can speak or sing into the it, and they have a fun visual to show the increase in volume.
-Articulation station: This app has consonants, vowels, and blends all in fun formats for kids.
-First & Then: Use this app to take pictures of the order of things you are doing. It motivates the client to be engaged in the less preferred activity because they know a fun activity will come right after.

There are so many apps out there that are great tools for music therapy sessions. I encourage you to go exploring and find some apps that you can incorporate in your sessions.

The MaKey MaKey was my favorite thing to learn about. This is when I got to “play a banana.” This “instrument” allows a person to hook up a chord to everyday objects and play them like an instrument. This could be used with many different clients. You can create a piano on stairs to work on gross motor skills. When working on fine motor skills you could create a remote with different sounds. Or, hook up the alligator cords to various items (like a banana). Above is a video of Toby and I playing the MaKey MaKey.

So, how could you incorporate more technology in your sessions? I challenge you to find out, it could make a difference!

-Rachel

I never thought I could ever produce as many original songs as I have in the past few months! As music therapists, we are constantly writing and re-writing songs to fit different interventions for different clients and hitting a song-writer’s block is the last thing you want to deal with when planning your sessions. Our team recently discussed some important factors in writing songs for the clinic, or with certain clients in mind. Sometimes a child or adult needs a song slowed down, directions broken into simpler steps, or a different verse or element that pertains to their goals directly. It’s important to have some tips and guidelines handy for when you hit that wall in your creativity! 

Songwriting tips for the clinic:

  • Decide why you’re writing the song – what is the purpose? Educational? Movement? Language production? Keep your purpose and the client’s goal in mind while you’re writing
  • In “key phrase” songwriting, the phrase should melodically reflect the spoken pattern of inflection

o   Example: The melody line for the phrase “Can I have a turn please?” should be an ascending line, since in general speech questions are usually end in an upwards voice inflection

o   Remember that rhythmic pacing is more important than the melody, as shown in recent MT studies, so remember to keep the rhythm going even if the music stops (with left hand tapping, etc)

  • For movement/action songs, be sure to include clear cues for when to do the movement

o   Count down to the action (“3-2-1 Jump!”)

  • Write your idea in the middle of a page. Put an arrow out from it & put down your initial reaction to it. Do 3 or 4 arrows and develop the idea in a different direction. Stretch your imagination & your idea.

o   Great one for clients who are higher functioning cognitively and can explore their creativity with you there to guide and prompt them

  • Write the melody without an instrument! It should be easy to remember and sing, and hold up without the lyric.

o   Especially important when working on any interventions involving mnemonics, but just a good rule in general…if you can’t remember your own melodies easily (without instrumental accompaniment) how will the client?

 

Good luck with your songwriting endeavors, and remember to let your natural skills and creativity as a musician play a role in the process 🙂 

                      -Toby

 

PS. Just for fun, what do you think of Paste Magazines list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time?

 

We reviewed this book this week in our symposium and had an interesting discussion about what it means to each of us.  It basically comes down to how well a person deals with changes in his or her life, whatever those changes may be.  Each person may relate it to a different personal challenge in his or her life at the time.  Here is the basic outlines of the characters and what each of them represents:

  • Sniff: sniffs out change early
  • Scurry: scurries into action
  • Hem: denies and resists change, fears it will lead to something worse than what he currently has
  • Haw: Learns in time to adapt to change when he sees it leads to something better

We may not have the ability in our lives to decide what changes, but we each have the ability to choose how we will react when things change in our lives.  We can choose to be one of these characters.

Mary Jane

MTCCA shared an acronym with me for how to write great goals for your clients.  It is simply this–be SMART.

  1. Specific: The action must be very specific in order for it to be measurable.  In order to do this, you must first determine their functioning level before therapy is begun so there is something to compare
  2. Measurable: This is the way to tell if clients are making progress
  3. Achievable: They must be able to achieve the goals or there is no point in setting goals at all
  4. Relevant: There is no point in working on something that is not relevant to the client
  5. Time Limited: You should set a specific date for when they should have a goal achieved, for example “by July 2015…”

Mary Jane

Today we discussed the different ways people think. Most people have a certain way they think and learn, whether it be visually, verbally, or in patterns. It is vitally important for teachers and therapists to understand and recognize these different kinds of thinking so that we can support the child’s needs and foster their abilities, rather than training them to think differently. 

Temple Grandin is a world renowned author and advocate for those with Autism. She has her Ph.D in Animal Sciences and is a professor at Colorado State University, and she is diagnosed with Autism. I highly recommend reading her article “Thinking In Pictures” where she talks about her style of thinking, how she came to understand it, and how she now uses it to her benefit. In her article, she outlines the 3 types of thinking in the specialized brains of those with autism.

  1. Visual thinkers, like me, think in photographically specific images. There are degrees of specificity of visual thinking. I can test run a machine in my head with full motion. Interviews with nonautistic visual thinkers indicated that they can only visualize still images. These images may range in specificity from images of specific places to more vague conceptual images. Learning algebra was impossible and a foreign language was difficult. Highly specific visual thinkers should skip algebra and study more visual forms of math such as trigonometry or geometry. Children who are visual thinkers will often be good at drawing, other arts, and building things with building toys such as Lego’s. Many children who are visual thinkers like maps, flags, and photographs. Visual thinkers are well suited to jobs in drafting, graphic design, training animals, auto mechanics, jewelry making, construction, and factory automation.
  2. Music and math thinkers think in patterns. These people often excel at math, chess, and computer programming. Some of these individuals have explained to me that they see patterns and relationships between patterns and numbers instead of photographic images. As children they may play music by ear and be interested in music. Music and math minds often have careers in computer programming, chemistry, statistics, engineering, music, and physics. Written language is not required for pattern thinking. The pre-literate Incas used complex bundles of knotted cords to keep track of taxes, labor, and trading among a thousand people.
  3. Verbal logic thinkers think in word details. They often love history, foreign languages, weather statistics, and stock market reports. As children they often have a vast knowledge of sports scores. They are not visual thinkers and they are often poor at drawing. Children with speech delays are more likely to become visual or music and math thinkers. Many of these individuals had no speech delays, and they became word specialists. These individuals have found successful careers in language translation, journalism, accounting, speech therapy, special education, library work, or financial analysis.

You can read the full article here: http://www.grandin.com/inc/visual.thinking.html

I also recommend watching her TedTalk about different kinds of thinking and how individuals with highly specialized ways of thinking should be encouraged to pursue their abilities rather than being held back because of the unique way they think and learn.

[ted id=773]

 

While it is extremely important for us to teach children useful, everyday skills, as well as functional social skills, the first step in reaching a child with special needs is recognizing how they process, retain, and express information. Once we are able to identify that, we can work with them to adjust how they cope with difficult situations, teach them how to express their thoughts and emotions, and help them become independent individuals.

It is an interesting exercise to take some time to identify how YOU think and learn and how it effects your daily life! Give it a try! 

Til next time,

Toby