A Day in the Life of a Music Therapy Intern at the MTC
For this blog post, I am going to take you along with me for one full day. Here is my typical Thursday. Grab a snack and get comfy, it’s going to be a long one!
6:30am: Wake up!
6:40am: Get dressed and ready.
7:17am: Walk Basil 🐕
7:27 am: Feed my babies, Basil and Nori <3 (and feed myself)!
8:27am: Get my things together.
8:30am: Out the door, in my car, & ready for my long commute to Fredericka Manor!
9:40am: Arrive at Fredericka Manor, prepare for memory care groups.
10am-11:45am: Run group music therapy sessions at Summer House, and Summer House West (memory care).
12:12pm: Write notes/take data about the sessions!
12:30pm: Lunch time! Yum.
1pm: Run the Fredericka Choir rehearsal! On this day, we were preparing for the summer concert that took place the following week. I will include a picture from the concert as well, even though technically it was not this specific day I’m writing about, but I have to show you all! 🏖️
(Rehearsal)
(The concert, a week later)
1:57pm: Back to the music room at Fredericka, ready to run the clavinova class at 2pm! In the music room at Fredericka, there are 6 clavinovas (keyboard on steroids), where residents can come in and learn how to play! From teaching residents how to follow clavinova books where they can enable the accompaniment feature, to providing sheet music books for more experienced residents, I am there to assist and help with any questions the residents may have.
2:27pm: Get text & picture from Basil’s walker that she was walked and taken care of. Yay! I always look forward to getting these texts. Basil loves rolling in the grass, she is so cute!!
3pm: Change into my shirt for Jam Session later, and head out! On this day I had a longer break in my schedule than usual, but this is not the case most of the time. Twice a month, I have an additional memory care group to run at 3:30pm at Ivy Park. And soon, on the weeks I don’t have Ivy Park, I will be running a group music therapy session for children on base at MCAS Miramar. But on this day, I happily took the break.
3:43pm: Stopped at Starbucks for a midday pick-me-up (they spelled my name wrong 😢).
4:45pm: Arrive at the Point Loma Jam Session location early, and take a nap in the car. Hey, got to catch up on rest whenever you can, right? This is intern life 😂!
5:30pm: Walk into the Point Loma Jam Session location, put on my lanyard, and help unload the van/set up all of the musical instruments. Jam Sessions are presented by Banding Together, a non-profit organization also founded by Angela and Julie (when you are an intern at the MTC, you are also an intern at Banding Together). Here is a snippet from their website: “Jam Sessions are one-hour music therapy groups at a local community venue to promote socialization, emotional expression, community inclusion and communication. During this group, the participants join together to sing and play instruments with a different guest artist musician each week. Participants are paired with volunteers in the community who act as mentors in the program.”
6:29pm: Ready for Jam Session to start!
8:11pm: Jam Session ✅.Van loaded ✅. Time to help the volunteers take data on their participant and debrief the successes and challenges of the Jam Session. Plus, snack time!
8:45pm: Point Loma Jam Session is all wrapped up, I’m out the door and in my car driving home.
9:37pm: I’m home!!!! Finally 😭.
9:40pm: Wind down, have a snack, watch a bit of TV (Dandadan Thursdays, IYKYK).
10:30pm: BEDTIME!!!! 😴
So yes, I was awake from 6:30am-10:30pm, pretty brutal. But what a privilege it is to be tired from doing things you are passionate about. Music therapy isn’t always easy, but the small breakthroughs I see everyday make it incredibly meaningful. And above all, I’m always excited to see what the next day will bring, and how I will continue to learn and grow throughout this internship.
See you in the next blog post!
Leah Kazuko Padilla, MTI
