I love getting to see the music therapists I know face-to-face. Tonight some of us met for a Minneapolis music therapists meeting, and I adore how rejuvenated I feel when in the midst of other professionals. One of us shared a template she uses to track her CEUs. We discussed different tactics in working with certain clients. We planned for future months. I was happy to see them all, and am excited to be trying to grow a community, hard though it may be at times.
Tomorrow night
For you Minneapolis/St. Paul area music therapists:
Upcoming events at Sound Matters Music Therapy
Meeting of Minneapolis Music Therapists
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
7:30 PM
A care center Christmas
I am not sure how the Christmas season has come already. I spent half of my afternoon decorating the care center for Christmas, and the other half preparing invitations to send out to family members of residents who will be performing in a variety ensemble concert in a week. This concert will be the first for our new resident choir and drama club, and only the second time I’ve directed — if you can call it that — the tone chimes ensemble. How I’d love for the Young @ Heart Chorus to be our model, but I’m positive I don’t have the time I’d need to help us come to that.
Either way, happy holidays! 
Now, if only I had access to a CAT scanner
When I was growing up, I played Suzuki Method violin with about a dozen other kids. Three of those kids — who happen to be siblings — were (are) very, very talented musicians. As an eight-year-old, one of them locked herself in a bathroom with her violin and didn’t come out until she had taught herself the entire Book 8 (the Suzuki books start with Book 1, being the easiest, and go to Book 10). Another sibling traveled the world as a performer. Though I don’t know the details, I recall hearing that she had a bow (just the bow) that was thousands of dollars.
I came across an article by way of Bob Collins’s News Cut that described the use of CAT scanners in replicating instruments. Specifically, a 307-year-old Stradivarius violin.
The short story is that a radiologist by the name of Steven Sirr left his violin, which he practiced in his quiet time at the hospital, on a table near a scanner while he attended to a patient on his way to surgery. When Sirr returned, he thought he’d scan his violin. (Out of boredom? Who paid for that? Anyway.)
The data was used to build very near exact copies of the antique Stradivarius.
Read the whole article here.
Fascination Station: Björk’s “Biophilia”
I love Björk. I have for years. I even liked how she sent me to tears for days in “Dancer in the Dark.” 
I find Björk to be a creative genius, with the beats she produces, the instrumentation she manufactures and manipulates, and the ideas she seems to be constantly generating. This is why I was thrilled to hear a description and review of her newest album, “Biophilia,” on the The New York Times Science Times podcast.
“[The album] is no ordinary album. It uses unusual and newly-invented instruments to reflect the rhythms of nature.”
–Pam Belluck, The New York Times
Ritchie King wrote about “Biophilia” for Science Times, and you can hear some of what he has to say about it here.
Björk combines her music with iPad apps in order to make her product interactive. I am fascinated by her.