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Presentation tomorrow

Tomorrow evening I present to a group of families who have a child with Down syndrome. I am excited for the experience. The first portion (maybe even half) of my presentation will be engaging the children in experiences on a 1:1 basis as well as in a group. I do not know how many people will be in attendance at this meeting. But, I do know that most of the parents aren’t too aware of music therapy (as was told to me by the family who invited me to speak).

For this reason, I will be breaking the presentation into these pieces:

  • Mini music therapy session with the group of children (complete with the therapeutic arc)
  • Repeated mini music therapy session with the children’s parents taking the place of the children
  • Explanation of some goals I’d have for children in this population
  • Explanation of how the experiences I implement targets those goals
  • Instruction for parents of one experience that will help generalize and build skills, that they may utilize in the home

I’m looking forward to the event. I’m even looking forward to the fact that there are many mysteries involved.

Wish me luck. 

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All smiles

I had a fantastic night with a certain client. He crossed midline with ease, he tracked a little better than is normal, he remained seated for the amount of time as is his goal, and he passed his instruments off to me with essentially no prompting.

And, this client is all smiles.

I love what I get to do.

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Guitar lessons

I am excited that I now will be offering guitar lessons (both adaptive and traditional) through the studio where I have been offering solely music therapy sessions. My first student will start next week.

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Experiential successes

I designed an experience this evening that was successful in application. I recently acquired a set of Boomwhackers to use at the studio with my individual clients. I have one client with whom I am targeting fine motor development. This client has difficulty manipulating objects because he seems to be extremely sensitive to any stimulus on or around his fingers and hands. He has recently been able to use a mallet to strike a small tambourine that I’d been moving around his periphery to develop his ability to spontaneously exchange the mallet from one hand to the other, as opposed to twisting his entire body to accommodate only one hand. He had not be changing hands without cues before I introduced the Boomwhackers. I used one of the Cs as a target for his E, and found that not only did he strike my Boomwhacker with his wherever I placed it, he also changed his Boomwhacker of his own volition at midline. And, he kept a really nice beat to my singing “You Are My Sunshine” (while I moved my target high for “sunshine” and low for “hung my head and I cried”).

I appreciate the small steps that end up to be big.

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Rhythm Ring

I love my Rhythm Ring. I received it and some Boomwhackers I’d ordered to use primarily with my private clients, but I’ve been using the Rhythm Ring at the care center. Well, of course. There aren’t many reasons not to use it. I have found that it helps my guitar playing sound stronger, likely because I am more aware of my strumming.

I’ve been imagining all kinds of other instruments I can affix to my person while in session. I really could be “the one-man band” that many people refer to me as I pass by in the hall, with my cart filled with instruments and a guitar on my back.

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Iso

I have a client who seems to have a great deal of anger. For months now, he and I have made very small steps toward reaching his goals. I have had trouble engaging him in any of the musical experiences I present, even though he speaks at length about how he wants to be a guitarist.

I feel that I’m failing him, and I don’t have any more ideas. Only one time in months leading up to tonight have I felt that he was interested in anything I provided, and that experience was songwriting. He participated in that for only one session.

Tonight, he seemed particularly angry. He vented for most of the session, which seems absolutely appropriate for some clients to do every so often. However, with this client, I can hardly ever direct him away from this venting on any occasion. Because I sensed he would not even touch his guitar, I decided to match his mood with some recorded music I have on my iPhone. His favorite genre of music is heavy metal. I don’t have any of that genre readily available, so I found “God’s Away On Business,” by Tom Waits, with which he was not familiar. The timbre of Waits’s voice could be somewhat comparable to some of the vocals in some heavy metal bands. But, Waits typically juxtaposes the roughness in his voice with melodic lines, provided by instruments such as the bassoon and marimba. I felt I could intrigue my client with novelty and the quality of Waits’s voice, and hopefully move him away from his anger. I think it worked; he quieted and seemed to listen, even though his comment was, “That sucked.”

We moved on from there, and I did hold his attention for the rest of the session by using Pandora on my phone to play a station of bands he likes.

Sure, we weren’t able to reach any “true” goals tonight, but I was happy with the distance we did travel.

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Meetings

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.

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Presenting

I am thrilled that tonight I was asked whether or not I am interested in presenting on music therapy to a monthly meeting of families with children who have Down’s syndrome. Thrilled. I look forward to this opportunity, should it come to fruition (I haven’t been officially invited yet). I’ve wanted to present for a long time; this would be a great beginning.