Sound Matters Music Therapy, LLC
Serving adults with developmental disability in Minneapolis, MN
An Article Monthly is on its way. I will be reading “Bereaved Parents’ Experiences of Music Therapy with their Terminally Ill Child,” Journal of Music Therapy, Fall 2008. (I am fully aware this is not in APA format.)
I have just come across the book, The Power of Music: Pioneering Discoveries in the New Science of Song, by Elena Mannes. Has anyone read it?
The Minneapolis Area Music Therapists group met again tonight. I am very happy that we are truly meeting regularly.
Tonight, I threw out the idea to the others who met that we could each read an article of interest, in the Music Therapy Perspectives, or in the Journal, or even elsewhere, and come together to report on it on a monthly basis.
We each are taking this week to find one article and let each other know what it is, so that each person reads a different piece.
I don’t read nearly enough. So, here we have opportunity to get back into that habit.
I’ve decided there is no reason this has to happen in person. Is there anyone out there who is interested in participating?
Do it. The more the merrier. Right?
Comment here and let me know if you’ll join us. Really, this is a pretty easy thing to do.
Tomorrow night, Minneapolis area music therapists will meet up for our monthly meeting. I have some ideas for monthly topics.
I am hoping to gather as many music therapists in this area as I possibly can. Maybe this won’t happen tonight. Maybe I should exercise patience. Perhaps.
Adrian Knight. A composer I really like and have never heard before. Especially his piece, “Manchester.”
Ah, success was had. Today was the first-ever “variety show” at the care center. An 18-person choir and a seven- or eight-person drama troupe performed in addition to the nine-person tone chimes ensemble. There were many people to organize and prepare, and I was so pleased that a lot of them had friends and family members attend the show. I believe there were more than 100 people in our audience.
One resident, who performed in all three ensembles, said he was feeling “lousy” when I collected him from his room before the show. He almost refused to go. After the show, though? “How are you feeling?” I asked him. He looked at me, smiled, and said, “Really good.”
I am consumed by the care center’s upcoming holiday performance.
I have:
Happy Friday.
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.
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
I attended an event tonight entitled, “Can Design Change the World?” This is a part of a speaker series called “Policy and a Pint.”
Policy and a Pint® is an event series co-sponsored by the Citizens League and 89.3 The Current, that engages young people in important conversations about public policy in Minnesota.
Three designers answered questions asked of them by a host who was broadcast on 89.3. The designers spent about half an hour speaking amongst themselves and the host, and then another half an hour taking questions for audience members.
One of the guest designers mentioned that after the fourth grade, the level of creativity (however that is determined, I am not sure) plummets. Each of the designers spoke to the importance of cultivating creativity in our education systems, and that design is a practice of imagination and implementation that each and every person does on a daily basis.
As we all know by now, I am not an architect or a fashion designer or a stylist. But, I was intrigued by one of the questions: “How or why is design practical?” One of the guests responded by speaking to the fact that most people require at least two if not three means through which to learn a skill — audio, visual, and experiential. A way that design supports the learning process is by bringing to reality technology that provides tools for such ways of learning to take place, i.e., the iPad and its apps that many of us music therapists, teachers, and students use in a variety of ways.
If only there were a way to keep music and art in schools…
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.