Category: Reflections

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Three intentions

Welcome, 2012.

With the entry of this new year comes new intentions for myself as a music therapist.

For one, I intend to improve my guitar skills. My plan is to participate in group sessions of one sort or another; I always learn musical skills more efficiently when I am in a group.

For two, I intend to speak to various groups about music therapy. I do have one potential speaking opportunity coming up in the next month or two.

And for three, I intend to accept that I do not want to perform as a musician. Perhaps this is a fact for the rest of this year, for longer, or for less time, but I intend to come to terms with this. 

I have many more goals to achieve regarding my professional life, but these are some of my intentions.

Good luck with your transition into this new year. I love beginnings.

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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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Forward to reflect

I have been away for the past few days, celebrating Christmas with my families.

Though I do like Christmas, I don’t love it or go crazy for it like some people do. What I love is that families find reason to be together; I don’t care for the stress that tends to accompany the rest of the holiday season.

What I’ve found is that I do love the week, or at least days, leading up to New Year’s Day. Last year, I was an intern at a hospital and working in hospice care. I remember this time of year feeling very important, in that I created space to observe those patients who had died while I knew them, and those patients who I knew would be living on when my internship was completed seven days after the new year.

I am looking forward to reflecting on this year, however backward that may seem. This is the year in which I began my professional career (among many, many other monumental and exciting things). This is also the year in which I met the hundreds of residents and a dozen or so private clients with whom I’ve worked. I am eagerly anticipating the opportunity to look back and acknowledge.

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More tools

My parents gave me a gift certificate to West Music for Christmas last year, and I have been using it, little by little, since then. Today I happily ordered a set of Boomwhackers and a Rhythm Ring Shaker.
Merry Christmas to me, from a present gifted last year.
I spent a number of years living in Iowa City, so close to West Music, and only now do I appreciate the depth of the store.

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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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Successful show

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.”

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Grasping the music

I worked at the care center tonight, and we had a 35-piece community band come perform their Christmas music. I know the memory care residents pretty well, and so I sat among those who attended the performance in order to be sure they were comfortable and wouldn’t feel a need to leave. In the middle of one of the songs, one of my residents reached over and grabbed my hand as she moved with the beat of the music. I was thrilled.

I love my job.

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Concert

I am consumed by the care center’s upcoming holiday performance.

I have:

  • sent invitations out to family members / friends of performing residents
  • prepared binders of music for each choir member
  • given written reminders to each performer
  • printed and posted signs all over the facility
  • reserved the space for adequate time to set up
  • sent out e-mails to staff who will hopefully help the performers dress in a unified way
  • had nightmares about being unprepared for the performance

Happy Friday.