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.
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! 
Sudden or expected
I know from my internship experience that with the holidays and the end of the year, many people in our care die. In my internship, I worked mostly with people in hospice care. Now, the majority of my work is in a care center where I have recently been astounded by the number of deaths that have occurred. Some have been expected, but one, which happened today, was not.
I have never been one to tout that I am remarkable at self-care. However, one of the goals I have had in the past year is to listen to my body. Tonight, when I returned home from a non-stop day at the care center and a five-year-old, rambunctious client at the studio, I was tired. And sad. Normally, I like to get anything work-related done soon after I get home, but I simply could not do that tonight. I read for a little while, but then suddenly started recounting to my fiancé the memories I have of the residents I’ve known who have died in the past few weeks and months.
I am still in the process of crafting a tangible way to memorialize some of those residents with whom I worked quite a lot. Currently, I’m listing their names and dates of death. I know I have written of this subject in a past post, though in contrast to that post, I think I will close out the calendar year in some fashion by doing something to actively remember these people. I don’t want to hold on to them too long, though.
Does anyone have a good method of remembrance?
Sharing
I had the privilege to participate in a Thanksgiving prayer service and hymn sing this afternoon at work. I provided some violin music and vocal leading of some of the hymns. I do enjoy using my violin whenever I can, and I was even able to play with the other music therapist in the facility. I was happy to be involved.
Though I do not consider myself a person of religion, I always feel compelled to listen to gospels and sermons and readings (unfortunately with a sometimes too-critical ear). The care center where I work is Catholic, and there is a priest who works there, but today’s service included a reading and reflection by an ordained minister who happens to work in IT. I hardly ever hear any of the priest’s readings, but I was really refreshed by this minister’s delivery of his message. He spoke about the importance of sharing — sharing of yourself with others, sharing your gifts, and sharing compassion. This message led me to consider how thankful I am (yes, I’m using that word on the eve of Thanksgiving) to be in a position where my purpose is to share. 
I have had a long struggle with my ability to identify myself as a musician, and even if I were able to do so, what exactly it meant to me. However, I am most certainly a music therapist, and in that role, I provide and share the music I create to benefit others. I have not been able to reconcile how performing is important. I am able to believe, though, that providing music in a client-centered way is, in fact, useful. Special, even. I am relieved to report that I feel this way.
I am happy to be able to share.
NewsPod and standards
I just listened to Friday’s podcast “NewsPod” from the BBC, and the last story describes how Yorkshire’s anthem, “Ilkla Moor Baht’At,” is dying out. A music teacher uses the tune to teach intervals, and has noticed that in the past three years, fewer and fewer of his students know the song.
(Should you like to hear only this portion of “NewsPod,” skip to 29:04 in the podcast.)
Over the months I have worked at my care center, I have learned many “standards” from the 1930s, 1940s, and on. However, many of those songs I hadn’t known before I worked there. Once I learned them, though, I have been able to use them in a variety of situations.
A surprising number of family members have come up to me and asked what music I predict will be provided for me and my generation when I’m elderly. And I always answer that I don’t know.
There isn’t “standard” music for my age group, which is definitely not to say that each person I serve shares the same taste in what we call “old standards.” With the rise of availability and access to music from all around the globe, there will be simply no way to predict what any one group of people will enjoy. Music therapy is very concerned with patients’ and clients’ musical preference. I wonder just what that will be in a few decades.
Dance, storytelling, moths, and music
I am sorry to be missing the American Music Therapy Association National Conference this year, but alas, I simply will not be there.
***
Here in Minneapolis, though, I have been reading up (however briefly) on some information I’ve been given.
On Monday, one of my co-workers at the care center brought in an article published in the AARP Bulletin, entitled, “Living Art.” This co-worker is very active in theatre, and has even begun a drama group at the care center. I have been able to see their rehearsals, and I love seeing residents display a variety of talents.
Find the article here.
The author of the article definitely advocates for the benefits of creative expression in residents in assisted living and care centers. I was really happy to read about “The Dancing Heart” program, offered by the Kairos Dance Theatre right here in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The work of Stagebridge Theatre Company in Oakland, California, was also included in the piece, but of course what interested me most was the mention of Songwriting Works.
The mission of Songwriting Works is to “restore health and community through the power of song.” As the name implies, their intention is to spread the impact of songwriting to the elderly population. I was curious, as I perused their website, if there would be any mention of music therapy. In the FAQ page, there were some nicely worded summaries of the distinction between music therapy and their mission.
I am always excited to know what else there is out there.
*While reading about Stagebridge Theatre Company, I thought that the awesome podcast, The Moth, could venture out to the elderly population. That would be storytelling.
Using sound waves on cancer cells
I listened to the most recent podcast of “This American Life” this evening, and was intrigued by one of the stories that followed a music teacher who teamed up with a cancer researcher to find ways to use sound, or rather electromagnetic waves in this case, to kill cancer cells.
If that’s not one important use of sound (arguably music), I don’t know what is!
You can hear that portion of This American Life right here.
Art therapy
A few months ago, the care center where I work decided to trial mneme therapy. Mneme therapy “uses everyday pleasurable experiences such as singing, movement, story-telling and painting in a unique combination to stimulate sustained attentive focus(SAF)” (Source). Since then, my care center has hired a mneme therapist to come once a month and see six different residents per month (a resident receives only one session).
The head of the therapeutic recreation department, of which I am a member, had taken to calling mneme therapy “art therapy.” Because I’d never heard of this kind of therapy, I looked into it a little and found that no, it was definitely not art therapy. The information I found on the therapy makes clear that it is not art therapy; they are not trying to pass off as such. I found the following passage here.
Is this art therapy?
No. Unlike art therapy, MT is not a psychological process and does not require state licensing. Instead it uses everyday pleasurable experiences such as singing, movement, story-telling and painting in a unique combination to stimulate sustained attentive focus(SAF). SAF has been scientifically proven to initiate neuroplasticity or the ability of the brain to remap pathways and move functions.
I tried to make clear to my department head that there is a distinction between the therapies. Quite a distinction — many years of education, for one. I take issue with miscalling an activity or experience a creative arts therapy because there is so much effort and time that goes into becoming a licensed music therapist, art therapist, drama therapist, etc.
Calling mneme therapy “art therapy” seemed to fade away, until Monday at our department’s weekly planning meeting at which one of our administrators spoke to us about the facility’s new “art therapy fund.” He went on to say that donors can designate their funds to go to our “new art therapy program,” and continued to use this description for the mneme therapy we have. He left very quickly, but I was able to bring up the distinction and my concerns at the meeting. My thinking is that if we are telling the public that we do, in fact, have art therapy, then we should, in fact, have art therapy. I have no problem with mneme therapy, so far as I know about it. I do take issue with calling something that it’s not.
Design, public policy, and the learning process
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…
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.