Tell me if you can relate to this scenario:

You’re in a music therapy session with your tween or teen clients. Everything’s been going great. You finish your last musical experience, look at the clock, and realize you still have ten minutes until the end of the session. Yikes!

Have you been there too?

Have you wracked your brain for what to do to fill the last few minutes of a session?

I have. It happened to me just this weekend!

Fortunately, I always have a few ideas in my back pocket. Depending on the needs of the clients at the time, we might stand up and dance, or we might do a guided relaxation experience.

This particular session, there were quite a few new teens who had joined the group. I decided this would be a great time to learn about their musical preferences.

I went around the group asking each teen to share their favorite singer or musical group. Then I asked who else was a fan of that singer or group, to make connections between the group members.

We had a few Michael Jackson fans, some Selena Gomez fans, a Bruno Mars fan and a Justin Bieber fan.

It was great to see faces light up as they saw others in the group who liked the same singers they did. And it was helpful for me to learn about the musical preferences of the teens so I can work songs by those artists into our sessions.

All in all it ended up being a great way to wrap up our session.

If you’re interested in learning creative ways to determine the musical preferences of your teen clients, I share many more ideas in the Tuneful Teens E-Books. You’ll learn ideas that incorporate instruments and games to make it fun and engaging.