Whenever I survey my clients about their favorite singers, I inevitably hear names like Drake, Future, Travis Scott, and Bad Bunny. I'll be honest though, most of the time I have to Google these rappers so I can be up to speed on who they are. But since I know that rap and hip hop [...]
One thing I see over and over again with music therapists (both students and board certified clinicians) who work with teens, is the use of songs and activities that are geared toward children. And let me tell you - I get it. I talk in the Tune In Teens E-Course and the Tuneful Teens E-Books [...]
One of the primary things I keep top of mind, when planning my sessions for teens, is age appropriateness. It's top of mind for me because I understand how tricky planning age appropriate experiences can sometimes be, and it's something I get emails from other music therapists about all the time. We may work with [...]
“Hip Hop meets Classical” This simple search on YouTube led me to find some neat videos and create a brand new musical experience that was pretty cool for my teen clients. Many of them are working on improving their attention and auditory perception skills. So, their task was this - Listen closely to the hip [...]
Every other Sunday, I drive up a palm tree-lined road to the Chabad Center of Kendall to facilitate sessions for Friendship Circle Miami. I've worked with Friendship Circle since 2010 and it's one of my favorite programs to work with. This past week something very interesting happened in one of the sessions. I had just [...]
If you've been following the WH blog for the past few years you know that I love to incorporate rapping into my sessions with tween and teen clients. I use rapping to help clients explore their emotions, increase communication skills, and facilitate self-expression. It can be as simple as giving a prompt or sentence starter, providing a [...]
Did you grab your FREEBIES yet? I'm talking about the Rap Track MP3 & PDF of the Friendship Rap that you can use in your sessions with elementary or middle school students, or with teens. I love sharing the new ideas that I come up with and test out in my sessions. What I love [...]
Valentine's Day will be here in just a few days! (Click here for some VDay intervention ideas!) While this makes me excited, I know that for some of the teen clients I work with this holiday can bring up mixed emotions. They feel a lot of pressure to have a boyfriend or girlfriend and if they [...]
I love Bruno Mars. He's got catchy tunes, a fantastic voice and puts on a great show when he performs live (can you believe those curlers?!) So it's not surprising that he's VERY popular with the tween and teen groups I lead for the organization Friendship Circle of Miami. When it came time to choose a [...]
Last week I facilitated a music experience where the teens in my group wrote and performed original raps using the line "I know I can ____________." I just had to share with you the powerful lyrics that were written by one of the group members who is on the autism spectrum (shared with client permission): [...]
