I don’t know about you, but I love to take a peek at what other music therapists are doing, especially if they work with a similar population as I do (middle and high schoolers with autism and related disabilities).

It helps give me some fresh ideas, which are sometimes needed after nearly TWENTY YEARS in the field!!

I thought maybe you would like to do the same, so over the next few blog posts, I’ll be doing a summer series called Session Sneak Peeks.

You can take a peek into what I’m doing with my MT clients and students, and see if the ideas spark some new ones for you.

This past week, in my group sessions with middle schoolers, high schoolers, and young adults with autism and related disabilities, we did:

Movement Patterns to Pop Music – “Enemy” by Imagine Dragons (a crowd favorite for these clients) to work on gross motor skills and alternating attention

• Verses: Left Hand tap knee, Right Hand tap knee, clap, rest (repeat)
• Chorus: Pat knees, Clap, Snap, Clap (repeat)

Affirmation Rap by Snoop Dogg – I used a rap track that I’d created on GarageBand and rapped over top (yep, I rapped). The students clapped to keep the beat along with me, and echoed each affirmation back. Then, the students gave their own suggestions for affirmations and we added those to the rap. Afterwards, we  talked about why affirmations are important and how we can incorporate them into our daily routine.

This musical experience was designed to help improve self-esteem and self-image.

Auditory Perception Training (APT) with Pop Music – Again, I incorporated client-reported favorite tunes. On YouTube, I found versions of each song played on a symphonic instrument:

• “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”  from Encanto on trumpet
• “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi on marimba (check it out – it’s very cool!)
• “Anti-Hero” by Taylor Swift on flute
• “Levitating” by Dua Lipa on clarinet

Students were then asked to name the tune AND name the instrument playing that tune. Super fun and engaging, and a great way to work on those auditory perception and listening skills that are critical for success in the classroom.

Stay tuned as I share more Session Sneak Peeks this summer! My kiddos are home with me for summer break, but I want to stay on top of blogging and sharing, because I love doing it.

If you’d like more creative ideas for your sessions this summer, check out the Summer Session Planning Pack (Previously the “Virtual Session Planning Pack for Summer). The E-Book is packed with creative, summer-themed session ideas for your school-age and teen clients.

And, this week only, June 10-14, it’s ON SALE so you can get all prepped for your summer sessions!

Ashley Lewis, MM, MT-BC says “I of course love your resources and I think you are brilliant. Your visuals are the best I’ve ever seen! I’m a huge fan of yours and I can’t wait to see what you come up with next because I will be buying it.”

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Today, I want to share a second song I wrote, called “Today I Will,” to help this student stay in the Green Zone of Regulation (meaning they are calm, focused, and ready to learn).

I incorporated a phrase that the team and parents frequently use:

“Today I will ________________.”

Then, filled in the blank with phrases such as “listen to my teachers,” “follow my schedule,” and “do my work.”

Listen to the song (I added a beat and movement pattern too!) and see if it might be helpful for the students with whom you work:

Customize it for your students and clients by filling in the blank with phrases that will help them stay focused and ready to learn.

Leave a comment below to let us know what those phrases are!

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I provide group, individual, and consult music therapy services for their middle and high school students with autism and related disabilities (which I absolutely love doing).

During the consult for one student who has music therapy on their IEP, the team shared that it would be helpful to have a song to remind this student of how to stay in the Green Zone.

This refers to the Zones of Regulation.

Staying in the Green Zone means you’re feeling happy, calm, and okay; you’re focused and ready to learn.

The team shared several other phrases that they repeat for this student, such as “School is for learning,” and “Quiet and safe hands,” all of which I incorporated into the song.

Have a listen to “Let’s Stay In The Green Zone” and see if it might be helpful for the students with whom you work:

And, you can click below to download the lyrics so you can use the song in your sessions this week:

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When it comes to creating musical experiences for my school age clients, here’s how it typically goes:

As soon as I know the goal I’m targeting (typically a goal in the attention and perception realm, since those skills translate directly into having success in the classroom and a work environment), my immediate next step is to examine the music I’ll be using to help target that goal.

Music selection is critical.

The music is what will draw our clients in, capture their attention, and keep them engaged as we work together on their goals and objectives.

The majority of my clients and students are into pop music and pop singers – everyone from Ariana Grande to Justin Bieber to Billie Eilish.

So once I have goals and objectives in place, I look closely at the music by these artists and see how can I use their songs therapeutically.

This is the creative challenge that my brain LOVES!

Today I’ll be sharing some ways I use pop music to target attention and perception goals. The great part about this is that you don’t have to use songs by Ariana, Justin, or Billie just because my clients prefer them (in fact you shouldn’t!)

All you need to do is insert your clients’ and students’ preferred music into this musical experience and you’re good to go.

Here’s how I use pop songs to target attention & perception skills, specifically auditory sequencing:

I begin by finding a popular or client preferred song that has a strong beat.

Then, I teach a movement sequence or instrumental sequence to go along with the chosen song.

Simple as that!

Remember, simple can still be effective. And by using client preferred songs, or songs they recognize from the radio, my clients are immediately engaged and ready to participate.

Here are some examples of what this might look like with popular songs out now:

“Summer Vibes” Pegato Remix by Walk Off the Earth

“Can’t Stop the Feeling” by Justin Timberlake

“Savage Love” (clean version) by Jason Derulo

• Verses: Rhythm sticks 3x / maraca 3x / triangle 3x
• Chorus: Drum 3x / tambourine 3x / jingle stick 3x

“Bang!”(clean version) by AJR

• Verses: Three drums of three sizes in a row, hit one per beat with a rest at the end
• Chorus: Rhythm sticks 3x / maraca 3x / triangle 3x

“Dynamite” by BLS

• Verses: pat pat clap rest
• Chorus: clap clap snap snap

“Jalebi Baby” by Tesher & Jason Derulo

• Verses: Three drums of three sizes in a row, hit one per beat with a rest at the end
• Chorus: Rhythm sticks tap down 2x / up 2x

If these ideas piqued your interest, then you’ll be glad to know that the doors for The Attention & Perception E-Course will be opening very soon (mid January 2022). Yay!

The Attention and Perception E-Course was created for music therapists, educators, and other professionals who want to deepen their understanding of attention and perception, and use that knowledge to create engaging and effective musical experiences to target those processes.

Join the waitlist by entering your name and email below, so you don’t miss when the doors for enrollment are open (and close again).

When you join the waitlist, you’ll hear about special discounts and promotions, and how you can access free bonus material.

Plus, you’ll get a Pop Song Rhythms freebie right away, so you can get a sneak peek of the materials you’ll get inside the course.

Over the next few weeks on the blog, I’ll be highlighting some of the special features of The Attention & Perception E-Course that make it stand out from other continuing education courses.

More than 400 music therapists, educators, and professionals have taken Wholesome Harmonies E-Courses and successfully put the ideas into use in their sessions and classrooms.

Lynda Miller, MT-BC had this to say about The Attention & Perception E-Course: “Thank you for creating this course!  I have been encouraged, inspired, and moved to action by the way you presented this subject.  Instructions to “Stop now and fill out creativity worksheet” were effective and I used several of the ideas that same week.  My clients have responded positively to both the interventions and my renewed excitement.  Your E-Course has been worth every penny and my clients  and I thank you!”

And Michelle Nettle, MT-BC said: “I hope you keep creating more E-Books and CMTE online courses. I love all the ones you currently have available. You are great, and your ideas and presentation are so creative and also easy to implement, as you do a great job of “breaking” all the interventions down. Thank you and please keep creating!”

If you’re interested in learning more about the E-Course, be sure to hop on the wait list now!

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It’s been a while since I’ve been on the blog to write!

My family went on a Spring Break trip at the end of March (to St. Pete Beach and to see “real” mermaids at Weeki Wachee Springs!) and I’ve been playing catch up ever since we returned.

But, I am very happy to be back on the blog because I have lots of ideas that I’m excited to share.

Many of the school age children I work with have goals of improving listening skills or auditory perception skills. I target those skills in music therapy so they can work on improving their ability to listen, discriminate sounds, and tune out distractions in the classroom.

Here are some of my favorite ways to target listening and auditory perception skills:

• During a singeable story activity, tell students: “When you hear me play the wind chimes, turn the page.”
• During instrument playing activities, instruct students: “When you hear this (play a V7 chord arpeggio on guitar), switch instruments with the person next to you.”
• Hide a variety of instruments from the student’s view and play instruments one at a time. Ask the students to identify the instruments they hear. WATCH A VIDEO CLIP HERE!
• Hide instruments from the student’s view and play two instrument sounds back to back. Ask the students to tell you if those sounds were the same or different. WATCH A VIDEO CLIP HERE!
• During a movement activity, tell the student: “When you hear the triangle, tip toe around the room; when you hear the maraca, shake your head.” (There are endless possibilities here – just think of what movement best matches the instrument sound).

I love working in these ideas throughout the entire session.

For example, if you have an instrument playing activity coming up, you can get students ready by hiding the instruments as I explain above, playing them one by one, and having students guess what instrument you’re playing. After that, you can pass out the instruments and proceed with the activity you have planned.

I like to sprinkle in these short listening and auditory perception activities whenever I can, even if those are not the primary goals for the students.

If you have more ideas in this area, please leave a comment below and share! I am always looking to expand my repertoire and I love when we can share ideas together.

If you’re looking for even more creative ideas for working with teens, school age clients or adults, I’d love for you to check out the E-Course I created, Tune In To Teens. It’s approved by CBMT for 5 continuing education credits and is packed with creative session ideas and strategies for working with teen clients:

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I’ve been on a session planning kick lately.

Even though I have almost thirteen years (!!) of session plans saved up I still love coming up with new ideas, writing new songs and thinking of more creative ways to help my clients meet their goals.

Lately, my three-year-old daughter has been really into the Nutcracker. She’s been requesting we play the music to the ballet so she can dance in her ballerina costume. This inspired me to see how I can use the music of the Nutcracker to work on the attention and auditory perception goals I have for my school-age clients.

Coming up with the session ideas was easy. Coming up with ways to make them cool? Not quite as easy.

Here are some of the best ideas I came up with that were well received by my students:

Listening sheets:
Since my main goals are to improve attention and auditory perception skills, I thought focused listening would be a great way to start. After discussing nutcrackers and a bit about the storyline, I passed out listening sheets.

The first day we listened to: the Arabian Dance, Chinese Dance and Russian Dance. Students were instructed to answer questions about the tempo of the song, the mood of the song, and other questions that required them to listen carefully to the music. I was surprised how many students said they liked the pieces we listened to!

The second day we listened to: “March,” “Battle Between the Nutcracker and the Mouse King,” and “the Christmas Tree.” Since many of the students are learning about parts of speech, I provided them with different adjectives to describe the pieces and prompted them to circle the ones that fit.

If you’d like a copy of my Nutcracker Listening Guides so you can use them with your students and clients, click below:

Movement:
There are so many ways to incorporate movement in a Nutcracker-themed session plan. The ballet has pieces of varying tempo and style, each with a different feel to it. I had younger students march to the “March” and move scarves to the “Finale Waltz.” I had older students move the parachute with pre-set choreography to “The Russian Dance.” And completely unprompted, I had many students (male and female!) stand up and pretend to be ballerinas when we listened to the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.”

These activities were designed to work on gross and fine motor skills and give students to opportunity for creative expression.

Instrument Exploration:
Students and teachers alike were intrigued by the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. I showed them the dance on YouTube and they were captivated. Following that, I showed them a picture of a tuba and celesta and took a poll to see how many students could guess the instrument that was playing. Then we watched a video of someone playing the celesta so the students could see exactly what it looked like.

Following that, I created a sheet with the rhythm for Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and each student played it on the triangle along with the song. These activities definitely sustained their attention.

Nutrocker:
Finally, we ended with the “Nutrocker” by Trans-Siberian Orchestra (truly the best way to make the Nutcracker seem “cool” for school-age students). Since one of my main goals for the students is to work on auditory perception skills, I told them that we’d be playing air keyboard and air electric guitar as we listened to the piece. Every time they heard keyboard, they were to pretend to play air keys. Every time they heard electric guitar, they were to pretend to play guitar. Not only did they have to listen to the instrument changes in the song, but they got to rock out and really have fun with it.

I was pleasantly surprised by how many students told me they liked the music of the Nutcracker. It may not be JT or Bruno Mars, but they were open to it, and that is the most important thing!

If you’re looking for even more creative ideas for working with teens, school age clients or adults, I’d love for you to check out the E-Course I created, Tune In To Teens. It’s approved by CBMT for 5 continuing education credits and is packed with creative session ideas and strategies for working with teen clients:

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I’ve been watching the weather and I see that in other parts of the country it’s snowing and there were sub-zero temperatures last night!

It’s hard to believe that winter is going on in other parts of the country and world, because here in Miami it’s 75 and sunny. (To be fair, we endure a pretty harsh and miserable summer!)

We do, however, get a few days of winter from time to time in January and February, so I make sure I have some winter-themed activities ready to go for those days.

Last year, I shared one of my FAVORITE winter-themed activities: a Frosty Musical Mad Lib.

Not only is this musical experience a great way to work on parts of speech (nouns, verbs and adjectives), but it also brings some light-heartedness and dare I say, fun into our sessions.

This past week, my clients came up with this for the first line:

Frosty the Snowman, was a colorful, stinky soul. With a corncob watch  and a button nose and two eyes made out of slime.

They were cracking up as we sang it out loud!

Another winter musical experience I bring in is movement with scarves. I tell clients to pretend they are snowflakes falling to the ground. We alternate between slow verses (snow flakes falling) and fast verses (the winter wind whipping through the trees). Clients of all ages love alternating back and forth between the slow, calm snow-falling verse and the quick and fiesty winter wind verse.

Following that experience, I do a Snowball Chant. 

I instruct clients to ball up their scarves to pretend they are making a snowball and then throw it in the drum. Here’s how the chant goes:

Snowflakes are starting to fall.
Gather them up and make a snowball.
Into the drum they all will go,
And then it’s time to play in the snow!

The Frosty Musical Mad Lib, snowflake scarf movement and Snowball Chant are a great way to incorporate winter into our sessions even when the weather is warm!

If you’re looking for even more creative ideas for working with school-age clients or teens, I’d love for you to check out the E-Course I created, Tune In To Teens. It’s approved by CBMT for 5 continuing education credits and is packed with creative session ideas and strategies for working with teen clients:

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Halloween is right around the corner!

I’ve been using The Costume Rap in my sessions this month and it’s been a hit.

I use this musical experience to work on verbal and non-verbal communication skills with my tween and teen clients.

Many of you have mentioned that it’s tough to come up with musical experiences for groups of clients with mixed abilities. The Costume Rap meets many needs in that clients can use words or a voice output device to participate. Plus, it’s a rap which will up the “cool factor!”

Now, onto another session idea I created for tweens and teens. I call it Halloween Rhythm Combos.

This musical experience involves rhythm sticks, imitation and Halloween phrases.

I’m using this musical experience to give my clients the chance to work on verbal communication, articulation, attention, impulse control, and motor skills. It works well with a group or in an individual session. AND, it has multiple levels of participation, so if you have groups with clients of mixed abilities it will be perfect for you.

Sounds like something you’d be interested in?

Click here to grab a PDF of how to facilitate the Halloween Rhythm Combos musical experience and put it into practice this week:

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{Thanks to everyone for your kind comments following my post about Hurricane Irma and how Julie Andrews helped during my evacuation with my two babies. I really enjoyed hearing from you. We are still cleaning up in Miami and it’s been a slow process, but things are slowly getting back to “normal.”}

One thing that can be really tough for those of us who work with school age and teen populations is finding “appropriate” music: songs that have clean lyrics, clean content and can be used therapeutically to meet clinical goals.

I struggle with this on a weekly basis.

So, when I finally looked up the song “Everything is Awesome” from The Lego Movie, I have to admit I was pretty excited.

The students at Children’s Resource Educational Center are constantly singing this song and asking if we can use it in a session. I have to admit I was a bit skeptical to say the least. Lego Movie and therapeutic don’t really seem to go hand in hand, am I right?

But when I looked up the video on YouTube and checked out the lyrics online, I was surprised that the song actually works really well with our session goals.

Everything is awesome, everything is cool when you’re part of a team.
Everything is awesome, when you’re living out a dream.
Everything is better when we stick together.
Side by side, you and I.

To address the students’ social/emotional goals, I came up with a few questions for them about working together:

When have you been part of a team?
Why are things better when we work as a team?
What can you do if you don’t agree with someone on your team?

Next are the following lyrics:

Awesome items are the best.
Trees, frogs, clogs, they’re awesome.
Rocks, clocks, and socks, they’re awesome.
Figs, and jigs, and twigs, that’s awesome.
Everything you see or think or say is awesome.

To address the students’ communication goals, I created a fill-in-the-blank songwriting experience. I wrote the following on a dry erase board:

_____, _____, _____, they’re awesome.

_____, _____, _____, they’re awesome.

_____, _____, _____, that’s awesome.

Everything you see or think or say is awesome.

I then grouped students in teams of three and asked them to come up with three things that are awesome. I wrote the answers in the blanks and then we “rapped.” As I’ve shared before, all you need to rap is a hip hop beat on your keyboard or an MP3 from GarageBand (I created an original one to fit the song).

I’m happy I was able to find a way to merge my students’ favorite song with the therapeutic goals I have for them. Everything is awesome!

If you’re looking for even more creative ideas for working with teens, school age clients or adults, I’d love for you to check out the E-Course I created, Tune In To Teens. It’s approved by CBMT for 5-15 continuing education credits and is packed with creative session ideas and strategies for working with teen clients:

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When I was a kid, I LOVED back to school time.

I loved shopping for new school supplies (Lisa Frank notebooks and Bic pens were my thing!) and was always so excited for the first day of school. I try to bring some of that same excitement into my music therapy sessions on the first day of school. Children’s Resources Educational Center (where I provide weekly group sessions) has their first day of school next week.

Although there is a lot of excitement around this time, for some children there may also be some nerves. Many have moved into a new classroom and some are brand new to the school.

So, one of the first things I plan to do in my music therapy sessions next week is help the students learn everyone’s name (including teachers and therapists). My hope is that this will calm their nerves and help ease the transition into their new classroom.

Here is the song I wrote while working at UCP’s Early Beginnings Academy to help students learn the names of everyone in their class:

Lyrics:
It’s the first day of school now here we go.
It’s the first day of school and I want to know
What’s your name? What’s your name?
“My name is Amy. My name is Amy.”

Simple and to the point, but it’s a great way to work on expressive language (a goal area that many of my students are working on)!

What are YOUR favorite ways to help children learn the names of others in their class?

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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