Have you been doing any virtual music therapy sessions?

I’ve been doing virtual adapted lessons, but just had my first virtual music therapy session with a group of teens last week.

I have to tell you – it was so good to see those faces on Zoom. I am really missing everyone, especially because we didn’t have any closure at our last session.

I’ll admit that I was a little skeptical about how virtual music therapy would actually work.

I imagined tech issues, sound issues, lag issues, and people talking over one another.

And while we did have a few tech issues, I’m here today to tell you that it IS possible (with some patience and a sense of humor) to have a successful virtual music therapy session.

If you’re feeling a little stuck for new ideas, though, I’ve got you covered.

In the next few blog posts, I’m going to share some musical experiences that have been working out really well in teletherapy. They can be used for individual or group music therapy sessions.

This week, I’ll share musical experiences that target social/emotional goals. Adapt them as needed for your unique clients:

Virtual Greeting Song – Easy peasy – Take your usual greeting song and ask clients how they want to greet each other virtually. We’ve done virtual high fives, virtual hand shakes, virtual fist bumps, peace signs, and of course waving (lots of waving!)

Themed Song Discussion – These are some of my favorite musical experiences for teletherapy. In the Tuneful Teens 2 E-Book, I share a multitude of themed song discussion ideas.

Here’s how it works: First, choose a theme or topic. Themes can be based around an upcoming holiday or season, or a topic that is relevant based on your clients’ current needs. Next, choose a song or songs that relate to the topic you’ve chosen. Then, formulate questions to facilitate a discussion based on the song and theme. In the session, you’ll sing the selected songs and ask questions to facilitate a discussion on the chosen topic.

In many of my initial online sessions, I’ve been using the topic of friendship, since many of my clients are feeling disconnected from their friends.  We’ve sung “Count on Me” by Bruno Mars, “With a Little Help From My Friends” by the Beatles, or “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from Toy Story. After singing through one of the songs, I ask: How are you connecting with your friends virtually – Google Hangouts? Zoom? FaceTime? What’s the coolest thing you’ve done with your friends virtually? Who is one friend you could reach out to now, to see how they’re doing?

After the discussion, I summarize all the things that were shared and we sing the song again.

Remember to utilize all the cool online tools at your disposal. With Zoom, you can share your screen so your clients can see the sheet music, song lyrics, and discussion questions.

Musical Games – These have been a GREAT way to connect with my current clients and to asses new clients that I’m meeting for the first time online. I created a musical game called Guess Who that has been a hit for my elementary and middle school students, as well as my teen clients. This game allows me to work in their favorite songs and singers, which immediately engages them and helps build rapport. Both Tuneful Teens 1 and Tuneful Teens 2 are full of musical game ideas and ready-to-go templates.

If you’re interested in purchasing Tuneful Teens 1 or 2, or any other E-Book, I’m doing something I’ve never done before:

You can grab some resources for as low as $2.50 and get your creative juices flowing for planning some awesome teletherapy sessions.

I’ve just added a brand new resource to the collection (which is also 50% off!):

Stay tuned for next week’s blog post, where I’ll share some creative movement experiences that work well in tele-music therapy.

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The other day I was walking through Target and had a ‘Hallelujah moment’!

Seriously.

I was coming in for one item: a white t-shirt that my daughter needed for an art project at her preschool. But, like most times I visit Target, I never made it past the Dollar Section (does that happen to you, or is it just me?)

The Target Dollar Section is out of this world.

It’s perfect for music teachers, special ed teachers, regular ed teachers, speech therapists and of course, music therapists.

It’s always stocked with inexpensive flash cards, workbooks, picture cards, and other goodies that are a teacher and therapists dream.

On this particular visit, I found a few gems, one of which was a set of social skills cards. Target calls them: “Good Citizen Cards.”

I was super excited about this find because one of the primary areas of focus when I work with elementary and middle school students is social skills.

We definitely do spend our time on interventions like The Noun Rap that target academic skills and ones that target attention skills. But, social skills are so incredibly important for this age group that I make it a point to target them in every single session.

I wrote a song called “What Do You Do?” that fits perfectly with these cards I found. I wrote the song a few years ago to help a student with autism learn to respond flexibly to questions about different social situations.

For example: What do you do when you need help? What do you say when you don’t know someone’s name? What do you do when you want to sit with someone in the lunch room? Etc.

You can listen to “What Do You Do?” here AND grab the sheet music and MP3.

With the addition of the Social Skills/Good Citizen Cards, I added verses about what to do if someone is better at something than you are, what to do if you walk through a door and someone’s behind you, and what to do if you want to borrow something from somebody.

And that’s just to name a few!

The pack is stocked with cards about what to do in a variety of social situations. I am not an affiliate for Target (although I probably could be!), I just really want to spread the word about what amazing resources they offer therapists and teachers. Go check out the Target Dollar Section for yourself and see what you find!

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I always look forward to Mondays.

On Mondays I have a full day of sessions and lessons, ranging from mommy & me groups with babies and toddlers to adapted guitar lessons with teens on the autism spectrum.

I also facilitate a music therapy group called Sing, Speak & Socialize.

This group is specifically designed for children on the autism spectrum to practice social communication skills.

This is what our set up looked like on Monday:

Here are the tools we were using and the goals we were working on:

Number cards: To practice numeral identification and counting with our “Counting Song”

Xylophone: To work on increasing sustained attention and improving social skills through turn taking

ABC Cards: To work on letter identification and sounds with our “Alphabet Song”

Shakers: To work on direction following (shake on your head; shake on your knees, shake on your tummy!)

“Whose Mommy is This?” Book: To work on expressive language skills as we identify pictures in the book and speak phrases from the book

Kazoos: To work on impulse control & direction following through stop and go playing

Each musical activity is fun and engaging, but underneath that exterior, we are working on non-musical, clinical goals (improving communication, social and attention skills).

If you would like to learn more about our Sing, Speak & Socialize Group, click here to email me directly. We have a section for 3-5 year olds that meets from 3:30-4:15pm on Mondays and a section for 6-8 year olds that meets from 5:00-5:45pm.

I’d love to have your child join us!

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It has been an incredible year and I have learned so, so much!

I’m looking forward to the coming months, where I have a few major life changes coming down the line….

Even with all the changes happening, I’ve still been keeping up with my private practice clients and generating lots of new ideas that I can share with you here on the blog!

One new idea I came up with one the spot in a dyad session a few weeks ago is called Musical Hide & Seek.

My goals were to facilitate interaction and communication between two siblings; they both loved my stuffed toy frog…and thus Musical Hide & Seek was created.

Here’s how this intervention works:

–  One child is the ‘hider.’ One child is the ‘seeker.’ The ‘seeker’ closes his eyes as the ‘hider’ sneaks around the room and tries to find the best hiding place for the stuffed toy frog. As he is finding a place to hide the frog, I will mimic what he’s doing musically on the guitar (maybe a boom chuck in minor if he’s tip toeing around; or I will strum through a chord progression while counting backwards from 10 to 1).

– Once the frog is hidden, I’ll sing through an original song “Where is the Frog Hiding?”

– Following that, I’ll give the ‘hider’ a shaker and tell him to watch as his sister tries to find the frog. When she is far away from where the frog is hidden, shake slowly and softly. But as she gets closer to where the frog is hidden, start to shake faster and louder. This will let her know she’s getting closer to finding the frog!

– After the instructions have been given, the ‘seeker’ will walk around the room and try to find the frog. I encourage the ‘seeker’ to really listen to the shaker and what her brother is trying to tell her by shaking in different ways. Meanwhile, I will use my guitar strumming to match how the shaker is shaking.

– Once the ‘seeker’ finds the frog, we sing through “Where is the Frog Hiding?” and insert spatial concepts (ie. “the frog is under the table” or “next to the chair”).

This was a huge hit during this sibling dyad session!

They were playing a ‘game’ while working on skills like nonverbal communication, auditory discrimination. and knowledge of spatial concepts.

You can try this out during your group sessions as well!

Now I would love to hear from YOU! What musical games do you incorporate into your sessions? Leave a comment below to let us know!

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Empathy.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the definition of empathy is: the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner.

I decided to explore this concept with a group of adolescents I work with in Miami. The inspiration for this idea came from The Mosaic Project, an incredible organization that works to promote a peaceful future by uniting young children of diverse backgrounds and exploring the concepts of empathy and tolerance.

They have an excellent collection of songs that I listen to in my car all the time :) AND use during my music therapy sessions. My favorites? “It’s All Right to Cry,” “Don’t Laugh at Me,” and “We Are the Mosaic.” But who am I kidding, they’re all fantastic and lend themselves to concepts that we frequently address with our clients.

Since social emotional skills are one of the main goal areas I target with this teen group, I used “The Empathy Song” as a springboard for lyric analysis and discussion.

Want to know the procedure and questions I use during the music therapy session to facilitate this discussion?

Then check out this resource ~ Tuneful Teens 2: MORE Creative Ideas for Engaging Adolescents in Music Therapy. In it, I share MANY MORE ideas similar to this one, as well as activity templates and sheet music!

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No, not really! It’s just the name of the newest release for my Saturday Song Share series!

Hello and Goodbye Songs are an important part of my music therapy sessions for children with special needs. They are not necessarily right for all populations and settings, but for my children’s groups, they provide structure and predictability, as well as a beginning and end point for my sessions.

I wrote this song during my internship and have been using it ever since! Have a listen…

Time to take action!

Leave a comment below and let us know: How do you start and end your music therapy sessions? Do you use Hello and Goodbye songs? Do you do a check-in and check-out? I would love to hear!

Image source

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It’s time for another Saturday Song Share! Woot woot!

Last week’s song share was a High Five song (always a popular way to greet a friend!). Today’s song share is another greeting song…this one encourages children to say hello and shake hands. This is one of my favorite original songs….I think because of the minor key.

What do you think?

Guitar Version –

Piano Version –

If you liked this post and found it useful…share it with your friends! Sharing is caring :)

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It’s time for a Saturday Song Share!

I’ve been sharing songs here and there, and today I’m super excited to start a new regular series for Wholesome Harmonies – Saturday Song Share! So mark your calendar and stay tuned. Here goes!

Greeting songs are an important part of my music therapy sessions for children with special needs. These songs are designed to teach proper social greetings, such as giving hugs, giving high fives, blowing kisses, and shaking hands. Today’s song is about prompting children to greet their friends by giving a high five.

Have a listen…

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Today’s post will wrap up Sing Your Heart Out week! Each day this week, I shared a new song that you can use in your music therapy sessions or music classes.

Day 1: It is Time to Sing a Song ~ a song for building communication skills

Day 2: I Am An Elephant ~ a move & groove song for kids that like to pretend to be animals

Day 3: Play Along With Me ~ an instrument playing song for xylophone or marimba

Day 4: Beautiful Colors ~ a “sense-ational” song for visual stimulation activities

Today I am going to share a song that was requested by one of the teachers I work with – a song about manners and positive social behaviors. Sometimes the children we work with need to be taught proper social etiquette – what do you say when someone sneezes? What do you say when you bump into someone? This song addresses those situations and a few others.

Have a listen and see if it might be useful for YOUR classes or sessions…

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Sing your heart out week continues!! Here is a song I use during my instrument playing activities, particularly those involving the xylophone and glockenspiel. I take out the ‘B’ and ‘F’ bars and the song fits perfectly. Also, the song lyrics can be individualized for different children using different instruments, for example “Danny plays the drum!” or “Anna plays the bells!”

Have a listen!

Image courtesy of [Salvatore Vuono] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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