One of the most classic music therapy interventions is Musical Jeopardy. It's familiar, inviting, engaging and fun. Perfect for a practicum student, intern or seasoned clinician to facilitate. Every year I come up with a new version of this game and use it as I'm getting to know my new groups and clients, and assess [...]
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 [...]
If you follow my blog (and E-Book series), you know I love a good musical game. As soon as I mention we're playing a "game" at the start of a session, I immediately have my clients hooked and excited. Musical games are great in that you can sneak in work on lots of different goal [...]
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 [...]
Before I step into a session with teens I feel a teeny, tiny twinge of nervousness in my stomach. It's brief, but noticeable. After twelve years of working with teens as a music therapist, you would think the nerves would be gone. But here's why I'm glad I still get a little bit nervous before [...]
{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 [...]
I hope you've been having a great summer so far! My little family of four just returned from a trip to my hometown of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and we had a blast. It was a fantastic trip where I had the opportunity to reconnect with friends I hadn't seen in over twenty years. I'm still buzzing [...]
Did you have a chance to try out any of the Moana-themed session ideas I shared in last week's blog post? If not, check out the post to see how you can use rainbow bells and the song "How Far I'll Go" to address attention goals. As I was brainstorming more ways to use "How [...]
I don't know about you but I was a little bit relieved when Moana came out and we could finally put the music for Frozen away! There's only so many times you can sing "Let it Go" in a lesson or session, am I right? Because Moana is so popular, I did some brainstorming to [...]
Session planning is one of my favorite things about being a music therapist. I love the process. We start out with a client need and corresponding goal. Then we use our creativity to see how we can address that goal musically. I love everything that goes into that process - writing original songs for my younger clients, [...]
