Wednesday is one of my favorite days of the week.

I love it so much because I have a mix of sessions today. I get to teach an adapted piano lesson where the student  is learning “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction and “Do You Love Me?” by the Contours.

Then, after a music therapy session, I get to teach a “traditional” guitar lesson (for a neurotypical child). The student is a beginner, but she’s already writing her own original songs! I’m helping her write songs in the keys of C and G so she can practice the chords within those chord families (more on that here!)

In my last blog post, I shared some ideas of how I adapt my music lessons to tailor them to children and teens with special learning needs.

Today, I have a few more ideas to share with you.

Here are some more of the creative adaptations I use in my lessons ~

Music and movement

Some of the children and teens I work with have difficulty sitting and attending for long periods of time. This is completely understandable. They’ve just sat for the entire day in school, and then likely had a therapy session or two before our lesson begins.

SO I always make sure to add some movement experiences to get the body AND the brain warmed up and ready for our lesson. For the younger crowd, we do things like “Open Shut Them” and “Shake Your Sillies” to warm up the fingers and hands. We may also do a freeze march around the room to a piano progression that I play. (For example ~ March when you hear the piano; freeze when you hear the piano stop!”)

Extra practice material

Some traditional lesson books may move too quickly for our students with special needs. They may need more time to work on a concept, like how to play a tied note or how to play a measure with quarter rests. I always have a large stock of blank staff paper on hand to write out additional practice material. This way, the student doesn’t have to keep playing the same page over and over to learn and master a concept.

Incorporate popular songs

As I mentioned at the start of this blog post, one of my favorite things to do is incorporate popular songs into my lessons. I find this is a HUGE motivator for my students. I know I would be more motivated to practice if my lesson material consisted of Jason Mraz and Jack Johnson tunes!

These are just a few of the ways I sprinkle creativity and fun into my adapted music lessons. I know that as with music therapy, if our students are motivated, they are more likely to be engaged during the lessons and receive the maximum benefit.

I would love to hear from you now!

What kinds of things do you incorporate into your adapted lessons? Share in the comments below!

The post A Few MORE Creative Adaptations to Your Lessons appeared first on Wholesome Harmonies, LLC.

In addition to offering music therapy services, another thing I love to do is offer adapted music lessons to children and teens with ASD.

I’ve been teaching piano lessons to a teen and recently was starting to feel stuck with the lesson book. Plugging through it week after week was becoming a bit dry.

Have you ever had that feeling?

I noticed that the student I was working with loved to explore the keyboard and make up her own little melodies.

So I decided to give that structure and incorporate some improv within our lessons.

Here’s what we did:

1. I prompted the student to try out different styles on the keyboard and choose one she liked (my Yamaha has a TON of cool styles to choose from – everything from the rhumba, to the blues, to rock ‘n roll.)
2. Once she had chosen a style, we started the beat and I prompted her to improvise a short melody on the keyboard (we talked beforehand about what it means to improvise).
3. After her improv came to a resolution, I started my improv. I tried to mimic the overall feel of her melody. If she played staccato notes in various places around the keyboard, I did something similar; if she played slow legato notes on the black keys, I played in a similar fashion.
4. When my improv came to a resolution, she played again. We went back and forth a few times in this way and then I brought the improv to a close.
5. At the end, we discussed what that improv sounded like to her (one in particular sounded like a Nintendo game – that one was very cool!)

After we had gone through this process a few times, I thought about all the things that were accomplished during our improvisation session:

• First, I noticed positive affect. Rather than being frustrated that she couldn’t remember the notes in the bass clef notes from her lesson book, she was able to feel incredibly successful. With improv there are no wrong notes! More than that, if the music therapist sets up the environment correctly (by providing an authentic-sounding style on the keyboard, etc.), the music that’s produced can sound very professional. This student said one improv even sounded like a movie soundtrack to her!
• Second, we’re working on nonverbal communication skills. The back and forth nature of our improv mimics the back and forth of a conversation. This can be a tough skill for some teens on the autism spectrum to master. I think the musical version of this is a great way to practice the skill of communicating during a conversation. It requires the person who’s not playing to listen so they can reflect back what the other person is playing, just as you would reflect back the feeling of someone telling you they’re excited, sad, or upset.
• Finally, this student was validated. Every time she played something, I validated it by reflecting it back in my playing. This let her know that I was picking up what she was doing and responding to it. I would imagine there are times in school and in life where she might be told what she’s doing is wrong or inappropriate. But, in our lesson, whatever music she created was perfect.

If you’re feeling a bit stuck moving through lesson and theory books with your teen students, I highly encourage you to try this technique!

When you do, please share how it went in the comments below!

The post Jazz Up Your Adapted Lessons With This Technique appeared first on Wholesome Harmonies, LLC.