A picture of me in motion at an elementary school playing jingle bells to “Jingle Bells”.
Christmas is less than a week away, so of course we’ve got to jump into Christmas and holiday music. As a music therapist, or maybe even just a human, it is impossible to not be hearing or using Christmas music at this time of year. I thought I would do a quick dive into how I, as a music therapy intern, have used Christmas or holiday music in my sessions, these past couple of weeks.
Instrument Playing
Instrument playing is an intervention I often do with my clients that I see throughout the week. When playing instruments, clients work on fine and gross motor skills, range of motion, impulse control, following directions, and sustained attention. The last couple weeks I have used “Jingle Bells” played with jingle bells, an Listen and Learn rewrite of “Little Drummer Boy” called “Little Drummer Boys and Girls” played with lollypop drums, and shakers to Laurie Berkner’s winter song “I Live Inside A Snow Globe”.
Jingle bells are commonly associated with Christmas and the winter holidays, which makes it an easy choice to play along to any Christmas song. Clinicians can shout out directions, such “play up high” or “play fast” between verses or rewrite familiar tunes to imbed directions into the lyrics.
Movement
Similar to instrument playing, clients work on fine and gross motor skills, range of motion, following directions, sustained attention, decision making, and sequencing during different movement interventions. It is easy to adapt Christmas music to movement. Some songs that I have used are “Let It Go”, “Jingle Bell Rock”, and “I Live Inside A Snow Globe”. This week, students participated in body percussion to play along videos of “Let It Go” and “Jingle Bell Rock”. Younger students and toddlers in our Listen and Learn class held onto scarves and waved them in different directions. Another movement intervention is dancing. Dance moves can be choreographed to Christmas music by the facilitator or participants. This is also a fun way to work on sequencing.
Sing-Along
This is where I have been doing a majority of Christmas and holiday music. At contracts like Hope and Sparc spend time doing sing-along. At Hope, students make choices and express themselves by picking songs from visual sheet of songs during the last ten minutes of the session. Songs on this list include “I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas”, “The Grinch”, and “Frosty The Snowman”. Group members at Sparc raise their hands and take turns verbally asking for a specific song. Both groups work on decision making and respecting others’ choices.
Sing-along songs can also be used for emotional regulation. Facilitators can use familiar Christmas music played at a slower tempo and finger picked to promote relaxation and help with high sensory stimulation. Cool down songs are often planned into our sessions at Hope. Over the past three weeks, I have used “Silver Bells” as a cool down if one is needed.
Songwriting
While not a session that I planned or facilitated, my supervisor, Emma planned a fill-in-the-blank songwriting intervention to “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer” for one of the classes at Hope. Students participated, worked on sustained attention, self expression, and decision making. Mad-libs styled songwriting can be applied to many songs. In this holiday season, it is a way to incorporate songs of the season without having to do them verbatim. While I love Christmas music, even I get tired of “Jingle Bells” after the fiftieth time. Through songwriting, participants still get to interact with music they enjoy, but get to be creative, silly, and express themselves while still working on their goals.
Bingo
A huge hit everywhere I go, is music Bingo. I had never done it prior to my internship. It is a great way to incorporate recorded music in order to authentically play clients’ preferred music. I have used music Bingo in a variety of settings and with a variety of populations. In doing music bingo, participants work on sustained attention, impulse control, listening, and fine motor. There are so many types of Christmas related bingos you can create. This week, a Bingo we did was songs from Christmas movies. It also opens up an avenue for discussions. If done with older adults, who are stereotyped to love Bingo, a facilitator can easily move the conversation towards memories surrounding the song, Christmas traditions, and Christmases past.
Takeaway
Not everyone loves Christmas music, but it is commonly requested at this time of year. It is only natural to integrate it into our sessions. Therapy should have the magic of Christmas and every other winter holiday. I have learned from my supervisors how to use holiday music in ways I would have never thought of.
What is your favorite holiday song? How could you incorporate it into a session, beyond sing-along or Bingo?
My sister and I with our Thanksgiving desserts we made together.
I know that writing a list of what I am thankful for as my blog for this week may be cliche, but sometimes things are cliche for a reason. A reason why is because they are good. I’m currently in my fourth month of my internship at MTC and life is super busy in my internship and outside of it. Sometimes a reminder of all we have to be grateful for during the crazy times, makes those crazy times a little better. So without further ado, this is my list of things I have to be grateful for in all aspects of my life.
Family
I’m very close with my family and I always have been. I realize how lucky I am though this year. A year ago, we didn’t know if we’d ever have another holiday with my grandpa. My grandparents have been a huge part of my life and practically helped raise me along with my mom. This time last year, I was sitting in a chair next to my grandpa while he was in the ICU from a double subdural hematoma. This year, I was able to move back to my home area. I see my family a lot more often than I was able to when I was a couple hours away in Macomb. I’m so grateful that I have been able to be more involved. I am so close with my sister and my mom and they have both been so supportive of me as I do my internship and just go through regular life.
My internship
I am so thankful for my internship for so many reasons. I spent so much time looking for an internship, sending out applications, and doing interviews. I was worried that I would never find one and when I did it was almost serendipitous in how it turned out. MTC is twenty minutes away from where I grew up and only two minutes away from where I was already living after completing my coursework at WIU. Not only that, but I had talked to one of owners of the business before I ever went off to college about how I knew I wanted to go to school for music therapy. It has turned out to be so much of what I was looking for and more. I have always been interested in private practice, so getting to do so is a dream come true. The atmosphere is so welcoming. I wish I could tell myself from a year ago or even six months ago to not worry so much about thinking I’ll never find an internship. Everyone says this, but you’ll find one. No matter where you end up, you’ll learn so much.
My friends
Life is a crazy ride and I don’t know where I would be without my friends. Making friends has never been super easy for me but I have a few close friends. People who have supported me in my dreams; to keep going when things got tough. They have been there when graduation felt impossibly far or when my life felt like it was falling apart. Though my close friends are comprised of my best friend, who is now living all the way over in Alaska, weirdly enough my ex (we’re on good terms and she is a big supporter of me and my partner), my sister, and my partner. I am so lucky to have also made new friends in my co-workers.
My coworkers
It can be scary being the new person to enter the mix anywhere, but I have been so lucky. Like I stated before, I don’t always make friends easily, but this group has accepted me so graciously. I can be awkward and talk a lot, especially when I’m nervous, but they have made me feel so included and at home here. My biggest belief is that we have something to learn from everyone and in this time, I have already learned so much from these wonderful women.
My lesson students
When I started teaching lessons at MTC, I was terrified. A little voice in my head said that I didn’t know what I was doing and that I wasn’t qualified. Now it’s months later and I love it so much. I am so thankful for my students for helping ignite this passion. I have learned so much about teaching but my own skills too. I feel like I have become a better singer, pianist, and ukulele player through it all. I also have found a confidence in it that I did not have before. I love seeing my student work hard and it’s so great when they make a breakthrough.
All my clients
I’m thankful for all my clients. I wouldn’t be able to do what I do without them. They bring so much joy and energy into my day. They have made me a better music therapist and facilitator. I have learned so much that I didn’t get a chance to in school. There’s something about getting to do what you love that makes each day worth it, even on tough days. Seeing effect of how music helps them is like no other. Even if it feels like a small victory, I love being able to see them grow. I’m so proud of my clients and everything they achieve. I never thought I would be at a school working with kids for a majority of my week, but it has been so rewarding.
My music education
I will forever be grateful for the music education I received throughout my life. In school, my teachers helped foster my love of music. In high school, I was able to do challenging pieces of music and take multiple semesters of music theory and composition. I learned about my voice and was able to spend time understanding the foundational building blocks of music as well as composing your own music. This paved a way for me to study music. I already knew I wanted to go into music therapy, but this gave me a leg up. In college, theory 1 and 2 ended up being a review for me. I ended up doing even more complicated music in my time at Western. n that time, I learned so much about the voice and all the intricate parts that are involved in singing, which has greatly impacted the lessons I teach. I was able to learn piano, continue my guitar skills, and create memories from such great experiences such as getting to perform with the only choir to get to represent Illinois at a regional conference to being one of the first choirs to debut a new masterworks.
Having my necessities
We all know things are a little wild in the world right now. I am so very thankful for all that I have. I have an apartment, with heat, that is stocked with food. I have clothes, a bed, and a car to get to work. Am I barely scraping by some months? For sure, but I’m getting by. In a time where so many don’t have these necessities, I am so thankful that I do. And I know that if I ever not being able to afford these necessities, my family wouldn’t blink twice at the thought of helping me through.
Final Thoughts
It can be hard to remember all we have to be thankful for in these times, hence, why I did this to remind myself. Maybe this has led you to reflect on what you’re thankful for. I know I’m thankful for the opportunity to write this and the fact that you are reading this.
On my first day of internship, I wrote the date on the inside cover of my notebook. That date was almost three months ago. So what does the life of a music therapy intern look like three-ish months in.
Weekly checklist
As an intern, I have a list of things I have to do every week. This includes: daily journals, where I write about my day working with clients and about how I felt; weekly assignments, which lately have been songwriting or recording; weekly repertoire checks, where I learn two songs and then lead them in my supervision; and bi-weekly blog posts, like this one. I also plan interventions and sessions for the contracts and clients I see, but this changes every week as I take on more responsibilities and lead more independently.
Mondays
I spend most of my day at Hope School. While there, I see four classes with my supervisor Emma. Before and in between sessions, we work in our office. I spend that time preparing music, writing documentation, and if I have time, writing my journal or working on other tasks I need to complete that week. After the school day, I come back to MTC where I work on assignments and observe a music therapy session led by Emma. I end my day writing in my journal about everything that happened.
Tuesdays
I again spend most of my day at Hope School, but Tuesdays are much busier. I see six classes with Emma. Many of the classes are back to back or close to it, so I don’t always get a chance to document after each session. This was hard at first, but I learned that I remember more than I thought I would. Once the school day is through, I drive back to MTC where I work on assignments before having two lessons and a session back to back. My first lesson is teaching Ukulele, then I teach most of an adapted lesson with Emma, and then straight into facilitating half a session with Molly. After it all, I write my journal entry.
Wednesdays
I start my morning off at SPARC. It is so much fun! I meet Molly there and then we rock out with group members. On special occasions, we bust out some music bingo. I then go back to Hope School where I see two more classes. When Molly and I get there we have a lot of time to prep. In that time, I document for SPARC, make sure I am ready for my classes, and work on any other tasks I have that week. I am fully facilitating both classes which is exciting and even doing one class without Molly supervising in the room. The rest of my day I spend working on assignments, meeting with Katey, one of the owners of the company over zoom, and teaching a voice lesson. Soon, I’ll be leading an evening Listen and Learn class.
Thursdays
By the time I get to Thursday, I really need the break it brings. I start the morning leading Listen and Learn, our class that serves ages 0-3. Then have time to myself to do whatever I need. I usually spend that time going home and taking a short nap and eating before heading back to the office. Sometimes, I stay at the office if there is a lot I need to get done. Once I’m back, I have a lot of time to work on assignments and prepare before supervision. During supervision I have my weekly rep check. I like to spend the twenty minutes before supervision going over my music one last time. Supervision is a time where I meet with my supervisors and talk about my week, my upcoming week, internship, and life in general. After supervision, I teach three lessons and finish by writing my journal.
Fridays
My Fridays always look a little different. Every other week I go to Taylorville. While there I see three different classes, each at a different school. The drive to Taylorville is long so I always make sure to put on a good playlist before leaving. On the weeks that I am not at Taylorville, I observe a session in our clinic. I spend the rest of my day working on finishing assignments before and in between clients. Later in the afternoon, I teach an adapted piano lesson and lead a music therapy session. After doing documentation for my client, I spend any time afterwards finishing my blog post, assignment, and daily journal.
Going Home
Most nights I don’t get home until 6 or 6:30. On a lucky night, I’m out of the office by 5:30. But what do I do with my time? I spend a lot of my time napping. Internship can be a very tiring ordeal. Lately, I have been working on having a work life balance so that I do more than work, eat, and sleep. Recently, I have been catching up on TV shows like Stranger Things, reading webcomics, and knitting (at least attempting).
Every internship is different. It is easy to compare journeys, but just like our uniqueness as individuals, each internship is unique. Every intern needs something different. I, for example, am not equally busy all week due to health issues that affect my energy levels. Because of this, my internship will be longer than my peers from Western or my co-workers who did their own internships at MTC.
As part of my internship, I have weekly assignments, some of which contribute to larger projects like my midterm. For these assignments, I have to write and record songs. While I have written songs for myself and for sessions at WIU, this is my first time recording them. At first glance, it can be really daunting, but like many things, it gets easier with practice.
For these recording projects, I have been using SoundTrap. I have used GarageBand once on my iPad, but recording is much easier on a laptop. GarageBand is the product I hear most about, but since my computer is not an Apple product, I do not have access. Lucky for me, one of my colleagues also doesn’t have an Apple computer and recommended SoundTrap. I am not good with technology, but the process of recording has been super straightforward.
Materials
Of course, you need my laptop to create any of this. You also need a microphone and any instruments you are going to use. Some things you may not have thought of, though, are headphones and a MIDI chord. Headphones will help when you are recording. You need to hear what you are recording over, but you don’t want it playing out loud, so that it can’t be picked up in the recording, plus you can just hear it better over headphones. A midi chord is going to be very helpful when it comes to adding piano. This way, you can plug it into your keyboard, and what you play is directly recorded onto the software. You can also use MIDI to record a baseline, synth, or even a guitar riff.
The Groundwork
I found out early on to start with a big, loud, steady beat. My supervisor, Katey, had suggested starting with a beat, but I thought the metronome was enough. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t. I found out quickly that no matter how steady a beat I thought I had on the guitar, I was wrong. When creating the drum rhythm, it shows you a grid broken down to the sixteenth level of each beat. It also gives you many choices of drums, starting with kick, snare, and highhat. To give myself a steadying pulse, I had the kick drum play on every beat in a measure. I started with this. Nothing fancy, just a pulse that I could blast through my headphones.
The Guitar
The hard part, at least for me, was recording the guitar. I had to have my steady pulse turned way up in my ears to try and keep up with it. I didn’t realize until recording how easy it is to get slightly off beat when playing guitar. It wasn’t noticeable to me until putting a computer-created drum beat, that is never off, alongside it. This part took me quite a lot of time for each song I recorded.
There are multiple ways to do it. You can chunk it. You can find natural stopping points in the song and record up to or from that point. This can change by the song. Some don’t lend themselves to this way as easily. You can try to record the whole song in one take. I did this often, and it was hard. If your song repeats, you can record that section and loop it. Which can be tricky when it comes to lining up with the beat, but it’s not impossible. I have done a mixture of all three. Commonly, I started off trying to record the entire song. If there were mistakes and I didn’t want to rerecord the entire thing, I would split the track and try to record that one spot. After recording, I would change the sound of the amp. There are many choices to choose from. I always chose “clean” so there were fewer effects and sounded more like my guitar. Once I had a guitar track I was happy with, I did not touch it again.
The Next Step
My next step was to record the main vocals. Once your beat and guitar track are set, recording vocals is easier. Like the guitar, you can do a single take or break it into chunks, but it’s easier to chunk vocals since you can pause after each verse or chorus.
The Fun Stuff
After I had my basics, which were all that was required of me, I could just mess around and add what I thought sounded good.
Diversifying The Beat
At this point, the only beat I had was a steady pulse. Now that I recorded the vocals and guitar and can hear it all together, I find it easier to add on to the drum rhythm. Make it more complicated than just a pulse, if I want to. I’m not super knowledgeable when it comes to making drum beats, so I just mess around until I find something I like. There are also pre-done tracks that you can add for anything, not just guitar. I personally use the pattern makers to create my rhythms, but there is a drum kit option too. Like with the guitar, you can change the sound of the drum.
Using The MIDI Keyboard
When I hear the word keyboard when talking about music, I assume piano. While a piano is involved, you can use a MIDI keyboard to create different sounds. On Soundtrap, you can use it for piano, synth, bass, guitar, and even orchestral instruments. You can do it using your computer keyboard, but it is easier to do on an actual keyboard. To do it on a keyboard, you use a MIDI chord. One end plugs into the computer and the other into the keyboard. You can then change it to whatever instrument sound you want. Just like playing piano, you play the pitch you want, and it is recorded. I used this feature to add guitar riffs, bass lines, piano background, and synth.
Last Touches
You are almost done! The last thing I mess with is the balance. On the left side of the screen, it shows you all your tracks. It is easy to adjust the volume and reverb on each track. Once I am happy with how it sounds, I save it multiple times and then download it as an MP3 file. It can be a lot of work, but it is always so cool to hear the final product and know you created it.
The chart topping songs from the past couple months. Will these songs be a part of your reminiscence bump?
After writing my last few blog posts, I started to think about the impact of the music we prefer in our youth and young adulthood. One of the things I remember learning in college is that when you are going to a nursing home and working in memory care, use the music that would have been popular when these clients were teens to their late twenties. It made me wonder if we are attached to music from our adolescence and young adulthood. I know a lot of adults who still listen to the music from the 80’s because they say it was the best music to be made. I also know that musical memory is one of the last things to go, so we use that quite often in our practice. Those two ideas led me to my assumption: we are attached to and prefer music from our adolescence because it’s tied to our identity and memories. I decided to try and find some research literature on this idea.
My reasoning
It is during this time in our lives that we start to form our identities. I think of Junior high, High school, and early adulthood as the time that we figure out who we are, what our values are, our likes and dislikes, our beliefs, how we see the world and others, and our role in relationships and the workforce. So it makes sense that the music that we listen to at that time would be tied to that identity of ourselves that we build. Identity is also influenced by the people we are around, such as our friends and family, as well as our environment.
My other reason for why we may be attached to and prefer music from that time is because of memories. There are so many milestones we go through during that time in our lives, which means there are so many memories of big events and music then tied to those events. A song that played during your first kiss, graduation, or your wedding.
Research on music preferences
I read a research article by Bonneville-Roussy, Rentfrow, Xu, & Potter (2013) that collected data on musical engagement and preferences. For the purpose of this blog, I am going to focus on the preferences data.
Method
In the study 254,825 participants between the ages of 12 and 65 filled out an online questionnaire. Each age had at least 164 participants. Music preferences were assessed by using a test called the STOMP-R or Short Test of Music Preferences. Participants used a 7-point Likert scale to express how much they liked each genre. Another test used was the ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) was used to assess the Big Five domains of personality: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Music genres were assessed and categorized by MUSIC, the groupings being mellow, unpretentious, sophisticated, intense, and contemporary.
Results
The scores of how much they liked the music genres were then compared to their ages and their results in the Big Five personality domains. Preferences for music categorized as mellow, unpretentious, and sophisticated increased as age increased, while preference for music categorized as intense and contemporary decreased as age increased. There was also a relation between the five domains and the scores. Participants who showed higher levels of openness rated mellow, sophisticated, and intense music genres higher. Those with higher levels of agreeableness rated unpretentious music genres higher. High extraversion led to higher ratings of unpretentious and contemporary music. Lastly, higher conscientiousness led to higher ratings of unpretentious music genres but lower ratings of intense music genres.
What does this mean
The results indicate that our music preferences seem to correlate with our personality, an integral part of our identity. It is also worth noting that categories like mellow and contemporary are most popular during young adulthood, a time of forming close relationships, and unpretentious and sophisticated music is most popular in adulthood when family and career are the focus. This means that our preferences may also be in relation to our stage in life. Our big five domains grow and change as we grow and change. Neuroticism is higher during adolescence, and agreeableness and conscientiousness are low but they don’t necessarily stay that way.
So why do we use music from their youth and young adulthood with memory care patients? The answer is a phenomenon called the reminiscence bump.
Research on music and the reminiscence bump
The reminiscence bump is the “disproportionate recall of memories from between the ages of 10 to 30 years in comparison with other lifetime periods”. We know that music is tied to memory and that music memory is one of the last forms of memory to go. The article by Jakubowski, Eerola, Tillmann, Perrin, & Heine (2020) studied reminiscence bumps in music-related memories.
Methods
There were 470 participants between the ages of 18 to 82. These participants were shown the titles and artists of 111 popular songs that spanned from 1950 to 2015. Popular songs were decided by picking songs that topped the charts during these years. Participants then rated how familiar they were with the song, how much they liked it, and the “degree to which they had autobiographical memories associated with each song”.
Results
The respondents were split into four groups based on their age, with a similar number of participants in each group. All four of the groups showed a reminiscence bump for songs that appeared in the charts when the participants were between the ages of 5 and 14. For 42 to 55-year-olds, that age extended to 19. For participants 56 and up the age extended to 24. When looking at the data, the highest point of the reminiscence bump was between 15 to 19 for the two older groups and 10 to 14 for the younger two groups. The songs rated highest in familiarity were from when the participants were 10 to 19. While most respondents showed higher scores of liking the music from their reminiscence bump, the youngest group showed higher ratings for music of their parents’ reminiscence bump.
Most liked music decade
18-29- 1976-1985
30-41- 1981-1985
42-55- 1976-1985
55+- 1961-1965
What this means
We recall memories from our reminiscence bump better than memories from other points in our lives. This carries over to music too. The music we listen to during those ages is important in recalling memories of that time. Our preferences for music do not always match the popular music of that time.
Take away
I was correct about memory and identity being tied to music, but I was off about our preferences.
We don’t reach the age of thirty and just stop listening to new music. Like everything else in our lives, our preferences continue to grow and change. Just because you listened to scene music when you were a teen does not mean that is the music you listen to for the rest of your life, for better or worse. This isn’t to say that you won’t still enjoy it, but that your brain is not locked into only liking music from when you were fourteen.
Something that surprised me
As for those adults that I know who are still obsessed with 80’s music from their teens, the study showed that people of all ages ranked music from the 70’s and 80’s higher in their liking.
GraceAnne
My sources
Bonneville-Roussy, A., Rentfrow, P. J., Xu, M. K., & Potter, J. (2013). Music through the ages: Trends in musical engagement and preferences from adolescence through middle adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(4), 703–717. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033770
Jakubowski, K., Eerola, T., Tillmann, B., Perrin, F., & Heine, L. (2020). A Cross-Sectional Study of Reminiscence Bumps for Music-Related Memories in Adulthood. Music & Science, 3. https://doi.org/10.1177/2059204320965058 (Original work published 2020)
