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)
Some of the instruments I saw at the bluegrass festival. I decided to cover their faces since I didn’t ask permission to take a photo or post this photo.
Every week I have supervision with my supervisors to talk about my week in internship. Last week we were talking about lessons and adapted lessons and how our main goal and philosophy is to foster the love of music. I started to think about how that pertains to me as an individual and what that means in music therapy and as a facilitator. We think about it so much in the context of our clients but how do I foster the love of music for myself as I go through this internship. Burn out is real and very prevalent in fields like this where we work with people in health care. How do I stave off burn out and make sure that I continue to love music in and outside the context of work. These are some of the ways.
Making music with others
Bluegrass festival
About a month ago, I went to the bluegrass festival in New Salem, IL. I had been once before, but that was at least 6 years ago. When I had gone before, I had so much fun and got to see so many cool instruments and watch so many talented people come together and perform. I had been wanting to go back for a while, but didn’t really have the chance when I was away at school.
At the festival, people just bring their instruments and anyone can join. There are clusters of people throughout the site. Most groups of musicians there already know each other and play together outside of this event. I knew I wanted to write about this event so I wrote down every cool thing I saw and got to do. By the time I got there, many people had already left, but below are the instruments I saw. I had hoped to see a Hammered Dulcimer but I didn’t see one.
Banjo
Fiddle
Guitar
Harmonica
Mandolin
Stand Up Bass
Steel Guitar
Steel Slide Guitar
Spoons
Tennessee Music Box
As a musician it fills me with excitement to see and learn about instruments I have never seen before, like the Tennessee Music Box. Doing some research, it turned out to be a part of the Dulcimer family. It is a box with soundholes with a fretted neck on top of the box. The one I saw only had one string. From my google search they seem to be homemade. Seeing homemade instruments was also not uncommon at the event. I saw two homemade Stand Up Basses. One was hand carved and collapsible and the other was a large tree branch with a tuning peg drilled into it that sat on a metal basin with one tuned string.
I had wanted to bring my guitar and join in but I am not super well-versed on bluegrass music and didn’t think I was a good enough guitarist to do so. Most of the musicians out there just know the songs by memory or pick it up when whoever picks the song calls out the key. I ended up singing and harmonizing to the songs they were playing, whether I knew them or not. I have always been quick at picking songs up or at least predicting the melody.
One of the gentlemen there found out I am a music therapist and that I play the guitar so he offered to let me play his guitar. I had never played a steel guitar before so I jumped at the chance. I was just noodling around and testing to see how easy it would be to barre on the guitar when they noticed. They told me that none of them play barre chords and that it was laughable that I thought I wasn’t good enough to bring my guitar.
At this point the event was ending and everyone was putting away their instruments. I was still messing around and decided to play one of the songs in a book this gentleman owned. Next thing I knew everyone had taken their instruments out and started playing with me. It was amazing and not something that I’ll forget anytime soon. They even asked me if I wanted to join them when they meet once a month to jam out.
Enjoying music in different modalities
Dancing
A couple weeks back, the community theater my dad is involved in hosted a one night only dance class. I love dancing but I have never taken classes. It was for charity and my partner said he would go with me, so we did. The dance that night was East Coast Swing. Although I have never taken a dance class, I was taught East Coast Swing by my grandfather at a young age. It is something that is very special to me. All my life he has saved me dance and since he is no longer in the health to save me that dance, getting to do this made me feel connected to that part of myself. I also got to share the love of this dance that I have been doing since I was five or six with my partner. Plus there was a live big band there playing swing music. I love big bands and I love swing music so it just made the night even better.
My partner and I were not the greatest dancers but we definitely had the most fun. All feet survived the night without being stepped on too badly. We danced and laughed until my face turned red and I had to sit down. It was a nice reminder that music can be enjoyed outside making it and performing. Also only having a short time, challenged my need to be perfect at everything on the first try and to instead lean into the fun of it all.
Listening for fun
The Life Of A Showgirl
Recently Taylor Swift’s new album came out. I rarely listen to music outside of the context of work. I spend so much time listening to music that I need to learn or familiarize myself with that I don’t listen to much for my enjoyment. It has gotten to the point that listening to new albums can feel like a job. Although I don’t seem to be on the majority of this one, I loved the music. I started listening to it outside of my time in the car. I realize there are so many different albums from different artists that I never got around to listening to in its entirety. As I work to enjoy listening to music for just the sake of enjoyment, I hope to catch up on some.
Some things I want to get back to
Making music for myself
Since high school, I have had assignments where I had to write music, whether for music theory, a songwriting unit, or internship. While I have a love hate relationship with songwriting, somewhere along the way I stopped writing music for my enjoyment. That is not to say that I don’t enjoy writing songs for my clients, but it is no longer a leisure activity or a way to express myself. Sometimes it can feel like I have used up all my creative energy at work and by the time I have any downtime I just want to turn my brain off instead of doing anything creative.
My thoughts
The ways we enjoy music and beyond is how our clients enjoy music. I think it is important to experience music in different ways to better understand our clients and the role that music plays in their life.
Making sure I continue to love music will be an ongoing mission throughout my life as a professional and as a person. I don’t think I’ll ever not love music but I could see it becoming more of a job and less of something I enjoy. Our connection and love for music is part of what makes us good at our job and successful. I never want to lose that.
