This week, the Chicago Tribune published an article highlighting the benefits of music therapy for individuals with dementia.
In the article, McCoppin (2018), not only provided an overview of music’s effectiveness with individuals affected by Alzheimer’s Disease, but also introduced a current study led by neurologist, Dr. Borna Bonakdarpour, which studied the impact of music therapy with nursing home residents affected by various forms of dementia, including its effect on improvements in cognition, conversation and relationships.
With the rise of dementia diagnosed in older adults, this article comes at a critical time where more and more people are seeking out progressive treatment options for their loved ones who have been declining in responsiveness to outside stimulation, orientation to their environment, and connection with close ones.
As a music therapist who regularly works with older adults with dementia, I see the toll that dementia takes on residents. However, I view it as a privilege to facilitate a supportive environment where familiar songs bring a sense of normalcy and social connection to the residents’ day.
With the knowledge base expanding in regards to the benefits of music for older adults, it is also important to know that special consideration and sensitivity must be applied when using music therapeutically. Not all music and music activities are suitable for older adults with dementia, as it is important to take into consideration the following:
cultural background of clients
creating a supportive environment to handle sensitive topics of discussion or unexpected emotional reactions that may arise
the physical, psycho-social, and sensory status of each individual.
Want to learn more? Check out the article for yourself, or take a look at our current collection of resources on music therapy and older adults.
Song discussion and songwriting can be beneficial and fascinating practices. Not only do they give an opportunity for the client to respond to a song in a real and genuine way, but they are also exercises in expecting the unexpected.
It can be scary to never really know how the client will respond. Thankfully, through many hours of clinical training, embracing the uncomfortable has become easier. I’ve come to appreciate the moments where my clients feel empowered to express themselves through song lyrics in a safe space.
How do I validate emotions that can’t exactly be defined?
One song discussion and songwriting intervention that I have recently used involved goals of discriminating and processing emotions, increasing self expression, increasing reminiscence, and strengthening coping skills.
The application began when I played a song that was requested by my client. Once the song ended, I asked my client how it made her feel. After a long pause, my client answered, “somewhat in between.”
In my head, I was pondering: how do I validate emotions that can’t exactly be defined? Do they need to be defined to be valid? All of a sudden, this intervention popped up in my head that both honored my client’s response and could be a starting point in helping my client increase her coping skills and emotional processing.
My client mentioned that the song made her feel both sad and happy. I grabbed my white board and used a dry erase marker to draw a happy face on the left side of the board, a sad face on the right side, and a neutral face in the middle.
With each experience, I validated what was shared and made her know that it was a safe place to share only what she felt comfortable with.
Next, I went through the lyrics, two lines at a time, and asked my client to place the lines under each emotion that best matched how the lyrics made her feel.
After we finished placing the lyrics under the various emotions, we took a look at the board and saw just how mixed a song could make someone feel. Not only was this helpful for my client to visually see the diversity of emotions, but it also helped the her to see that it was okay to not feel strictly “happy” or “sad” all the time.
To make this intervention more personal and to further allow my client to discriminate emotions based on her own experiences, I prompted my client to describe moments in her life where she felt happy, sad, and in between. With each experience shared, I validated what she said and again stated that it was a safe place to share only what she felt comfortable with.
We didn’t have time to put her experiences to music yet, but we are excited to finish our original song during our next session.
Song discussion and songwriting can be a very personal experience, and therefore can look different for each client. What are ways that you have incorporated emotional goals and coping skills in song discussion and songwriting? We’d love to hear from your experiences, so let us know in the comments below!
That’s one of the questions I get asked the most when I tell people that I’m a music therapist. I usually list off my instruments and the conversation continues.
You’d think I’d get tired of answering this question. Instead, it’s the opposite.
I’m always glad when someone asks because it gives me an opportunity to reflect on each instrument I’ve learned, the relationship I’ve had with each instrument, the season in my life during which I was learning, and where it has brought me today.
Given the sheer amount of time, financial investment, practicing, and personal growth that is associated with learning instruments, choosing an instrument and sticking with it is a big deal!
For me, the musical journey began at age five, when I started taking piano lessons with my sisters.
Was it fun all the time? No.
Did my parents have to shuttle four kids to their lessons every week? Yes.
Did I have to practice over and over? Yes.
Was it worth it? Yes.
To name everything I have gained as a result of taking piano lessons would take a long time. Therefore, I will share just a few:
Learning discipline (i.e. “doing the things that are good for me even when I don’t feel it)
Finding a creative outlet
Building confidence and competence to grow in a new skill
Gaining opportunities to share music with others (joining the praise team at my church or accompanying friends who love to sing)
One of the best things about the piano was that it served as a foundation to the other instruments that I learned.
I began the French horn at age 11.
While I never had any previous experience with the horn, my dad played the trumpet and instilled within his kids a deep love for brass instruments. I loved how the French horn looked, sounded, and also the fact that you could turn it all around and spit would come out! All in all, music was enjoyable to me, but I did’t become serious about it until I started to think about college and what I would major in.
My senior year in high school presented a series of new challenges including auditioning for an honors orchestra, understanding the role of principal horn, and eventually, committing to audition for colleges as a prospective performance major.
It was a stressful time in my life, but the feeling of working so hard towards my goals and meeting them gave me the fuel and confidence to continue my music journey in college as a horn performance major.
While at college, I immersed myself in learning repertoire, technique, and fundamentals. All of which deepened my skills and forced me to take ownership of my own growth as a musician.
My confidence as a performer was lacking, however. I struggled with feelings of inadequacy and fear of failure. It came to a point where I no longer felt confident as a musician and I wanted to desperately find the joy and confidence I had felt when I first started to fall in love with music as a young piano student.
Long story short, I found my way from the field of performance to music therapy, where my love of music was not stolen by a drive for perfection, but was able to be expressed in helping others.
Over time, I began to learn guitar and pursued voice lessons. By the end of my college career, the list of instruments had grown, confidence was regained, and my joy for music continues to fuel everything I do.
This week, most of my students are finishing their last couple days of school, and let me tell you, they are ready! They’re ready to sleep in, play outside, and pretty much do everything except sit and focus during music lessons.
While I totally understand wanting to mentally check out as soon as the weather outside starts getting warmer, I still want my students to stay motivated, no matter the season. In this blog post, I want to share some tips and tricks that have helped my students remain engaged-even when it’s hard.
Get Creative
I often supplement music theory concepts with hands-on learning. This may include:
Coloring to encourage rhythm concepts and dancing to encourage musical expression
Encourage students to tap into their imagination when it comes to routine exercises
Pretend that the black keys on the piano are “mattresses” the fingers are “sleeping on” to encourage finger placement as well as fluid motor movement. It’s a great way to get students to approach technical skills and practicing in a fun way.
Divide Lessons Into Smaller Chunks
The range of my students’ attention span can be anywhere from a full 45 minutes to a measly 2 minutes.
To maintain engagement with my students who have a hard time focusing for longer periods of time, I often lay out a schedule that can consist of different lesson activities lasting 3-10 minutes each.
I then set goals for the lesson and if the schedule is completed, the student gets to earn a small reward (A lot of my students are huge sticker fans).
Offer Choices
Sometimes, at the end of a lesson, there might be an extra five minutes. I like to add choices of fun things to do! This may include:
Improvising a piece of their own
Playing a favorite piece that they’ve played in the past
Giving them a choice of what song they want to play next
This is very effective in honoring the students’ creativity but also getting them to take more ownership of their lesson, which hopefully will translate to more enjoyment of music for the long haul!
Those are all my tips for now! As I continue to teach, I always have to remind myself that every student is unique and is learning at their own pace. I love that each week I get to learn new ways to help my students grow and achieve their goals.
If you or someone you know is interested in music lessons, summer is a great time to ease into lessons and try it out!
This past weekend, many of my music therapy colleagues celebrated the milestone of completing all academic coursework, and many are on the way towards starting internship soon.
As I reflect back on the different life transitions in my music therapy career, I can’t believe that it’s already been a year since I finished these milestones! A lot has changed since entering the “real world,” yet, I still see how some things I learned in internship continue to be relevant in my day to day as a working professional.
For me, internship was a season of self care, capacity stretching, and professional growth. These things have all stuck with me, and continue to be relevant in my work at Music Therapy Connections.
Self Care – With new assignments and experiences each week, internship is very fast paced. It’s so easy to be overwhelmed at all the new responsibilities, but through regularly journaling about my day, my reactions, and the struggles that I encountered, I began to see how important it was to be in tune with my inner thoughts and actively seek opportunities to cope with stressful situations in a healthy way.
For me, self care looks like setting time aside in my schedule or in my commute to mentally and emotionally transition from home life to work life. I also like to do things that remind me that my identity and purpose isn’t defined solely through music therapy, such as spend time to deepen my relationship with my family and friends, as well as exercise.
Capacity Stretching – As a student, you are usually doing music therapy once a week, and preparing and doing documentation for that one session for a couple of days. In internship, you are typically leading multiple sessions a day for five days a week, and decreasing prep and documentation time significantly.
While growth in capacity doesn’t happen overnight, it is something that is essential in the transition from internship to working life. Not only is it about growing capacity, but it’s also about becoming more comfortable with increasing efficiency with planning time. This is definitely something that I am still growing in, especially since I know things will only get busier!
Professional Growth – I love how internship not only prepares you to do music therapy, but to also interact and work with other professionals and other individuals who support your clients. Establishing effective work and professional habits and communicating with others is definitely a skill that I use every day to talk with parents, support workers, future contracts, and to the public.
That being said, there are some things from internship that I’ve since learned were specific to my internship season.
Constant accountability – Every week in my internship, I had time devoted to meeting with my supervisors to discuss any issues and to help me stay on track. Now that I am working, it is important that I take ownership of my work and take steps to develop areas in need even when I don’t have a supervisor to keep me accountable.
Access to Information – As an intern, I took advantage of my student status and utilized my school library’s database of research articles on a weekly basis. Now that I’ve officially graduated, I miss no longer having that access through my student account. I guess part of working in the real world is about letting go of student perks, eventually…
That’s all my post-internship thoughts for now.
Shout out to all the new interns, current interns, and post-interns who are all walking this music therapy journey with me! If you have any internship stories, I’d love to hear them in the comments below!
