This week has been crazy (in a good way of course)! I’ve started to lead more in all of my sessions here at Music Therapy Connections as well as at the hospital and I’ve been pushed out of my comfort zone so many times. From these experiences, I’ve learned that there are some things that I should’ve practiced more during college that would have made my life a little easier now.
In college, I should have spent more time:
Building a HUGE knowledge of repertoire.
Typically, I only learned the music that I needed to learn for my practicum sessions. It wasn’t until this summer that I started pushing myself outside of the popular music realm and now I’m quickly realizing how important it is to know songs from each genre and decade of music. At the hospital, I meet with a lot of families and patients who have such a wide range of music preferences and I should at least be able to talk about or play the music they love the most! However, it’s literally impossible to learn every piece of music ever written, but having a general knowledge of a few famous bands or knowing how to play a few hit songs from each decade will be extremely important. Also, for current music therapy students, learn the National Anthem. You will never know when someone might ask you to play it. In general, it’s also just a great song to know.
Practicing playing in different styles.
Just like having a huge knowledge of different repertoire, it’s important to be able to play in different styles. Again, it wasn’t until late last semester and this summer that I started picking on the guitar and playing different songs with contrasting styles. I have started practicing simple songs such as “Twinkle, Twinkle” (or any simple song that I know the chords to really well) and trying to play it in different styles. This has helped me tremendously and something that I wish I had started practicing sooner.
Practicing the things that scare me the most.
Public speaking scares me. My brain gets all the words jumbled up whenever I have to give a presentation or talk to someone I don’t know. However, as a music therapy intern transitioning to a professional, I’ve had to talk to so many different people. I wish that during college I had pushed myself out of my comfort zone and talked to new people instead of avoiding it. We’re asked every day what music therapy is so oral communication skills as well as people skills are extremely important. One way that I am practicing becoming more comfortable talking to people is by striking up conversations with new people I see throughout the day such as having a quick chat about someone’s day in the line at Meijer. That being said, find something that scares you and face it head on every day!
Even though I did practice these things before my internship, I should have challenged myself even more. Thankfully, I am in an environment where I can challenge myself everyday to learn these skills, grow, and continue pushing myself outside of my comfort zone so that I can continue to effectively transition from a student to a professional!
To be honest, this was a hard week; I struggled with confidence every day. In previous blog posts, I’ve written about how confidence has been an issue my entire life, but today I had a realization and I hope it helps anyone who is also struggling with confidence.
I decided to take some time for self-care this morning and play my flute.Although I hadn’t played the flute in a while, it came back to me easily. I reflected on my journey with playing the flute and realized that it hadn’t been easy. When I was younger and had first started playing the flute, I hit many bumps in the road and felt like giving up because nothing came easy. I spent hours practicing and perfecting each piece, learning the basics and then the technical skills. But I put in the hard work then, which now makes playing the flute a little easier.
How does this all relate to music therapy and my internship? I felt confident in my flute playing because I had practiced and worked for so many years on it and now it comes naturally to me. During my internship, I am taking voice lessons, learning to play different styles on the guitar/piano, and practicing improvisation. This week, specifically, I beat myself up because I struggled in these areas and was not “perfect.” Just like I struggled with my flute playing at first, which is now an extremely comfortable instrument for me, I will get comfortable with singing, playing those different styles on guitar or piano, and improvising during a session, if I practice them frequently. My confidence will increase over time. It took me several years to be confident in my flute playing, but I was eventually confident, with practice.
You can’t expect yourself to be great at a new skill immediately; that is what I learned this week. Sometimes you just have to get out of your own head and stop expecting perfection. When I first started playing flute, I wasn’t perfect and I STILL can grow and learn new skills even after playing for so long. The same things apply to my internship. I choose to keep learning, growing, trying my best, and being confident that confidence with these skills WILL come with practice.
Life is a fun journey and it’s even better with confidence!
My schedule is officially full and I’m starting to lead more during sessions and adaptive lessons. I’ve also received more constructive criticism, but that is an importantpart of growing and learning! All of this new information and learning that I am doing and the fact that I am a perfectionist makes it fairly easy to quickly become overwhelmed. Sometimes I feel like there is so much to learn and that there isn’t enough time to learn it all before becoming a professional music therapist.
For those who might be feeling the same way, you might feel like you want to give up and stop trying completely; this is normal and sometimes I feel like I want to shut down too. But perseverance and remembering your dreams and goals is important in pushing through. Remembering that I want to work with children, perform research furthering the field of music therapy, and maybe one day run my own private practice, helps me refocus and continue learning.
During my internship, I have the chance to absorb so much new information and experience every opportunity that arises. I have the chance to learn from my mistakes and work towards being a professional and great music therapist with two wonderful supervisors encouraging me and helping me along the way. As my internship progresses, it will become more manageable and the skills that I am currently learning will become second nature. I just have to get over this hump and the only way to do that is to persevere and keep my goals and dreams in sight. Everyday is a new learning opportunity, and I don’t have to be perfect because no one is perfect!
If you breathe, refocus, persevere, and continue learning then you will become successful no matter what.
I can’t believe that I am officially done with my first month of internship! I have learned so much in this past month and am so grateful for all the opportunities that I’ve had so far.
The biggest thing I’ve learned this month, besides everything clinical, is how to be and stay organized. You go from seeing one client or group once a week for an hour during practicum to seeing fifteen or more clients in your internship. It’s definitely an adjustment and extremely important to stay organized. During the past month I’ve figured out some ways to make sure I am organized so that I can concentrate on learning.
I created a song binder that includes every genre of music (music from different decades, movies, Disney, children, pop, hello/goodbye, and movement/instrument songs). When a client wants a specific song and I don’t have my IPad available, I can just look in my song binder for the lead sheet.I also have a binder that has tabs for each day and each client (with just the first initial of their first name) where I keep all my documentation sheets. It’s easier to plan a session when all the information is presented in a concise way under that client’s tab. I also have a binder for each off-site facility that I go to so that I can just grab that binder and go.
Also, I kept all of my notes from college. Inspired by Katey and Rachel, I organized my notes into different categories (such as MT & Medicine or MT & Schools) and placed them into a binder as well. When I go to study for my board certification exam, I’ll be thankful I put in that work so that I can easily reference/review any material.
I know it sounds like a lot of binders, but this system of organization works for me. If you are a current music therapy student or just starting out your internship, I encourage you to create an organization system that works for you that will help make your life easier! My supervisors helped guide me and showed me their methods of organization, which helped me develop mine.
This week, I learned all about time management! In order to effectively take time for self-care, it is important to be conscious of how you spend your time. In college, I waited until I got home from class to do assignments and barely worked on them during my breaks throughout the day. The evening was always when I could concentrate the best anyway. However, so far during my internship, I have learned that this method will not always be the best way to get things done and it prevents me from having much time for myself.
Here are two things that I learned this week about time management that I discovered to be helpful:
1) Leave work at work.
I struggle with this because I concentrate better at night time. However, this week, I learned that if I plan for the next day when I get home at night, I don’t have any time for self-care. I get home late every evening and when I should be relaxing and winding down from the day, I’m planning or working on something. Don’t do that! Plan, document, and prepare at work; only work on minor preparation tasks and practicing repertoire at home. This week, I realized that utilizing the preparation/documentation periods that are built into your schedule during the day to the fullest potential, means that there will be less to do at night, which means more time for self-care. If you take care of yourself, you’re better able to help others.
2) Don’t over plan.
I’m a planner and like to plan out every single thing that could possibly happen during the day or in a session. However, like most of us know, plans leave little room for flexibility and may not fit the needs of the client for that specific day! Of course it’s good to be prepared for everything that could happen and have an outline of the interventions that will be used to target the client’s goals/objective, but every single detail doesn’t need to be planned out; this week, I’ve learned that being flexible during a session is SO important. When something goes differently than what you expected, it is important to have those back pocket interventions you can use, that way the client is always working towards their goals.
