A majority of music therapy students have to leave their home areas for internship. This was also the case for me. I am from a small town in Iowa, so Springfield, IL was a big change for me. I love traveling and exploring new places, so I have enjoyed getting to explore Springfield during my time in internship. These are some of my favorite things about the Springfield area.
The Stores
As stated, I am from a very small town. Something that excited me when I got to Springfield was that there was a large mall and a Target in town! Where I am from the closest mall and Target are a half an hour away. I have had so much fun on weekends window shopping at the mall and going to Target. I’ve enjoyed exploring local boutiques, music, and record stores. I have enjoyed going to the Springfield Old Capitol Farmers Market on Saturdays! Additionally, I have found the Scheels store here in Springfield to be incredibly exciting, there is a full size Ferris wheel!
The History
I am a bit of a history and architecture nerd. I was thrilled to discover all of the history and old houses that are in Springfield. I have enjoyed going to places like the Dana Thomas House. Additionally, I have explored many of the Lincoln sites like the museum, house, and tomb. I have enjoyed going on drives around Oak Lawn Cemetery and past the beautiful houses near Washington Park.
Washington Park
Washington Park is one of my favorite places in Springfield. Washington Park is less than five minutes from MTC, so on many occasions I have spent my weekly self care time there. I love the botanical gardens and listening to the bell tower. Additionally, there is a lagoon full of ducks and geese. I love going there and watching the ducks and geese swim around.
Surrounding Towns
I love going on drives and exploring the surrounding area. Because of this, I have gotten to discover and explore many of the wonderful towns near Springfield. I have discovered many wonderful antique shops in some of the surrounding towns. One of my favorite towns is Petersburg. Petersburg has some beautiful houses, wonderful downtown area, and has some very wonderful historical sites. Additionally, I enjoyed exploring Elkhart when my family visited a few months ago. In Elkhart there was an adorable restaurant that had some of the best pie I have ever eaten.
Horseshoes
For those who are not familiar with the beauty that is a horseshoe, horseshoes are a dish that consists of a piece of bread, some sort of meat (particularly a type of burger), french fries, and cheese sauce. Prior to arriving in Springfield, I had never had a horseshoe before. During my first visit to Springfield, I read about how the horseshoe is a Springfield staple. Naturally, I felt like I needed to try these famous Horseshoes. After trying a horseshoe, I fell in love. Horseshoes are now one of my favorite meals and I have enjoyed trying different horseshoes around Springfield. I have discovered that I particularly like horseshoes with bean burgers and white cheese sauce.
Music Therapy Connections
Of course I couldn’t leave MTC off of a list of my favorite things in the Springfield area. :)
Hello all! I hope your week has been going well! As of this Friday, I have one month left of my internship!! During these last few months of my internship I have taken on more and more responsibility during music therapy sessions. Along with this greater responsibility, I have also gotten to experience things that I have never gotten to experience before. During my blog post this week, I will be discussing some of these new experiences!
Leading Sessions Alone
Last week, one of my supervisors had an emergency situation. Due to this, my supervisor was unable to accompany and supervise me while leading my sessions. I had been leading sessions solo for about a month at this point, but I had my supervisor there to supervise me and give advice before and after sessions. Now, I unexpectedly had to go on my own to the contract sites and see clients alone at MTC. This was very nerve racking for me, but it required me to trust in myself and my abilities as a music therapist intern. I was unexpectedly put into this new situation, but I was proud of myself for taking on the challenge and responsibility.
Trying a New Instrument
I had been brainstorming new interventions to use with my clients at MTC. Particularly, I wanted to find a new intervention to target fine motor skills with one of my clients. I thought about using an autoharp to target this goal. However, this idea quickly had to change when I discovered MTC does not have an autoharp. One of my supervisors shared with me that there was a Q-Chord at MTC. A Q-Chord is an electronic instrument that plays a chord when pressing a button. I was familiar with the Q-Chord, but I had never played one before. I worked to become acquainted with how to use and play a Q-Chord over the week. At the end of the week, I implemented the Q-Chord into the session with the client. The client took to using the Q-Chord quickly and I look forward to using it in upcoming sessions with this client.
Co-treating for the First Time!
One of the most exciting new experiences I had this last week was that I had the opportunity to co-treat with a physical therapist at St. John’s Children’s hospital! As I have written about in the past, I love interdisciplinary work! One of my upcoming assignments is to co-treat with a related professional. One of the patients I have been seeing regularly at the hospital has also been receiving regular physical therapy services. Because of this, my supervisor and I reached out to the physical therapy services at the St. John’s about possible opportunities to co-treat.
I was thrilled to receive a call from one of the physical therapists about two opportunities to co-treat! I was very excited for this opportunity to co-treat, but I was very nervous because this was something I have never done before. Going into the sessions, I found it difficult to find where to insert myself into the session. However, I tried not to overthink this and worked to find places where I could support the work the physical therapist was doing. In the end, I was thrilled with how the sessions went and the physical therapist also stated excitement about the sessions and co-treating with music therapy in the future.
Overall, these new experiences were scary and challenging at times, but I feel I have grown so much from them! I look forward to seeing what other new experiences I get during the last month of my internship and throughout my career as a music therapist.
We all have our personal holidays; birthdays, anniversaries, etc. I have my own personal holiday that happened this last week that is a bit peculiar. February 15th marked my 5th annual Rejection Day celebration. A quick disclaimer, this day has nothing to do with Valentine’s Day, which occurs the day before. Rejection Day is the day that found out I was rejected from what I thought was my dream college. I figured this is a timely story to share as many are applying and auditioning for music therapy programs and internships this time of year.
When I decided that I was going to major in music therapy in high school, I knew the college I wanted to attend. The college appeared perfect; it had the populations I wanted to work with, it wasn’t too far away from home, and it had a brand new and amazing music building. For years, all I could imagine was going to this college and having all my music therapy dreams come true.
My senior year of high school, I originally applied for two colleges. These colleges were my “dream college” and a back up. I put a lot of time and effort into my auditions. Additionally, I worked with a voice instructor to be musically prepared for the songs. However, I wasn’t a strong sight reader and wasn’t feeling well the day of my audition at my “dream college”. I remembered coming out of the audition not feeling like I did great, but still hopeful I did well enough to get in.
A week later, I remember my Dad calling to tell me there was an email for me from the school of music at my “dream school”. I remember sitting in my car opening that email and my nervous excitement. Little did I know at the time how badly that email would hurt to read. In that moment everything I had imagined for myself felt like it shattered.
This wasn’t the end of the line in anyway, I had been accepted by the other college I auditioned for as a music therapy major. However, I did not get a good feeling when I visited that other college. I felt so lost, I didn’t get accepted to the college of my dreams and the college I was accepted to didn’t feel like the right place for me.
In between feeling sorry for myself and bowls of ice cream, my Dad suggested we call Western Illinois University. WIU was a college I had talked about applying for, but never got around to it with the excitement of senior year and focusing on my other auditions. We called WIU, and everything just seemed to fall into place. I scheduled my audition that day, and a week and half later I was in Macomb, Il at my audition.
Walking into Browne Hall for the first time just felt right. It wasn’t a big, fancy, or brand new music building, but it was welcoming. All of the students and professors I interacted with were so kind and inviting, I could see myself being a student there and working with these professors. So from that day on I knew that I was going to go to WIU.
In hindsight, I feel so fortunate that I didn’t get into that college. If I would have, I would have never gone to WIU. In turn, I wouldn’t have met my best friends or had the many wonderful opportunities that I got to have at WIU. Additionally, I wouldn’t be interning at Music Therapy Connections.
One of the things that I was most proud of was that I didn’t let this rejection deter me from my dream of becoming a music therapist. I could have very easily let that rejection define me and given up, but I didn’t. I just found a different path toward my dream.
Life is unexpected and being rejected can hurt so bad. What I learned from this is that rejections aren’t the end of the road, they are just pointing you down the road you’re supposed to take.
Due to Valentine’s Day, love is a hot topic during the month of February. I figured for my blog post this week I would share something that I love, songbooks! With the internet, songbooks are not as necessary as they formally were. However, I find songbooks to be incredibly great resources for discovering and learning songs. Following are some of my favorite song books that I love to make use of during my music therapy work.
The Daily Ukulele
The Daily Ukulele is wonderful. This book has an amazing range of genres, ranging from jazz, musical theater, rock and roll, and country. The songs in this book can be used with children through older adults. It is one of the first books that I reference when looking for songs and is one of my favorite songbooks.
The Big Book of Nostalgia
The Big Book of Nostalgia is another book I like to reference when I am looking for songs. This book is full of classic songs from the early to mid 1900s. It also gives a short explanation of all of the songs, along with a chart of when the song charted in the United States. I have found this book greatly supports my work with older adults
The New Decade Series
I currently own three of the books in this series; Hits of the 1940s, Hits of the 1950s, and Hits of the 1960s. This series of books runs from the 1920s-2010s. I have found that they are a great resource to find what the top songs of each decade were for the past 100 years. Additionally, these books come with a code to access recordings and accompaniment tracks for each of each song. I have used these books in my work with older adults and with the clients I work with at SPARC.
The Guitar Songbook for Music Therapy
This was the first songbook I bought as a music therapy major my freshman year of college. It is not a very big book, but it is a wonderful resource for folk songs, spirituals, and children’s songs that are often used in music therapy work. Additionally, the book gives ideas on how to implement many of these songs into your music therapy sessions.
The Tune Book
The Tune Book is the most peculiar of all of the songbooks I own, but is also one of my favorites. I found this book during a music library sale my freshman year of college. The book appears to be from the 80’s or 90’s. It has the strangest set up of any music book I have ever seen, with the publishers cramming as many songs as they could on each page. It’s song range is very allectic as well, ranging from folk songs to hymns to country to reggae to classic standards. I have no idea what audience this songbook was intended for, but it has become one of my favorites and greatest resources as a music therapist in training.
That is only the tip of the iceberg of my songbook collection. These books have been such a great resource to me as a music therapist in training! What are some of your favorite song books?
Hello all! We had a lot of snow this last week in Springfield. I hope you are staying warm wherever you are at!
Snow days are something I thought would not experience anymore after finishing school. However, with the snowstorm that hit Springfield, I had two snow days. As a child, I loved snow days; it was so much fun to have a day to play in the snow and watch movies. Even in college, snow days were a wonderful opportunity to practice selfcare and to get ahead on assignments.
However, I found that I don’t quite enjoy these snow days as much as I did in the past. The past few weeks have been full of cancellations due to COVID-19. I was looking forward to a “normal” week again, something I haven’t had since the December holidays. To quote my supervisor Emma, “No week is normal when working in private practice”. I attempted to make the best out of my two days off. In this bog post I will be taking you through what snow days looked like as a music therapy intern.
Pre-Storm: Tuesday
Throughout our day at the Hope School, Emma and I heard whispers of the upcoming storm and the possibility of a school cancelation. By the time we left Hope that day, it was confirmed that classes were canceled the following day. When I got to MTC, my supervisors encouraged me to take home anything I would need from MTC and I was advised not to go out the next day. I ended that day grabbing a few extra supplies from Aldi’s before returning to my apartment, where I would spend the next few days.
Snow Day #1: Wednesday
Typically I go with my supervisor, Molly, to SPARC on Wednesday mornings. Due to the storm, SPARC was closed for the day. I spent my morning working on songs for my sessions at SPARC, Concordia, and MTC. I then finished out my morning zooming with my supervisor, Emma, which we discussed how to lead virtual voice lessons. That afternoon, I helped lead a virtual voice lesson and led two virtual piano lesson. I also gave myself some selfcare breaks throughout the day that consisted of watching Grey’s Anatomy and cuddling with my cat.
Snow Day #2: Thursday
I typically start my Thursdays at St. John’s Children’s Hospital with my supervisor, Katey. After assessing the road conditions and realizing my car was stuck in a snow drift (see picture above), I came to the sad concussion that I was stuck another day. I spent my morning similarly to the day before, lots of practicing for upcoming sessions. I attended my weekly supervision and repertoire check via Zoom. I then spent the afternoon working on more songs, taking self-care time, and plotting how to dig my car out of its snowy prison.
Friday: Freedom!
I was determined to see my clients at St. John’s and Concordia. I figured out how to use a plastic trash can to scoop the snow away from my car. After about a half an hour of digging, my car was free, I was able to go to my sessions that day, and even grabbed a Starbucks coffee during my scheduled self care time.
Overall, while I didn’t enjoy being cooped up in my apartment, I did learn a few things from my two snow days.
Flexibility
Adaptability
How much I love working with my clients and patients
My team members and I leading a virtual music activity at the WIU Adapted Motor Clinic, spring 2021.
Interdisciplinary work has been something that has interested me since I started college. During my time at WIU, I took part in the WIU Adapted Motor Clinic. This was a multidisciplinary project that provided physical education services to local students with special needs. During my time working in the Adapted Motor Clinic, I had the opportunity to collaborate and co-treat with students studying to be educators, speech language pathologists, and recreation therapists.
I believe there is much value in collaborating with related professions. Because of this, I was very excited to see that one of my internship assignments was to observe three professionals working in related professions. In the past 20 weeks of my internship, I’ve had the opportunity to observe a physical therapist, an art therapist, and an educator in a pediatric medical setting.
Physical Therapy
The first professional I observed was a physical therapist at St. John’s Children’s Hospital. I observed the physical therapist work with a patient who was post-surgery and also had developmental delays. It was interesting to watch the exercises the physical therapist did with the patient. Additionally, it was great to observe how the physical therapist interacted with the patient. Even though the patient had limited communication, the physical therapist was very good at asking questions that the patient could answer and still was very conversational with the patient.
This opened my eyes on how music therapy could support a physical therapist’s work with a patient. To encourage motor movement instrument play could used. An example of this would be using a drum to encourage the patient to reach and extend their arm. Additionally, the movements of the exercise could be written into a song or choreographed to the patient’s preferred music.
Art Therapy
The second professional I observed was an art therapist at the Hope Learning Academy. I was extremely excited to observe art therapy sessions. I’ve heard and read a lot about art therapy, but have not had the chance to meet an art therapist or observe art therapy sessions. I observed the art therapist lead one individual session and two group sessions with students at the Hope Learning Academy. I was surprised to see that the art therapist was covering a similar topic that my supervisor and I have been covering during our group music therapy sessions at Hope.
This inspired me to think about how a music therapist could continue to collaborate with an art therapist at the in an educational setting. There could be possibilities of collaboration during individual sessions with music and art interventions. Additionally, we could purposely align some of the topics in our respective sessions.
Education Services
The final professional I observed was an educator with the education services at St. John’s Children’s Hospital. I was familiar with the educator at St. John’s as she is another member of the St. John’s Children’s Hospital Creative Art Therapies Team. My supervisor and I cross paths with her often and I have seen her work from a far, so I was excited to directly observe her work. During patient interactions, the educator would ask patients about what they were doing in school and if they had any school work they needed help with while hospitalized. Additionally, the educator gave out developmentally appropriate books, activities, and toys to patients of all ages.
With educational services, music therapy can support their work by reviewing academic skills during our sessions. Additionally, music therapists can make patients aware of tutoring service and make patient referrals to the educator.
Overall, I am glad I had the opportunity to observe these related professions. It gave me much food for thought on how we can support and work with these related services to best serve our clients, students, and patients. I look forward to possible collaborations with related professional in the future.
