by Alisabeth Hopper | Mar 21, 2016 | Intern's Corner, MTC
Hello all,
This week has been filled with goodbyes and what we call “closure”. I never anticipated how incredibly challenging this was going to be.
My experiences of closure up to this point has been limited to a three month treatment period. Where I would, at the end of my practicum experience, say goodbye to my clients and tell them that our time had unfortunately come to an end. Then, I was focused on my clients and their acceptance of my services being terminated.
This has been nothing like that.
I have spent six months with the same students and clients. They are all special to me in their own way. Saying goodbye to them and allowing them to transition back to their prior therapists has been more challenging than I could have anticipated. I am finding that even though I am excited for my own professional experience to begin, I will miss spending time with these clients every week.
It is the end of a period in my life dense with growth and excitement. As I transition into the next phase of my life I am looking forward to what’s ahead and grateful to have been blessed with such a wonderful internship.
There is only one last step to becoming a board certified music therapist: the exam.
-AH
by Katey Kratz | Mar 10, 2016 | MTC
One of the pieces of advice I’ve heard over and over from business owners is to have set hours for yourself and shut everything off after a certain time. While this may be great advice for some, it doesn’t always work for me.
I believe more in listening to what your body and brain are telling you and following your own personal work flow. Instead of pushing myself to do the same tasks at the same time every day or follow my planned out to-do list to the T, I listen to what my body is telling me I should do.
I find that by following my own personal flow and doing something I’m drawn to at that moment, I’m able to be more productive, creative, and focused. Also, if I’m working on something I WANT to do, the work usually turns out 10x better than if I’m forcing myself to get it done.
Example: The other night, I was wrapping up with students and as everyone was going home when I got the urge to put down one of the tracks for our upcoming session. I was drawn to it and loved doing it! An hour later, I had one of my songs done and loved the way it turned out, even though it was past normal working hours. I worked on a project that drew me in and it was so much easier to get done that way.
This method also means listening to my body when it wants to do nothing. Taking a break is not just ok, but necessary. If you need permission to sit on your behind and turn on Grey’s Anatomy, take a long bath, go for a walk, or curl up and take a cat nap, I’m giving it to you now!! DO IT! And don’t give yourself one ounce of guilt.
I’ll be the first to admit, there are a couple flaws in my method and a couple drawbacks, but I’ve never felt better, been happier, or produced better work than the days where I am 100% honest with myself and followed what I am inspired to do.
Drawbacks and how to handle them:
- Bills have to be paid and calls have to be made – Save or schedule these (or other unpleasant tasks) for when you usually feel best in your day and are free of other distractions. That way you can accomplish them quickly without getting too frustrated or exhausted.
- Deadlines – We all have them in one sense or another. If you have control over when deadlines are, be realistic with yourself and give yourself plenty of time to accomplish what you need with some extra time thrown in there for those days when projects are a little harder. If you don’t have control, find your flow and run with it. If something isn’t working out, switch tasks and come back to it.
- Required or scheduled tasks – We all have parts of our day or tasks that we are required to do. Try to keep a positive attitude, get plenty of sleep, surround yourself with positive people and energy, and make it yours. If you don’t like cooking every night, try cooking all your meals one day a week. Paper work got you down? Listen to your favorite tunes. Take a break and walk. Grab your favorite beverage. Sit in your favorite spot. Use fun colored pens. Etc.
The moral of the story is, do what works for YOU!! Take the time to figure out what your work flow and follow that. You do you!
by Rachel | Mar 6, 2016 | MTC, Tips & Tricks
In my early days as a music therapist, adapting songs and interventions on the spot was a real challenge. I come from a performance background, so I’m all about rehearsing and then executing as practiced. But it didn’t take long to realize that approach just doesn’t work in the music therapy setting, especially when young children are involved.
Being flexible, creative, and quick on your feet are three essential characteristics of anyone who facilitates music groups or classes with kids. Alisabeth displayed all of the above a few weeks ago during our Listen & Learn for Little Ones class, when she realized that a song we had planned to use with the stretchy band just wasn’t going to work.
Although it had gone perfectly well as planned in an earlier class, this particular group of children was older and wanted to move more freely around the room. So Alisabeth put the stretchy band up instead of redirecting the kids and tweaked the song lyrics right there on the spot, all without interrupting the activity.
Did the new lyrics match the ones the parents were following in their binders? Nope, but nobody cared — because the kids were happy and engaged. As Alisabeth’s internship supervisor as well as the parent of a child in that class, I was super impressed by her quick thinking and ability to adapt to meet her students’ needs.
Don’t be afraid to stray from the binder, lesson plan, or whatever else you prepared, if it’s not working. Adapting is a skill that takes time to develop, but you’ll only get better with practice.
by Alisabeth Hopper | Feb 29, 2016 | Intern's Corner, MTC
As some of you may or may not know, I am coming up on the end of my six month internship. I have three weeks until I take the board certification exam and I cannot believe how fast the time has gone! Beginning the final month of internship has called for quite a bit of reminiscing. In that same spirit, I thought I would share with you what has been on my mind.
5 Things I Would Say to Myself as A Freshman in Music Therapy
- Your major is “weird” and that’s okay. You will get your fair share of disapproving chuckles and confused looks when asked about your major but if you have faith in what you do, and you know the efficacy of what you do then that’s what matters.
- You will live through Music History. I promise. And you might even learn something along the way. ;)
- Take care of you. College is hard, and unfortunately life after college isn’t any less crazy. So take the time, rest, enjoy yourself, and find the balance because this isn’t a sprint, its a marathon.
- Take it all in. It’s so cliche, but it’s true: you begin college and before you know it you’re writing a blog at the end of your internship about five things you would say to yourself five years ago if you could. So just know…
- You’re going to be okay. There is no recipe for how to muscle through college and everything that is ahead of you so don’t worry about doing it right, just do it. You’ve got this. Wake up every morning and know that all of your hard work is for something, and that one day you will be proud of where you have been and how far you have come.
Thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!
-AH
by Katey Kratz | Feb 25, 2016 | Business Bits, MTC
A few weeks ago my cousin tagged me (and about a hundred other people) in a post on Facebook. The post contained a video entitled “what’s your why?” I liked the video and its inspirational message but didn’t think much of it at the time.
Over the past couple weeks, it became more apparent though that “what’s your why” has been a kind of underlying theme the past few weeks without my even noticing it.
Intention is a huge topic we’ve been tackling in all areas at MTC. If you caught our post about goals for the new year, it would make sense that figuring out intentions is essential in reaching those goals. Recent “why” questions include: Why are you providing that intervention? What is the purpose of this class? Why do you want to be a music therapist? What do you want to learn? What goals are you achieving through this song? Why do you want to be here? Why are we using this process? Why are we doing this?
Why? Why? Why?
So I started thinking… as a leader, business owner, etc… What’s my why? Why am I doing this job??? Why am I here?
I could stop and think of the negatives. I could bring myself down with all the things that haven’t worked out, the long nights, early mornings, and sometimes stressful days. I could get caught up in my never ending to-do list and simply give up…be knocked out and taken down…
BUT my why is stronger. It easily trumps everything and keeps me energized and in the game. My why means that I don’t think about most of the downs sides or hard days. My why keeps me smiling nearly all day every day.
So why??? WHY???????
Because I LOVE IT!!!!!! I love seeing the excited look on a moms face when her son crawls for the first time in my class. I love the “ah ha!” moment when one of my students gets it!! I love writing new songs and hearing the kids I work with sing them. I love teaching an intern and working with people. I love writing, finding solutions, and constantly learning new things. I love seeing the families who come in the door week after week. I love the behind the scenes work that makes everything run smoothly. I love trying to make all the pieces fit. I love finding the answer to a problem. I love trying new things. I love watching people grow and knowing that I had a small part in it. I simply love it. I truly love it. That’s why.
So, what’s your why??
by Alisabeth Hopper | Feb 19, 2016 | Intern's Corner, MTC
Hello again,
Throughout my time at Music Therapy Connections I have seen all of my supervisors use an iPad. I have seen the iPad’s used for everything from a visual aid, to a song book, and in the hospital setting as our tote of instruments. And although it serves many different purposes in many different settings I think its safe to say that everybody has their go to apps. These are mine…
5 Apps for the Music Therapy Intern
- Tabs HD: This is my absolute favorite app. It is essentially the application from the website www.ultimateguitar.com. The website itself is well known for its wide selection of chord and lead sheets. The selection is phenomenal and with the app you can have it all at your fingertips. I use it for on the spot song choice given a list of either my favorites or the Top 100. The app itself is free, but to use it to its fullest potential it requires a purchase of the service TabPro which can be paid by a monthly cost, or a one time fee.
- GuitarTuna: This is a straight forward tuner. I know, I know, there are so many tuner apps out there but this one is really fantastic. The image shown on the screen is of the head of the guitar and each note name is given next to its corresponding tuning key. It also uses different colors to correspond with the correct pitch and whether it is flat or sharp as you tune. This is a wonderful tool for lessons, adaptive lessons, and in general new learners! And the best part? Its free!
- Emotions: This app is very simple. It displays four images of people showing a certain expression, then it audibly says an emotion word and the player is supposed to choose the corresponding image. Now, what I love about this app is that it uses complex emotion words and at times it is difficult to differentiate, even for me. This is a tool that I use with some of our students with Autism and other disabilities to work past happy, sad, and angry, and really delve into identifying complex emotions. This app is also free.
- Relax M. HD: This app has many different sounds to choose from for the listener to create a customized relaxing audio. It includes anything and everything from light piano music to river and bird sounds. Also, once you have created your relaxing audio you can adjust the volume on each sound and put it on a timer. This is a great tool to use where your given client is particularly sensitive to certain sensory input as they can choose exactly what they like or find relaxing. In addition a relaxation script could be spoken over the chosen track. And again, this is a free app.
- Tiktik: Finally, this app has been a game changer for me. Tiktik is an organization app that is set up in a to do list format. You can create multiple lists which are color coded and if you choose, are incorporated into your master list. I love that this app actually has check boxes so when an item is completed I get the satisfaction of clicking the box and watching it disappear from my list. As an intern I keep my job, internship, and home life in separate lists and as everyday comes I can look at my master list and accomplish what needs to be done one day at a time.
These are my absolute favorite apps. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!
-AH
