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Perspectives & Insights from a Local Music Therapist

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Category : Adult Wellness

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Hooooooold on…….

Filed Under : Adult Wellness,Emotionally Disturbed,General,Grief,Mental Health,The Therapeutic Process by Natasha Thomas
Apr.18,2013

This week began like any other week (or any other week in North Dakota, at least):  Sunday took us into what looked like it might be a snow day, but we forged ahead safely into programming at the School for the Blind with a group of 7 to 10 year olds whose parents managed the drive from their home towns across the state to stay with us for the week and work on goals like strengthening their literacy and social skills.  The energy of those little bodies and minds was quite a contrast to the mood my psych groups have had lately – they’ve been rather somber in general (I’m certain the weather has something to do with it).  In fact, it was actually my original intent to write about that population this week, and the sensitivity it often requires to address their needs musically.  When the news from the Boston Marathon and then the West Texas plant came trickling down through social media and word of mouth at my sessions, I thought for sure the week would take on an additional air of “somber-ness” in the wake of what had happened, and that writing such a post might be too unpleasant and heavy, and in some respects it has become that way (particularly after the West story broke, two tragedies back to back seemed enough to make you want to never check the news again), but not with so much weight as I anticipated. Part of this was due to “let’s not bring it up unless it’s brought to us” becoming the unspoken rule of the week at most of my placements (and with many of my clients not having access to TVs, it did take some time before these events found their way to our sessions), but ultimately the theme that seemed to carry from the events in Boston and from West were those little acts of heroism and solidarity across the country: Boston runners continuing on from the race track to donate blood, groups across the country uniting to help in any way that they can, even if its just to pause for a moment and pray.  My psych clients seem inspired by it all.  And I’ve felt inspired too – inspired to still write about the needs of those clients I see in psychiatric facilities, inspired by seeing that little bit of light return to their faces, despite all the terror, when so often this time of year, and in light of such events, everything may seem to be dark and cold.

Now, none of this diminishes the tragedy of what has happened – the deaths and injuries of these two events are going to be on the minds of many for many a day to come, and right that they should be – they were immense and terrible.  But one of the biggest things I work on with my psych clients is expanding their perspective: the importance of looking beyond how you feel in the immediate moment outward to how others around you might be feeling, and ultimately, how all those feelings can work together to bring about peace and productivity.  And rarely is that kind of empathetic perspective more of a necessity than in a tragedy.  Perspective that is clear and open helps us to see what we need, not just what we want, and it helps us move forward rather than stay frozen in place. It’s how we survive, how we move on, stronger, and more united than before.

So how do you use music to help someone who is frozen and locked in a limited perspective? One of my favorite tools as a Music Therapist is lyric analysis. With this tool I can look at a song with my clients, any song, and use it as a catalyst for talking about specific scenarios, without necessarily having to reference the scenario itself. For example, the song “Hold On” by the Alabama Shakes came up this week, and in talking about the title phrase in which the singer sustains one note over the beat of the music (“Hooooooold on…….”) one client mentioned how that rhythmic choice seemed to intentionally mirror the definition of the words in the phrase, seeing as the singer literally “held on” to that one note for so long. We then discussed how that musical phrasing could become a mantra, or “catch phrase” for our own stressful or difficult times, to take a deep breath in and exhale for the same amount of time as that phrase. Hooooooold on……. This sort of concept may seem so simple, and yet it’s easy to forget in times of stress. Having a mantra or phrase that comes out of a calm mindset that you can practice recalling with minimal effort can invoke near instant calm when you need it, and with calmness comes clarity, and with clarity, openness…perspective… if you can tell yourself to just “hold on,” and keep breathing, you can tell someone else to hold on, and keep breathing, and so we all keep breathing together.  We all hold on.

So, all that said, I hope you’re holding on, wherever you are!  In my kids sessions this week we’ve been singing the song “Green Grass Grows All Around.”  The song isn’t true for us in North Dakota just yet (plenty of snow on the ground still!), but we’re positive it will be soon, both emotionally and physically.  Rain or shine I’ll be running in my second 5k soon, this time for Autism Awareness at UND’s Autism Speaks fundraiser, then it’s off to the Hands On Learning Fair to share a table with some of my fabulous Music Therapy colleagues.  Soon after I hope to release Loopy Stanley 2013 to share with you all too! Brighter days are around the bend, to be sure.  Until then…Hooooooold on…

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New Year, Old Habits

Filed Under : Adult Wellness,Advocacy,Family,Mental Health,Social Networking by Natasha Thomas
Jan.6,2013

Hello and Happy New Year!

I hope that you and yours had a wonderful holiday.  I myself enjoyed a very busy lead-in to mine, as evidenced by my infrequent posts here of late, but now that I’ve solidly got my feet back on the ground in Grand Forks (my husband and I spent Christmas with family in the Atlanta area), I am proud to be able to say that I now have a Masters Degree in Special Education with an emphasis in Visual Impairment, and as a result my schedule has opened up considerably. Well, maybe not considerably, but comfortably enough!  The horizon is wide open with new possibilities, but strangely enough, midst all the New Year’s resolutions and changes people around me are seeking to make in their lives, I find myself drawn to the things I’ve already been doing, old habits I’ve picked up over the years that I’ve been learning to see with new eyes just since I started my Masters Degree two years ago.  In fact, this recycling of old ideas in fresh ways apparently has shown in my Blog posts as late, with five of the most read Music Moves posts in 2012 having actually been written in 2011.  These were posts I linked to frequently throughout the year, and as a result they actually got more traffic than the posts that referred to them.  I choose to look at this as a further sign that I’ve always known more than I ever thought I did, my thoughts just needed time and educated guidance to be fully realized and developed.  This may sound a little lofty of me, but I can assure you it’s far from it!  I find it humbling, actually, to discover my own potential and experience the reward from hard work and dedicated study that so many of my colleagues have done and continue to do above and beyond the one degree that I earned.  Seeing all the doctoral candidates ahead of my getting their hoods at Graduation this last month I found myself inspired to discover the next level of thinking that they themselves had come to experience.  But, all in good time – I think I’ll enjoy this level of thinking for a while! So then, instead of New Year’s “Resolutions,” here I present to you my New Year’s “Affirmations.”

1.  Data is good. Very good.  Not just for my clients but for me.

Clear and concise documentation has taken on all new importance in my clinical work.  Maybe it’s the addition of the Ipad to my device collection.  It has truly changed how I document and allowed me to do what I’ve always wanted to, but didn’t have the time or means to do previously.  Having automated digital graphs fed by a single tap of my finger whenever a client does something I want them to do has enabled me to produce detailed reports so I can see what’s working and what isn’t working.  Add that to additional tools acquired in some of the classes I’ve taken to learn what steps to take when something isn’t working, and I now have objective means to be able to assess and adjust my services at a moment’s notice.  And that, in a schedule as packed as mine is, is priceless, both for my time being used more efficiently, and my clients receiving more specialized services.

2. Honesty is always the best policy, but a little bonus package of timing and discretion never hurts to add.

Growing up in a family of three girls, I developed a practice early on of answering questions quickly, otherwise you might not be heard or someone else would get what you wanted.  The phrase “last one there is a rotten egg” used to stress me to no end as a child, and this has translated into my adulthood as a desire to answer questions as quickly as effectively possible, so countless hours each day used to be lost in me trying to respond to emails the minute I got them, rather than waiting until the end of the day or selected office hours to answer them all at once if I happened to be in the middle of something at that time.  In fact, people who know me well may still see the occasional email from me opening with an apology if  more than 24 hours has passed before my response (if I had any resolutions, it’d be that: to apologize less for doing what I need to do to take care of myself and my clients). Waiting to respond to emails not only helps my stress level but it helps preserve the integrity of my responses – when the whole of my attentions can be dedicated to something, the more accurately and tactfully it will be executed.  So, once again, this preservation of my own efficiency serves both me and my clients as well.  Better time management from me = Better services for my clients.

3. Human Connections are valuable and worthy of validation.

It’s important for me when I’m working with my clients that I recognize their emotional needs in addition to their physical, cognitive, and sensory ones.  Sometimes I also need to be aware of the needs of those around them – their parents, caregivers, teachers, and peers.  And I need to be aware of my own feelings, and how they connect to everyone I work with.  Because we all have feelings, and we all have needs, and those needs have to be met from time to time, or at least recognized and acknowledged.  And many of those needs have to do with each other, and our connection to those around us. So my husband and I have the occasional date night, my clients and I always have emotional check-ins at the start and finish of every session, all so that we can take the time necessary to seek out any emotions or connections we might have been suppressing all day and resolve them as best we can (if we can).  No matter what, at the very least, laying them out for processing can have value in and of itself.  You might find negative feelings relieve slightly just by acknowledging their existence.  And as little as that relief might be, it’s always worth the shot!

This month I’m proud to once again be participating in Music Therapy Social Media Advocacy Month, sponsored by the Music Therapy Maven.  This year’s theme has to do with Connections, so over the next few weeks, you’ll be seeing posts from me about my own experiences and connections to my job as a music therapist, and hopefully stories from other MT’s and maybe even clients, about their experiences.  This theme really has me excited this year, and I look forward to being part of sharing the wonderful stories that my job helps me to write and retell every day!

And that’s it.  Those are the things I’ve been doing over the last year (and look forward to doing in the years to come) that I’ve come to realize meant more than I could have possibly imagined when I started to do them.  My mother in law told me at one point during my Masters Studies that she felt the greatest benefit Grad School gives is teaching you to think differently. So it isn’t so much what you learn about as it is how you learn to think. And I think I agree!

Here’s to an affirming 2013!

 

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Surviving Power Struggles

Filed Under : Adult Wellness,Emotionally Disturbed,Family,Mental Health,Social Skills,The Therapeutic Process by Natasha Thomas
Nov.28,2012

“It’s the most _________ time of the year!”

Many of us think of the song containing the above phrase and insert the word “wonderful” in the blanks.  But the holidays are so much more than that – and not always in a good way!  This time of year can be busy, tiring, and downright stressful for some, if not all of us, and with stress for many of the clients I work with, comes misbehavior.  Refusing to follow directions and all out tantrums abound.  Some of these misbehaviors are within my clients’ control, some of them are due to overstimulation and may be beyond the clients’ ability to self regulate.  No matter what the situation, how I react is key.  Any one misbehavior has the potential to turn into an all out battle of wills depending on how I choose to respond to it.

During my internship I was encouraged to take a course on something called “Conscious Discipline,” a self-regulation program for parents and educators created by early childhood specialist Dr. Becky Bailey.  When I describe Conscious Discipline to others, I call it “part common sense, mixed with a lot of patience, a great deal of listening, and a little intuition.”  Educators and parents can take classes from Dr. Bailey herself (in persion or via video) or from instructors that have been certified under her.  I’ve applied strategies found in Conscious Discipline to everything from my preK clients to colleagues and parents – the tools Dr. Bailey provides are worth checking out! What I love most about Conscious Discipline is that it’s evidence based, but easy for the average layperson to understand.  There are all kinds of books and materials put out there by Dr. Bailey (check out her resources page here for tidbit tips to use on the go), but one of my favorites is an audio recording I have of a presentation she did on power struggles.  In it she makes 3 main suggestions I keep with me at all times, and find particularly useful to remember during the holidays:

1. Recognize the signs of a power struggle early, and pick your battles.  Is the behavior harmfully disruptive to the client or others around them or is it just irritating?  If it’s just irritating, let it go by practicing “extinction:” just ignore it, no matter how the student might push you to respond to it.

2. If you can’t avoid a powerstruggle, remember to keep breathing and monitor your own feelings – accept them for what they are and then choose your actions carefully, keeping in mind that your counterpoint in the power struggle may not be able to do the same.  It may even be necessary for you to say “I think we both may need to take a break right now, let’s talk about this later” and then do just that.  Walk away or ask some nearby staff (or another parent) to escort your client/child to another location while you both cool down.

3. Another positive tool to use in power struggles is to offer choices.  When you tell someone “You can do this or that, you choose,” they are more likely to cooperate with you than if you just tell them “you can’t do that” without making any suggestions as to what they can do instead.  Power struggles gain their strength from the polarization of the two partieis involved.  If you take that polarization away, then you weaken the struggle.  Note that I said you weaken the struggle, and not the other party.  Offer them real suggestions, not just those designed to get you what you want.  For example, if a client is refusing to give up an instrument they’re supposed to be passing to their neighbor, you can offer them the choice of who it goes to (“you can hand it to that person or this person”), rather than stating that they just “hand it over.”

At the heart of every power struggle is the need for validation.  Clients and therapists, parents and children, colleagues, friends, and children, all need to feel like their feelings have value and are taken seriously.  When you can present choices, a general respect for space, and recognize when the battle is not worth fighting, what you’r really saying to your client or child is “I hear you, and while I may not understand now, I respect your right to feel what you feel and ask only that you do so in a way that respects my right as well.”  Note that you ask them to act in a way that respects your right to your feelings, you don’t ask them to respect your feelings themselves.  That’s not within your control.  We all come to the table with unique experiences that shape who we are and how we react to certain things.  I, for instance in the last month have attended 2 funerals and narrowly avoided having to attend a third, so there are topics that are touchy for me that coworkers of mine may have noticed, and I may never tell them why.  I have clients for whom I avoided asking about the recent Thanksgiving holiday because I knew that spending time with their family may not have been a positive experience for them.  We all come to the table with things we may never share but that influence how we react to and interact with the world around us.  All that any of us can ever do in such emotionally charged times is be patient and respectful of each others’ space and need to feel valued in this world.

So, go forth and be patient! How’s that for a holiday message? Wishing you and yours a very patient holiday season :-)

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Hip Hip Hooray! I Sang Today! Plus 5 other things I haven’t been able to do while on Vocal Rest

Filed Under : Adult Wellness,General,Vocal Care by Natasha Thomas
Sep.10,2012

Well folks, the verdict is in and I can sing again! As you may remember from my last post I was placed on mandatory vocal rest by my doctors 8 weeks ago.  In fact it’s been a month since that last post – if you can believe it, even on vocal rest, the summer’s been busy, though I’ll try not to go that long without posting again!  Early this morning, my ENT took another look at my throat through the long thin camera he first used to diagnose the pre-vocal nodule swelling he saw back in July, and I am able to report that the swelling is gone and I can start to reintroduce things I haven’t been doing since that first visit, the top priority of which for me is singing. It’s been a long, difficult, but ultimately necessary and valuable journey for me towards learning to take care of myself and the instrument that is so crucial to my life and work.  I plan to continue with many of the adaptations I’ve developed over the last 8 weeks (the greatest of which was using recorded music and the countless cool Ipad apps I’ve discovered for making music live) to carry the weight my voice used to during instrumental activities.  I also converted to playing a nylon string guitar so I didn’t have to project so loudly over it, and I’ll be looking for a headset with a microphone to use in my sessions from now on too.  I used my voice a lot in the past, and I have no doubt I’ll use it plenty in the future, but I plan to take greater strides now than ever to protect it so I won’t ever have to go 8 weeks without singing again!

Here are the top 5 things besides singing that I won’t take for granted ever again:

5. Being able to order at a Drive-through.  This may sound silly, but every once and a while, a girl just wants some french fries! And darn it all if I couldn’t project loudly enough during the initial weeks of my vocal rest to be understood through those little microphones.  After a few Speech Therapy sessions though, I now know how to project safely – though I may continue skipping the drive-through as a habit just because… well, most of the time when you can’t drive through anywhere, you either burn a few calories walking in and out the door, or just don’t bother eating out at all! Ultimately, I think not being able to eat as conveniently as I used to forced some adjustments in a positive direction for my overall health, but it is nice to know I at least have the option and ability to yell “Yeah, I’ll have a small fry please!” out my Envoy window once again.

4. Sleeping parallel to the floor.  Part of my whole vocal thing was acid reflux eroding my vocal chords while I slept, and while my ENT thinks I may eventually be able to wean myself off the medication they have me on the manage it, I may always have to sleep with my head elevated to prevent that sort of damage when I’m most powerless against it.  This has been quite the adjustment for my husband as well (he’s a stomach sleeper, and we have one of those adjustor base beds, so whatever position I sleep in, he’s been stuck dealing with too), but this is another one of those decisions that I think ultimately was for the best.  With my head and knees slightly elevated in a setting our bed’s remote calls “Zero G,” I’m actually finding relief from minor backpain I used to experience every once and a while – and it’s always good to avoid those kinds of aches when you can!

3.Drinking Caffeine & Alcohol.Caffeine I actually don’t miss as much as I thought I would – and I’ve cut myself off completely.  I didn’t even drink things marked “Decaf” during my vocal rest unless they were naturally caffeine free, on the off chance there might be a little bit still there.  For that reason I avoided chocolate as well, andthat I miss all the time, but have managed to avoid temptation well enough.  Alcohol has been harder, which may sound strange, because I’m not a big drinker, or even a glass-of-wine-a-night person, but I am a 20-something year old social drinker – and with a Bachelorette and two Birthday parties where shots and Champagne were flying like crazy this summer, it was the toughest thing for me to abstain, because I felt so out of place, like everyone was going on a class field trip and I couldn’t come along.  The feeling caught me completely by surprise, and I’ll confess I cracked a time or two just because I so badly wanted to feel a part of things, but believe me I paid for it when I did!  This is one area where my overall health wasn’t really in danger before, and it doesn’t do me a lot of marked good in terms of weight or mental well being to abstain like avoiding drive-throughs and sleeping at a 45 degree angle does, but we’ll see where I am in another month.  Doc says I may be able to work back up to being a glass-of-wine-a-night person yet, if I ever wanted to, but for me, just being able to toast the Bride at a Bachelorette party would be good enough!

2. Going out in General. There were many times where I would be invited somewhere this summer, and find out the place everyone had chosen to go was a loud bar, at an outdoor event, or some other setting where it would be difficult for me to project, and for a while I didn’t quite know how to cope, so I became a bit of a hermit.  I didn’t go anywhere and I didn’t want to go anywhere.  It was too difficult.  I think this compounded the whole alcohol thing too – it was so rare when  I did go out, I had a tough time with encountering “just one more thing I couldn’t do.”  Now that I’m aware of some safer ways to project, however, I’ll be glad to be able to go out again and still be voice conscious at the same time.

And the #1 thing (well, two things) I’ll never take for granted again?

1. Eating some of my favorite foods (namely Cheese and Orange Juice).  I have not had a sip of anything remotely citrus-y since July 13th, and man I miss it!  I’ve had to be really conscious of anything acidic trekking down my throat because of the risk it might play to my vocal reflux, but I’ve got the go ahead to start trying to re-introduce some things during the next month before I try breaking off the Prilosec, and you better believe a glass of OJ is high on that list!  Cheese I think will be another story.  I was able to switch most of my dairy products to soy and not look back pretty easily, but cheese has really haunted me.  It was the only other area of my vocal rest (besides alcohol) where I cheated, and I paid for it almost as badly as the drinks I had at that Bachelorette party in August!  Dairy products can aggravate acid reflux, so while they coated my throat going down and tasted great along the way, the result after a night of pizza or the performance of the play I took on during the latter half of my vocal rest that had me eating cheese onstage, I could feel it gumming up everything back there and needless to say, it was gross! I think my body may well be done with cheese for good at this point, but it’s gonna take some time for my brain to accept that…

So, I’ve kept my sense of humor throughout this whole thing, but there are serious lessons I’ve learned as well.  I can’t wait to start singing again and maybe reintroduce some of the things I used to love to eat and drink over time, but I don’t ever want to come that close to vocal nodules again.  They can damage more than just your voice!  I think the biggest thing my vocal rest made difficult for me was my social life. So much of how I interacted with people changed as a result of not being able to speak comfortably, but at the same time learning to be quiet more often taught me valuable lessons in prioritizing what was important for me to say and do, and really being conscious of where I was dedicating my energy, and it made me grateful to have such wonderful friends and family by my side, and grateful that I work in a career with such tremendous capacity to help others.  Needless to say, I’ll be resuming my vocal work with great care, not just for myself, but for the people I work with and care about, because my voice is not just my primary instrument, it’s a part of who I am – and it feels good to be fully myself again!

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Lessons in Vocal Care (from an MT on Vocal Rest)

Filed Under : Adult Wellness,Vocal Care by Natasha Thomas
Aug.1,2012

As promised last post, we’re going to take a look this week at an experience I’ve embarked on many a time before due to my personal intuition, but never before been medically mandated to do until 3 weeks ago: vocal rest.

There are two main kinds of vocal rest – partial and complete.  I’m dealing with the former, under which I am required to abstain from singing and limit the use of my speaking voice, though when I do speak I’ve been instructed to speak in my normal tone (whispering actually strains your vocal chords more than just speaking).  If I were on total vocal rest I would have to be completely silent, and believe me, partial rest is hard enough, thank you very much!  My prescription (yes, I actually have a prescription from my doctor with “partial vocal rest” and a list of restrictions on it) lasts for 8 weeks, which puts us into mid-September – a long time for this singer to go without singing!

Now, I mentioned that in the past I’ve put myself on vocal rest just intuitively – as a voice student in college, I was trained to know my limits vocally,  so if I felt my throat was sore, or my voice wasn’t performing the way I was used to, I would stop and cancel a few sessions (or modify what I was doing or eating – alcohol and caffeine can dry your throat out) to try and let things work themselves out.  Usually that would help – but in the case of my issues this summer, no matter what I did, the soreness and difficulty singing that I experienced on and off after a cold in May just seemed to come back no  matter how long I tried.  I actually had myself on vocal rest for 6 weeks before my regular doctor referred me to an Ear Nose & Throat specialist who stuck a camera up my nose (and ultimately, down my throat) to figure out what was going on.

Below is an image of what your vocal chords (which are located in your larynx, a part of your throat) do when you’re breathing vs. when you’re projecting sound, like speech or singing.

A simple graphic of what your vocal chords look like while breathing or making sound.

As you can see, your chords remain open for receiving air and then come together for projection of sound.  Sustained sounds (like singing) will actually cause the chords to vibrate against each other.  Now picture a gardener shoveling dirt – if they do a lot of shoveling in one day, they might get some irritated skin or blisters from where their hands make contact with the shovel, and if they continue working hard over time those blisters may turn into callouses.  The same thing can happen to your vocal chords – the folds that make them up can become irritated and swell, as mine have, and over time, if untreated, they can harden into callouses called nodules. Remember the singer Adele, and the surgery she had to have to fix her voice? She was out of commission for over 6 months – those were vocal nodules.  And she was one of the lucky ones to recover so well after surgery – ever wonder why Julie Andrews doesn’t sing anymore? She had surgery for vocal nodules and her chords ended up damaged in the process.  She’ll never sing like she used to again.

Now, like I said, what I have is swelling on my vocal chords that can be a precursor to vocal nodules, so they’re not nodules yet, I just have to make some major modifications to ensure they don’t become them!  In addition to 8 weeks of vocal rest, I’ve also been prescribed medication for acid reflux (Surprise! Stomach acid can erode your vocal chords!) and made some lifestyle adjustments, like cutting out caffeine and dairy products (caffeine I figured, but I used to drink milk when I had a sore throat because it coated my throat and felt good going down, who knew it could actually exacerbate acid reflux symptoms!). I’m also experimenting with raising the head of my bed a few inches so acid doesn’t creep up while I sleep.  That adjustment I actually like! Been pretty good for my back, actually… after my 8 weeks are up, I’ll see my ENT and his little camera again, and hopefully then he’ll give me the go-ahead to start seeing my voice teacher again and gradually progress back into singing once more.

Here’s how my weeks of vocal rest of gone so far:

 

WEEK 1: I had already scheduled the week off after my Braille Music Institute at the ND School for the Blind, so there was one week where it was really easy to be quiet – I didn’t even listen to music, the temptation to hum along (or just feel depressed that I couldn’t) was too great. When speaking to my husband or close friends, I cut out unnecessary words like “Hello,” “Goodbye,” “Yes,”  “No,”  “Maybe,” and sounds like “Mm-hmm” where my meaning could just as easily be construed with a gesture.  For those friends that knew a little Sign Language I used that as well, and used whistling to announce my entrance into rooms of crowded people, like the birthday party we had one night that week for a friend.

WEEk 2: After one week of vocal rest my throat was finally starting to lose it’s constant ache, so I returned to working just at my office at School for the Blind, but even that I’ll admit was an adjustment.  I emailed everyone in advance of my return that I would be limiting my speaking and preferring email over phone correspondence, but I ended up additionally having to shut the office door I usually leave open so folks knew I was in, just because I found it made it less awkward to have people greeting me from the hallway and expecting a reply when I couldn’t project loudly enough.  That way if anyone needed to find me, they had to come in or send me an email.  Phone conversations have been difficult because in trying to limit my speech output, it can be easy to misunderstand me or assume meanings that I haven’t meant to imply with my silence, so that’s been an adjustment as well (especially with my parents, who don’t text, out of town for two weeks and calling every so often to check in!) I even wrote up a note that reads “I have a vocal chord injury and canny talk.” for particularly loud environments, like the rock concert a friend and I went to my second week of vocal rest.  We’d purchased the tickets a month ago, so I didn’t want to pass them up, but I have to admit I was worried about being in such a noisy setting and not being able to speak for myself. I ended up having a wonderful time, albeit feeling a little sad whenever the lead singer would say “I wanna hear you scream” and all I could do was clap more loudly and do a little dance in my chair!

WEEK 3: I’m now starting to return to some of the sessions I’d struggled to lead or dropped back in May after my cold.  I’m finding new ways to conduct my sessions and make music that don’t involve my voice.  That may seem like a “no duh!” moment to the average individual, perhaps even to most other Music Therapists, but my voice has always been such a central part of my sessions – I even have clients that greet me by yelling “singing!” It’s going to be a major adjustment for me to operate full sessions without doing so.  My free children’s group is one that I don’t think I can manage without being able to sing, so that group will remain on hiatus until I get the go ahead in September, though I’m welcome to suggestions on non-singing activities any of you readers use out there! I’m finding great comfort in reaching out to my musical community during this time – we have lots to share and lots to give! I hope to share more of what I’ve learned over the next few weeks, hopefully culminating in a Week 8 post that reads “Huzzah, I can sing again!”

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Defining Music Therapy…in Community Centers

Filed Under : Adult Wellness,Family,General,The Therapeutic Process by Natasha Thomas
May.30,2012

Wow, did the month of May fly!  It’s been a long silent month here on the blog itself, but as those of you who follow me on Twitter I’m sure have noticed, it hasn’t been so long or silent in the life of this Music Therapist (well maybe lately, I seem to be going through a “no voice” spell of late that hasn’t been very fun)!  My bellydance sisters and I celebrated our first stage show at the Firehall Theatre May 11th, the May Drum Circle at 12 Houses was great fun (with us possibly planning TWO circles for June!) and I’ve been hard at work formatting a possible CMTE course on working with students who are Blind and Deaf for Kat Fulton over at Music Therapy Ed, not to mention our local Summer Performing Arts Company’s English Language Learners (ELL) Group that I just started with this week!  So, Deadlines and Meetings abound, but it’s all very exciting to be part of planning for more and more Music Therapy in our little North Dakota Community!

There are two main places where I provide Music Therapy services in a free capacity for my community: the LISTEN Drop-In Center and 12 Houses.  The latter hosts my monthly drum circles, the former houses my weekly family music group.  The arrangement I have with LISTEN, as they are a non-profit organization, is that I am an outside contractor.  This means that I invoice them and they pay me for my time there, so that my sessions can be offered free of charge to their guests, who complete a sign in process when they come for sessions so that the center can have evidence of the attendance to their events for presenting to grants or other entities who fund their physical buildings and staff.  This is both a wonderful and a challenging sort of arrangement  – It bears saying that it’s more wonderful than it is challenging, but the challenges are worth noting at least, the greatest of which is the importance that attendance factors into the survival of my programs – if we didn’t have regular attendance from a predetermined number of families, that group would not be maintained, because the money the center spends paying me to come there could justifiably be spent elsewhere if there are other events gaining better attendance.  So, if attendance gets low, no matter how religiously those attendees come to sessions, those programs can be cut.  Luckily, attendance at my groups has been fairly consistent and decently sized, albeit with a slight dip from Memorial Day and my voice issues, but their existence at least remains secure – I know many other Music Therapists and sessions out there that can’t say the same.

That’s where groups like the drum circle at 12 Houses come in.  Those sessions are offered free of charge, and through a rent agreement with the owners of the store, I don’t have to pay to use the space so long as they attend the circle, which they do every time! Instruments are purchased for the group through funds donated by those who attend it, so essentially the group funds its own equipment.  The only thing not covered is my time, which, since I love to drum and don’t do it anywhere else (plus the fact that those sessions are monthly and not weekly like my LISTEN ones are) I don’t mind donating that one hour every month.  There it doesn’t matter how many people come, or how consistently they do it – I drum with whoever is there, and essentially the drums are paid for in accordance with the demand for them, so if there’s a shortage of drums to meet a large number of people one month, should those people all donate, there will be plenty of drums for them the next time they come!

Many other music therapists choose to donate one hour per month, as I do, to one organization or another – (I actually donate the one hour a month to 12 Houses, then one hour per quarter to organizations like Infant Development for events like their Early Childhood learning fairs and the like) – it’s an individual call each professional makes uniquely from their peers and colleagues.  I view it as part of the way we spread the word about what we do, by providing opportunities for people to experience it free of charge from time to time. When my husband teaches percussion lessons, his studio has a policy that your first lesson is always free so the family and student can see for themselves if something is going to work or not, before committing to services.  I couldn’t imagine doing things that way, but that’s me – my schedule fills so quickly I need to know right away if someone is going to commit to a time with me before I commit to clearing my schedule for it.  Someone else might do things still differently, but I encourage you wherever you are to find those free opportunities for making music with a qualified Music Therapist (Board Certified) and take advantage of them when you can – many MT-BCs won’t have that sort of time available often, so sometimes you have to really look, but they’re worth it!

So, you might ask, how does someone establish, let alone track, goals for a group like the ones at LISTEN and 12 Houses that meet so sporadically? The answer is very openly – I phrase my goals with simple “they did it” or “they didn’t do it” measurements, as in: “attendees will participate” in such-and-such an activity, or “participants will attempt to play at least two instruments in the course of the session” and just keep mental track if one person only plays one instrument all session without trading, or if someone comes to a session and then leaves without actually participating in a single activity (which has happened! We’ve had folks come to family music group with children who just sit outside the the circle crying for the first session, until they get more used to things, so I measure those occurrences).  Those types of things to me indicate insecurity, and I want my guests at these kinds of sessions to feel secure in leaving their seat during music making to find new instruments and along the way, and to maybe interact with another person to find an instrument they enjoy playing even more than the last.  I also regard tracking basic goals like this as check-in’s for me and the services I provide, for instance, if I’m noticing a lot of people coming into the circle and only choosing one instrument to play the whole time, there may be something I could be doing differently to encourage more interaction.  I’m constantly seeking new and different ways to structure my activities and make session activities more enticing for my attendees to participate in, so free sessions provide the very open environment for me to do that in, as well as providing great opportunities for people who aren’t sure what Music Therapy is or aren’t sure if it’s for them, so that they can see what it is and what it can do for their lives.

So, this look at community centers wraps up our month long series on defining what I do as a Music Therapist in each of the placements I serve. From working with my Visually Impaired students, to my Deaf and Hard of Hearing Classrooms and the Residential Facilities I serve, there’s never a dull moment in Natasha’s world, but nowhere else is this more true than in my donated Community sessions! They’re free opportunities for the community to experience what I do, as well as for me to look at what I do from new angles and through fresh eyes based on whoever attends on that given day – and ultimately that’s valuable for everyone I serve!

Coming up this month, 12 Houses Bellydancers will be at the Altru Health Sponsored Art Fest events in Grand Forks, I’ll be dancing with some of my bellydance sisters in Duluth Minnesota, and 12 Houses will hold 2 drum circles in June – one of them outdoors!  Hopefully LISTEN sessions can resume once I get my voice back on track after this cold.  Summertime can be a busy time, and a hectic time, but ultimately it’s one of my favorite times of the year to make music – I hope you get to enjoy some music in your summer as well!

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Defining Music Therapy… in Residential Facilities

Filed Under : Abuse,Adolescents,Adult Wellness,Education,Emotionally Disturbed,Family,Hospitals,Mental Health,Other Special Populations,The Therapeutic Process by Natasha Thomas
May.9,2012

There’s been a lot going on in the schools I serve lately – we’re hurtling towards the end of the academic year at the speed of light, it seems, and my kids at the ND School for the Blind and the ND School for the Deaf can’t seem to wait for summer to arrive!  It’s at times like these that my job focus starts to shift somewhat from the cognitive to the behavioral and emotional needs of my clients: change is coming, and that can be hard for anyone, with or without a disability.  So, each session begins with recapping how many sessions we have until there’s “No more Music Therapy” until next year.  “Three sessions left…two sessions left…one session left…See you next year!”

This, of course, is not the case for my residential clients.  On my caseload currently are 3 placements where I see clients only in their homes, not at school or anywhere else in the community.  These individuals are mostly adults with developmental disabilities, though one of my placements is an adolescent treatment facility where the clients live and go to school in the same building.  My role at those kinds of placements continues year round, so my focus is different than the schools I see, or places where young children are being prepared for school.  Where my school placements are focusing on academic concepts like colors, numbers, and letters, my residential facilities are geared more towards occupational skills that you use for daily life, like planning and sequencing, establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships, and dealing with loss and other emotional disturbances.  When I come into my clients homes in environments like those I serve, I bring drums and my Ipad mostly, sometimes my guitar.  We spend some time listening to other music and talking about what it means (or could mean, some songs are more abstract than others – makes for good discussion!) or we just talk about what we like about it.  “Strengthening Emotional Vocabulary” is actually a goal at one of my placements – just learning new words for how to describe something is a valuable skill so you can learn how to speak appropriately and succinctly.  After we do a bit of listening, we engage in playing activities that require teamwork, like passing an instrument, or something more abstract like passing a beat (“you play, then I play” type of stuff).  It’s a lot like the community drum circles I lead – music making for stress relief and recreation.  We’ve talked here before about the importance of self-care.  Unstable mental health can so quickly become unstable physical health, and some of us need more support than others to make sure we’re taking care of ourselves!  That’s what I see as my primary role at the residential facilities I serve: a guide to self-care for my clients.

Some of the clients I see in their homes are so medically fragile that it may not seem like they’re doing much “caring” for themselves.  I’ve occasionally had people ask me where the “making” of music is happening with someone who, physically or otherwise, is incapable of grasping an instrument or making a sound. “Quality of Life” is a term you hear a lot used in many medical settings, and it’s a term I use heavily when I’m documenting sessions with my clients who have Severe Disabilities.  To me, someone who has a good Quality of Life is able to live as independently as their abilities allow them, and able to connect and share in day to day activities with people they care about and who care about them.   Sure, they may not strum the guitar without assistance or sing the words to every song with me, but when you commit yourself to getting to know someone through frequent time spent together, you notice the little ways they tell you what they want – a blink, a change in their breathing pattern, even an increase in salivation can mean “I’m paying attention, and I want more!”  – and for me, being able to help someone interact with another person on whatever  level works for them is not only magical, but meaningful and crucial to them having the best Quality of Life that they can.  I welcome the experience of working with an individual for whom I might have to look a little deeper for clues into what they like and don’t like – it’s well worth the effort to get to know another human being on this earth!

Next week we wrap up this little series with a look at Music Therapy with Community Centers, specifically my work with the LISTEN Drop-In Center and their free Family Music Group, which I’m off to right now!  Then I’m rehearsing with the ladies of the Lovely Dozen and 12 Houses Bellydance for our stage show this weekend – sure to be a rockin’ end to our first full week in May!  Before you know it, Summer will be here!

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Making Time for “Emmie” – A Lesson from GG Mae

Filed Under : Adult Wellness,Family,General,Mental Health by Natasha Thomas
Feb.17,2012

Another short post today – this seems to be the month of mini-posts for me – SO much to do and share!  As you may have noticed last post, there was a litany of events over the last two weeks, and it’s been my joy to call each one a success.  You can find my interview with Janice Lindstrom of the Music Therapy show here – a post on the specifics of what we talked about is forthcoming, as well as a post on performance and working with adolescents, which will segue us nicely into our first ever guest post on Music Moves coming up at the end of the month!  I can’t wait!!  Until that time though, here’s a little story for you…

One of the first and best pieces of professional advice I ever got came from my Great-Grandma Mae (who is really my step-Great Grandmother, but that’s a little convoluted) – I’ll abbreviate her title here to “GG Mae” whenever I speak of her.  One day, when I was a pre-teen, I observed her on the phone with a friend, scheduling a lunch date.  I remember hearing her repeatedly say “No, that won’t work, I’m out with Emmie that day,” and wondering ‘who’s Emmie and why have I never met her if she keeps GG Mae so busy?’  When GG Mae hung up, I asked her about “Emmie,” and GG Mae smiled, tipping her datebook towards me so I could see clearly, the letters “M” and “E” written into her calendar.

“I always make time for M – E !” she said, and I laughed.  GG Mae went on to elaborate that she used to feel as though some folks just wouldn’t respect her need for down time, so she started inserting the “initials” M.E into her calendar as though it was an actual person, first so that she could show it to people who asked her to fill that time with other things, then over time, whenever she needed a personal reminder to take time for herself – not to run errands, not to clean the house, but truly for herself, to do whatever would help her reconnect with who she was and the people and things she loved.  Today, I keep my client’s initials in my datebook to help me keep track of who I’m seeing, and sure enough, every once and a while you’ll see an M and an E, put there just to remind me that I’m no good to anyone else if I don’t take care of myself now and then!

So, I’ll be taking a weekend away with “Emmie,” staring today – it’s the “Tribal Wonderland” of Bellydance Workshops and Performances out in Pine River Minnesota, and I am all packed and ready to shimmy and shake my stresses away! I hope to return rested and more ready than ever to take on the rest of February, because there truly is so much happening in the world of Music Therapy, both in my own life, and around the country right now that I am excited to share with you all.  I hope you’ll be enjoying a little “Emmie” time over the next few weeks as well! It can be easy to forget but so easy to enjoy once you make the commitment to take it.  If you can make it some musical “Emmie” time, all the better!  The next 12 Houses Drum Circle is coming this Tuesday, Feb 21st at 7pm – be there if you can, or take in another musical event near you – you and “Emmie” will be glad you did!

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Self Care: 3 “Core” Tips from a Bellydancing Music Therapist

Filed Under : Adult Wellness,Bellydance,Dance,Mental Health,Social Skills,The Therapeutic Process by Natasha Thomas
Dec.1,2011

Hello and welcome December!  Welcome to any new readers as well – last week I posted a recap of the American Music Therapy Association’s National Conference.  Something I neglected to mention in that post was that during and after conference my Twitter Handle @MusicMovesND saw an increase of about 25 new followers – I definitely had plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving! New followers, a long relaxing weekend with family and friends, and an early Christmas gift I’ll be posting about here very soon as we prepare for Music Moves’ 1 year anniversary in the blogosphere!  Much to be thankful for indeed…

As an individual employed in a helping profession, as many people in jobs like mine are prone to do, I often get caught up in the “doing” part of my job – getting from point A to point B, making sure I get paperwork done in a timely fashion, and I forget sometimes about the “being” part of my job – taking time to facilitate relaxation and regeneration, not only for my clients, but for myself.  I always make sure to allow my clients non-musical “breaks” in the session, to stand and stretch, or use one of their other senses in silence.  If you think about it, silence is technically part of music too – it’s part of the rhythmic structure.  If you’re a singer or someone who plays an instrument that requires breath, silence is necessary to make music. Remembering the importance of silence applies to life as well: silence and stillness.  It’s important to take a moment to even just stop moving for a second or two each day, to check in with yourself physically and otherwise, so that you can take care of yourself, and ultimately take better care of the people around you.  If you aren’t taken care of, then nobody is.  You have to secure your own health before you can assist in the needs of others.

That said, as many of you have been learning lately (either through blog posts here on the topic or here in our local paper) in addition to my work as a Music Therapist, I teach and perform Bellydance.  This is part of my “Self Care.”  It’s something I do to ensure that I am taking care of myself.  I chose Bellydance for many reasons, 3 of which I hope you’ll find valuable in finding or evaluating your own method of caring for yourself, whether it’s Bellydance or something else!

Reasons why I Bellydance:

1. Dance is related to my day job, but not bound to it.  What I mean by this is that Bellydance is nowhere in my job description as Music Therapist at the School for the Blind, School for the Deaf, or any of the other places I serve.  Yet movement is part of what I do with my clients, and music is definitely an important part of dance, so the two disciplines are close enough to each other that I have been able to draw from my knowledge of music to feed my learning of the dance, and funnel what I learn from dancing back into what I do in my every day use of music.

2. Dance is social.  While not everything I do for selfcare (yes, I do recommend having more than one thing you do for yourself each day!) is social, dancing is – when I perform, I like to do it with other Bellydancers, and I love attending workshops and teaching the things I learn to other students as eager to learn and share as I am.  When I began Bellydancing, I actually took it up during my internship with one specific goal being to meet new people.  I recommend having at least one self-care action that allows you to do this, so that you can have relationships that help you balance in that place between your personal and professional life.

3. Bellydance is ever changing.  The other reason I took up the art form during my internship was because I wanted to learn something new too – I’m constantly finding new facets of the dance that I never knew existed, and I love that about it.  I mentioned above that Bellydance helps to feed my work as a Music Therapist.  This is part of why it does that too, not just that it’s related to my day job, but that it’s an endless trove of history and things to learn.

I mentioned above that silence is a part of music, and that silence and stillness was important.  The person who told me that was actually a fellow Bellydancer.  She talked about the simplicity of Egyptian dancing, and how we can emphasize emotion in music with even the slightest of motions, or none at all.  I love that about dancing, just as I love that about singing: the ability to say more than words can express.

At the last 12 Houses Hafla (“Hafla” is Arabic for “Party”) I performed a piece that I considered to be a little tribute to all the clients I serve.  It’s called “I need a Doctor” and is performed by Dr. Dre featuring Eminem.  I leave this blog post with a link here to my performance (and a little disclaimer for any traditionalist Bellydancers out there: I like to think outside the box sometimes – this choreography is my own take on Persian and Tribal Fusion styles, it’s not a purist performance from either genre by any means).  I hope that you’ll hear in the lyrics and see in the performance, the importance of stillness and silence, of taking time for yourself to realize that you deserve a little care and a break from the hustle and bustle of life from time to time.  Enjoy!

Coming soon: a post on my new Ipad (and why I love it so much!) Also, in 3 weeks, Music Moves turns 1!  Much to be thankful for indeed…

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Censoring and Music Therapy

Filed Under : Abuse,Adolescents,Adult Wellness,Advocacy,Education,Family,Mental Health,Social Skills,Songwriting,Technology,The Therapeutic Process by Natasha Thomas
Oct.28,2011

NOTE: in the post below, you’ll find hidden a new video I’ve uploaded for submission to the American Music Therapy Association for their Montage on videos answering the question: What is Music Therapy.  See if you can find it in one of the links in today’s post!

Over the past few weeks I’ve been working on a Song Writing Project with some of my Teen Groups.  This is one of the “Templates” I work from with this population.  Over the course of 6 weeks, we choose and listen to music from a particular genre, discuss what makes it what it is (in this case it was rap music) and what makes a “good song” to listen to, before delving into the studio (I make use of my husband’s home recording equipment – he runs FL Studio, and Sony’s Acid, equipped with Autotune and a variety of other fun tools on his PC) to create our own song or collection of beats, as one particular group opted to do.  Here’s what they determined to be quintessential of “good” rap music:

1.  A Balanced Beat (with a booming bass, but some high sounds too – students talked about the “cool factor” of using what they considered “novelty” instruments like organs to accent the standard kick drum or 808 sound that we’re all accustomed to as a low tone)

2. A Pleasing Vocal Quality – a tone that’s gentle on the ear but clear.

3. “Flow” – this sparked an interesting discussion: just what IS “Flow”?  My students told me that Flow is how everything comes together in Rap Music – the percussion, the melody, the vocals.  It needs to sound like all the pieces fit effortlessly.  They assured me they know when a piece ain’t got Flow!

4. Honest “Real” Language – these were some students’ actual words.  At first they just said “Language,” and when I asked them what they meant, they elaborated that cursing and profanity was “Honest” and “Real.”  I remember sitting back in my chair for a moment and thinking.  I asked “What makes cussing real?”  And we got to talking.   And I got to thinking.  Interestingly enough, other Music Therapists have been talking about this too – I’ve got 9 emails on the topic in my inbox from the Music Therapy Listserv to prove it!  This is a hot topic for a lot of parents and other professionals as well.  We want our students to be able to listen to music that they enjoy and that moves them, but a lot of the Rap Music that makes it out into the mainstream is loaded with profanity and cursing that many people find offensive.  We may only hear a third of it on the radio, but it’s there on Itunes and the CD’s we buy, and it’s being preferred by many teens to over music with cleaner lyrics.  So why?

My students have told me that when you grow up in certain neighborhoods and lifestyles, cursing is part of who you are, and if you make the choice to censor yourself, you make the choice to change who you are for other people, and that makes you less “real.” 

Hmmm….

Am I a fan of profanity? No.  Do I agree with my clients’ beliefs on it making you more “real”?  I don’t know.  Do I believe that there can be songs out there that contain both profanity AND a positive message? YES!

There are some great songs out there with positive messages (some tracks off Eminem’s recent “Recovery” album come to mind here) that contain excess amounts of profanity, but it seems more often than not that it’s used to emphasis the negativity of where the singer has come from and the magnitude of their resolve to change.  My personal belief has always been that profanity draws the focus of people from what you’re saying to how you’re saying it – meaning they listen to your words, but not your message.  I always require of my students that when they’re speaking to me and each other in sessions they find ways of addressing us that are honest while still being respectful of the rules where we are and the fact that some of us might not want to hear profanity.  I find this is a general good skill for them to strengthen: finding multiple ways to say the same thing – to say it effectively and with personal attention to your audience.  That’s what really gets your message heard!

When it comes to music, though, I recognize that sometimes there may not be another song that says what a client needs to say when they feel their own voice isn’t enough.  I have some facilities that have clear cut rules on profanity, and for those placements I adhere to those rules, but when a placement doesn’t have such rules, all I ask when a client presents a song for the group to listen to is that they provide me with a reason why they like it – it can be anything, lyrics, the beat, so long as they can show me they have put conscious thought into what they’re suggesting.  It’s like that old weight-loss tip you hear to put the fork down in between bites of food.  It’s such a little thing, but giving yourself the split second to think – do I need this? – can make the difference between gaining a pound and losing a pound.  It’s all about actively attending and taking the time to listen to your needs, and the needs of those around you.  That’s the ultimate message I try to leave my clients with – I don’t want to bog them down with “my” opinion or “my” feelings.  I want them to form their own and use their own voices while still maintaining an awareness of how they do so and how it affects others.

Whew! A little deep for a Friday post, huh?

I love working with my Teenagers because they make me think about things like this.  They challenge my counseling skills too!  It’s one of those areas of my Music Therapy training I never thought I’d use this much, but I’m glad I do!  I hope that this weekend you’ll take some time to think about the language you use and listen to, and why you use it as well.  If you’ve got kids, use the music they listen to as an opportunity to talk about language, and the powerful tool that it is.

Body language is it’s own thing too – observe this segue in action! – if you’d like to take a break from talking and see some dancing this weekend (ta-da!) check out the 12 Houses Bellydance “Hafla” this Saturday (Oct 29th) starting at 5:30pm with free food, and dancing from artists across the states of North Dakota and Minnesota (including yours truly!) starting at 7pm – it looks to be a great time! 2017 Demers Ave (next to Dakota Boy’s Ranch).  If you’re more in the mood for listening, UND’s Music Department has tons of great stuff coming up this week – check out their web calendar for more information.

ps: did you find the video hidden in today’s post? :-)

Whatever you do this weekend, be mindful of what you say and how you say it – with your voice or your body.   It’s worth the effort!

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