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We’re Baaaack! A Music Moves Update

Filed Under : General by Natasha Thomas
Apr.10,2013

Hard to believe it’s been 2 months since my last post here – yikes!!  There’s been a lot been going down in my world lately – plenty to keep me busy for the last 60 days (and plenty more to come over the next 60 and beyond)! I’ve shared in previous posts that I’ve been trying to break the habit of apologizing all the time whenever I have to miss or come late to something due to my schedule, so know that it isn’t my intent for this to be a top 10 list of excuses for not blogging lately, BUT there have been lots of things keeping me busy that I actually consider quite exciting and worth sharing, so without further ado, here are the top 4 reasons why Natasha’s blog has been silent so long (the excited, “non-apologetic” edition =p):

4. Loopy Stanley: this will mark Stanley’s 2nd year in the Loop-o-sphere, and his reappearance after last year’s debut has been thus far what I would call a mixed success.  We had fewer Music Therapists contributing this year (2 compared to last year’s 3) but almost DOUBLE the number of video & audio submissions (13 compared to last year’s 7) so I’m very excited to start delving through the submissions and putting together our 2013 Loopy Stanley video very soon!

3. Preparations to run my Second 5k: April is Autism Awareness Month, and a colleague and friend of mine (whose own family’s journey with Autism you can read about here) is hosting an Autism Speaks 5k Fundraiser for Autism Research on April 20th.  Now, illness, weather, and a general lack of daylight hours has made it tough for me to do much, let alone train outdoors since my last 5k in January, but now that the sun is out longer, I’m feeling (relatively) healthier, and the weather is (knock on wood!) improving, I look forward to joining friends and family in supporting a cause that is near and dear to my own heart and affects 1 in 88 children every year.

2. Putting 1800 miles on a State Vehicle making up missed visits from bad weather in January and February.  I’ve mentioned before that many of my students with the ND School for the Blind only get sessions from me once a month, primarily due to the ratio of students to Music Therapists working in our agency (41:1, woohoo!), but also due to the rural nature of our state and how many miles have to be traveled to get to some of them.  So, when those roads get ugly, many of my students don’t get music therapy, and this winter has definitely made that a challenge! I spent a good deal of February trying (and failing) to make up missed January visits, then having to cancel February visits, and then March came along and I snatched up every good weather day we had driving from place to place to make up visits,  going to some locations 3 and 4 hours out from my home town twice in the past month.  So, with a little bit of math it looks like I traveled an average of 58 miles a day.  Not at all uncommon for some Music Therapists, but man it was out of the ordinary for me! Hats of to my itinerant MT-BC’s out there.  Whew!

And the #1 reason why it’s been so quiet here at Music Moves….

1. World Bellydance Day is coming!  I’ve been working tirelessly with members of my Lovely Dozen Bellydance Troupe to set up a weekend long event to occur May 10-12 featuring Saroya of Atlanta, my first Bellydance Instructor from when I was doing my internship in Georgia.  We’ll be hosting workshops with Saroya, a stage show featuring dancers from all over the state in addition to our special guest, and we’ll be participating in an International Domestic Violence Awareness campaign called ShimmyMob on May 11th.  It’s going to be a jampacked weekend, and it’s been quite the adventure setting up Paypal to receive registrations, a Troupe bank account for managing our income and expenses, and increased rehearsals and meetings with the Troupe to plan for all the amazing dancers, vendors, and everyday people that will be coming together for this fantastic event.

After all, isn’t that what it’s all about? Coming together, making connections, wherever you’re doing it, is meaningful.  Most of my connections lately have been offline, or away from this blog, but they’re never far away!  Months like these last few are where I relish in social media, because it allows me to stay connected with my fellow Music Therapists, and subscribers to this blog can always hop onto our homepage and see my Twitter Feed to know that I’m still ticking out there, even if I’m not doing it here :-) So, keep connecting my friends, and know that I’ll be connecting back here again soon!

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Loopy Stanley 2013 – we want YOU!

Filed Under : Advocacy,Education,Social Networking,Songwriting,Studio Music,Technology,The Therapeutic Process by Natasha Thomas
Feb.11,2013

Hello and welcome February!

It is a blustery one here in North Dakota.  As  I type I am enjoying an impromptu Snow Day after we got a healthy dumping of snow and wind, enough to close down two major interstates (which in ND, is a pretty big deal).  Looking out my window everything is clear now, just lots of work to do if I should get the urge to attempt vacating my driveway anytime today!

This month is also showing up to be a blustery one for health too – lots of colds and flu bugs whirling around.  I myself caught one such bug that rendered me unable to get my last two posts of MT Advocacy Month out  in time for the end of January (as did, sadly the little client whose mother was going to write a guest post too – we may have to wait on that recovery a little longer).  But, weather and illness aside, I am excited to present to you all at least one of those posts: announcing the return of Loopy Stanley this year!

What is Loopy Stanley?

Last year, I began a project based on Flat Stanley, like you see in elementary schools around the world.  Children color in a little paper doll named Stanley, and send him via snail mail on “adventures” to their friends and family, all of whom photograph Stanley in their environments so that when he returns to his creators, they all have a photo collection of where he’s been.  Combine that idea with this great series of videos called “Song around the World,” and you have the basis of the concept for Loopy Stanley: have one group of people create a musical loop, and then send it out into the world to have recorded “adventures” with other people, so that eventually you can have a musical collection of where the loop has been.  Last year’s Loopy Stanley was an original loop created in the Ipad app Loopseque, and two MT-BCs contributed a total of 3 video and audio recordings that transformed the song from a simple series of beats and chords to an awesome melodic jam between my Ipad, a tambourine, a saxaphone, and an oboe – very cool stuff!  This year’s Loopy Stanley is based on a song you may find familiar, recorded by the students of the North Dakota School for the Deaf on Garage Band.  We’re hoping that using an already established song, and giving folks more time to contribute (last year I think we only gave folks a month, this year you’ve got two extra weeks!) will make Loopy Stanley a little more accessible this year.

So… check it out! And let us know what you think

This was my first time using iMovie on my Ipad to create the video, and I will admit to using some Quantization in Garageband, so you may notice some patches of video & audio are out of sync – no need to adjust your screen resolution or anything :-)

Promo Video for Loopy Stanley 2013 – link will open in new tab

If you think you’d like to contribute to Loopy Stanley, here’s all you’d have to do:

1. Like what you hear :-)

2. Email natasha.mtbc@gmail.com for me to send you audio or Garage band versions of the loops used in this video.

3. Record yourself or a client (audio & video) playing or singing along to one or all of the loops (wear headphones so we don’t hear the loops in the background)

4. Send your loops back to me by March 31st to compile with any others we receive to make one master track and video to be released in April of this year!

5. Check back in April of 2013 and like what you hear (again :-)

*Remember, please have recording permission for any client material you plan to submit as the final video will be made public!”

My kids at NDSD were very excited about sharing this song with the world this year!  They had a blast seeing and listening to the contributions from last year, and we look forward to hearing from folks again this time around – maybe one of those folks could be YOU!!

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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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The Power of Silence

Filed Under : Early Childhood,Hearing Impairment,Other Special Populations,The Therapeutic Process by Natasha Thomas
Nov.1,2012

It’s a quiet day here at home – I’ve officially caught the annual Fall bug going around and am sitting on my couch with tea on one side of me and oatmeal on the other.  Luckily I had a “mental health day” scheduled for tomorrow anyway, just appears my body couldn’t wait to get in on the action and stay home a day earlier!

I make a habit of scheduling the occasional “mental health day” or a day just for M.E. (remember that post? click here for details on those initials!) because time has shown me, along with various physical ailments, that my body and mind need recharge time in between the hectic hours I spend on the road or working with clients, as so many others in my field do.  We’re “helpers” by nature, we want to be there for the individuals we serve, and sometimes that means running ourselves ragged to do it.  But I was reminded in a session last week how important just taking a break can be, not just in my day to day schedule, and not just for myself, but for my clients, and in my very sessions too.

Many of my students at the North Dakota School for the Deaf have Cochlear Implants.  For those of you who don’t know how Cochlear Implants work, they are made up of two parts: one is an internal metal piece that’s surgically implanted in the recipient’s skull, the other is a transmitter that connects magnetically to the plate from the outside of the head behind the ear.  Without that external transmitter, the individual is totally deaf.  I have preschool students with implants who will take them off during tantrums and put their hands up over their heads to cover their eyes and where the magnetic piece would attach so they can’t hear or see my instructions, which can make a person feel pretty powerless (and tantrums are all about power!), but alas, I digress…

Some of my students with Cochlear Implants have other disabilities as well, which can make the process of receiving and living with an implant, and the auditory stimulation it brings with it, very difficult.  One such preschool student last Thursday came into their group session with me very upset – crying in a way that I knew was beyond a tantrum.  They were legitimately upset, and scaring themselves – you could see the fear in this student’s eyes, and it broke my heart.  Their teacher said to me that the student had recently gone in for an appointment to have the volume of what they were hearing through their implant turned up, and the stimulation since returning to school, it seemed, was too much.  So much in fact, that mid-Hello song (even without my guitar, I had opted just to sing to reduce the auditory stimulation) this teacher and student had to leave the room and take a walk, which I should add has never had to happen before with this student.  They loved music time, and even on the worst days, I had always found a way to turn their tears around with music.  Strumming the guitar in particular was this student’s favorite activity, so I told the teacher that I would come down to the classroom for some one-on-one time with this student after group, that maybe this would help.  The teacher told me that she was going to take the student’s implant off for a while to calm them down and that she didn’t think music would be of any use then.  I reminded her that music was multisensory, and that the tactile experience of strumming the guitar was at least worth a try.  We agreed, and I finished the group music session with the rest of this student’s class in my room, then packed up my guitar and headed downstairs to the student’s actual classroom to try some one on one strumming.  And the result was amazing…

When I entered the room, the student was lying on the floor crying softly, without their implant, hands over their ears  to block anyone trying to put them back on (which they had long given up doing, but again, when you’re in one of those “point of no return” tantrums, everything seems to be an imminent threat).  I sat down in front of them and took my guitar out of its case, and the hands came down from the ears within a second.  The student sat upright, and, still crying, reached for the guitar and began to strum.  I let the fingers of my left hand form a little chord progression, even though I knew the student couldn’t hear it, but I could see them recognizing when my hand would move, and making little glances away from what they were doing to recognize me, and that was a valuable sign they was aware enough of their environment in the midst of all they were feeling to maybe start to come out of it.  The student alternated between strumming themselves and grabbing my hand to strum, crying softly all the while, until a little smile crept across their face and the student lay back on the floor, pulling the guitar onto their lap as they did so, so that when I strummed they could feel the vibration against their stomach.  This is a pretty vulnerable position, so I knew we were on to something once the student led me there! I played for a few more minutes until the student turned over onto their stomach so the guitar was against their back.  Then they pulled out from under the guitar and grabbed a nearby book and opened it.  Across the room the teacher made eye contact with me and just shook her head.  Both of us were near tears.  As this student engaged themselves in the bookshelf in front of us, I slowly stopped playing and stood with my guitar.  The student looked at me as I did this, but continued to look at their book and smile, even starting to make little babbling noises, a sign that I knew the day was returning to normal.  I slowly, and again in full view of the student, walked over to my guitar case, put my guitar away, and then left the room silently.  When I got to my car, I turned off the radio and drove in silence for a good chunk of the 90 mile drive back to Grand Forks.  It just felt right.

Sometimes the world is more overwhelming than we might realize.  We are surrounded by sights and sounds that our ancestors might cringe at the sheer volume of stimulation we face every waking moment.  What my student reminded me of that day was that even though my job title has the word “music” in it, and even though music might be defined as “organized sound,” that silence is a sound too – and a necessary one at that! It is through silence that we even know what sound is – it’s part of what defines it, what shapes it, and part of what what makes the right sound beautiful and meaningful when it comes through.  So, I challenge you in your day to day life to make time for silence – both in your sessions and in your overall schedule.  Your body – and your soul – will thank you!

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AMTA 12 Post Conference Recap

Filed Under : Advocacy,Conferences/Presentations,General,Social Networking by Natasha Thomas
Oct.21,2012

It’s hard to believe more than a week has already passed since I presented at my first ever national conference for the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) in St. Charles, Illinois.  AMTA always puts on a great conference, and this year was no exception! Here were some of my highlights:

1. Spending time with my hotel roomies. Despite what people may assume from there being so few Board Certified MT’s in the state of North Dakota, we don’t actually see each other that often.  Conference is the longest span of time we’re ever able to spend with each other, and I look forward to it every year! Late night dinners, stories, and giggles always abound between my colleagues and I this time of year – I am always inspired to hear of what they’re doing in their corners of the state and sometimes even motivated to join them in their pursuits.  This year one of my roommates may just have inspired me to run my first marathon (though for now, a couch to 5k program is all I’m able to keep up with)!

2. Reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. Last year’s conference was the first time I ever attended a “Tweet-up,” a real-life, real-time gathering of individuals with profiles on Twitter.  There I met in person many of the people I connect with and learn from on a regular basis online, and it was wonderful to see them all again this year!  In addition this year, I got to take part in a booth at the conference “exhibit hall,” where vendors and service providers related to the field of music therapy gather to advertise and network.  The booth I hung out at was for Kat Fulton’s Music Therapy Ed., the website where I contributed my first ever continuing education course on using Music with the Blind and Deaf, which was also the subject of my presentation this year.  Kat had set up a wonderful scavenger hunt for visitors at her booth to meet and acquire signatures from myself and other instructors on her site (also great professionals to meet and spend time with!) – it was a great way for me to network and connect with other individuals interested in or already serving the same population as I was, and I can’t thank Kat enough for thinking of it!

Another great connection made this year at conference was with the two person team of Terra Rising, a film crew hard at work putting together a documentary on Music Therapy! You can check out the teaser for their film here. Two of my colleagues from North Dakota and I were interviewed as a panel for the film, and we look forward to having the crew in North Dakota very soon!

3. Attending (and for the first time ever, presenting for!) concurrent sessions. There is always a tremendous variety of subject matter covered at the AMTA national conferences: from counseling strategies to drumming and beyond – it’s hard to keep up with it all! The minute the full conference schedule went online I downloaded it and began highlighting the subjects I was interested in – on the flight to the conference hotel I narrowed the field to those presentations I thought would be most important to attend or receive notes from, and once I landed in the Chicago area, I consulted with my roommates to see what presentations they’d be attending, so if there were any overlapping ones both of us were interested in we could perhaps each attend one and then trade notes.  This year was tough! There were a lot of presentations I wish I could have gotten to, but just as many that I did and learned a lot from, including my own. Presenting was a tremendously valuable learning experience for me – from the people who attended with such enthusiasm and shared their stories in discussions that went well after the presentation over ice cream and warm waffle cones (there was a Ben & Jerry’s inside our hotel – yum!) to the actual experience of presenting itself (technical difficulties and all – I learned that it was a good idea to have as many backup plans as I did!) it was an amazing opportunity to share my own knowledge with the world and network with other professionals who shared my interest and had their own unique perspectives and knowledge to offer.  I look forward to maintaining these connections and expanding on our shared knowledge for years to come!

In summation, this was another great year of conference, from the people I met and was able to spend time with to the valuable experiences and learning tools I acquired over the four days I spent there (yep, that’s right, four days! It’s amazing how much can happen in that time)! I look forward to implementing some new counseling techniques I learned at a few of the placements I serve and I can’t wait to present for my next conference.  Tuesday afternoon I began my couch to 5k training as well, so I suppose you literally could say that I’m hitting the ground running! And, as I’ve been able to say every year after conference, I feel refreshed, rejuvenated, and inspired towards another great year of service doing what I love!

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Transitioning through Music

Filed Under : General,The Therapeutic Process by Natasha Thomas
Oct.9,2012

Another busy month is underway for this Music Therapist, culminating (already! Seems so early this year) in the American Music Therapy Association’s National Conference in Chicago Oct 11-14.  I’ll be presenting this year on the topic of defining the role Music Therapy can play in the State School model of serving students who are Blind or Deaf (if you’re someone attending that concurrent session and are looking for the handout, click here – make sure you have the password handy!)

Also making this month busy are the transitions I’ve been making, resuming elements of my old routine after my vocal rest, and building new routines to better manage my time and vocal health.  Transitions are a natural part of our everyday life, moving from one environment or state of being to the next, so as I prepare myself for the transitions I myself am making, I also look towards the changes coming to my students as I do this (less live singing from me, for example) and work to prepare them for all that’s in store – i.e., the new instruments and activities I’m bringing to replace those activities I used to lead primarily by singing.

So, how do I do all this without seeing major meltdowns from my students? Here are some little things I like to keep in mind whenever I’m transitioning clients from one thing to another – you might find these little tips are helpful to you in general as well!

1. Remember that transitions are all around you, and recognize each moment as a teaching opportunity.  This is something I’ve especially learned working with students who have sensory disorders.  You never know what someone may not be realizing is happening, or what the value might be in them knowing that.  Little things like taking the time to let students really touch or look at an instrument before you start playing it can be so valuable.

2. Transitions can be complicated, but keep your explanations simple.  As many opportunities as there are to teach, you don’t want to lose yourself in every one of them.  Take advantage of the most valuable times to teach, but do it as efficiently as possible, so you can still manage a few core activities in between those transitions!

3. Lastly, meet your students where they are - in Music Therapy we call this the iso-principle.  For example, if what you want is for your students to sit down on the floor and wait quietly for your directions, but what they’re doing is jumping up and down and yelling loudly, you will see more success in getting them to comply with your wishes by joining them jumping up and down to gradually bring their energy down to the floor with a song or a chant that slowly decreases in volume and speed, rather than insisting they join you on the floor without transition time.

So, with that, it’s time for me to transition from this blog post into the rest of my workweek – sadly, part of this week for me involves attending the funeral of my husband’s grandfather, who I am proud to have had the honor to know, but will greatly miss seeing at family gatherings and holidays. After the funeral, I’ll be flying out to Chicago for the AMTA conference, and I look forward to sharing with the many amazing individuals who come to present and learn from their peers, as I do.  From there, who knows what will come next! Conference is always an amazing time of year for me, with so much to learn and share with my clients – there will be much transitioning to be had, for sure, so check back soon for a recap of all the amazing things to come!

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Music for Academic Enrichment

Filed Under : Braille Music,Early Childhood,Education,Family,General,Hearing Impairment,K-12,Visual Impairment by Natasha Thomas
Sep.18,2012

One, two, buckle my shoe…

Sound familiar?  This little nursery rhyme has been the center of a new unit of mine at both the School for the Deaf in North Dakota and our upcoming programming week at the School for the Blind here in Grand Forks.  Why? A few reasons:

1. the Counting concepts involved: this song is great for young children to practice counting from 1 to 10 (and I have a fun verse that goes backwards from 10 to 1 too!) not just for reciting the numbers in order, but remembering that order with interruptions (like the phrase “buckle my shoe” between the numbers 2 and 3).

2. the Rhythm and Rhymes: my students at NDSD find this song a good one for practicing their signing fluency, and I am able to address the issue of rhymes with my older and more aural students.  I can show them a variety of cards with pictures of objects like shoes, doors, and sticks on them and say “5, 6, pick up…” and then wait for them to point to the picture of the sticks.  Seems obvious to us who know the rhyme, but if you don’t, this can be a tricky concept! My students enjoy playing matching games to songs that rhyme.  At the School for the Blind we’ll be practicing playing the rhythm of the song with Braille Music notation, to focus more on the steady “Ta-Ta, Ti-ti-Ta” of the chant, and how that can be expressed on paper.

3. And lastly, impulse control.  This can be a fun song to start with singing or signing really slowly, and then speeding up each time you repeat it, but learning to control those giggles after each repeat is a skill we spend our whole lives developing, if you think about it – when something is fun, how do you transition to what’s next without too much disappointment or craziness?  This week I’ll be presenting for an early childhood class on using Music for transitions – may be another blog post here on the subject then too!

Until then, however, I have my grandparents in town this week and am enjoying spending some quality family time before Fall really kicks into high gear with the return of my travel rotation with the School for the Blind, resuming of the LISTEN Drop-In kids groups (hopefully the first Wednesday in October – yay!) and the American Music Therapy Conference, which will be coming up sooner than usual this year, and at which I’ll be presenting for my first ever National Conference! Lots to enjoy, be thankful for, and look forward to – much to learn as well!

Speaking of learning, one last AWESOME announcement: this week a new continuing education course by yours truly will be released on Music Therapy Ed.com on the subject of Music Therapy with the Blind and Deaf.  Some of the concepts I just discussed above will be included, as well as tons of info on the assessments I use in my work with NDSD and NDSB, and general information on using Music with individuals who are Visually Impaired or Hard of Hearing.  I could not be more excited about this or grateful to the amazing Kat Fulton for this opportunity, and I hope if this is a population or area of Music Therapy that is even remotely interesting to you that you’ll consider signing up for the course! It’s all online, available to you 24/7, and worth 5 CMTE credits.  It’s been an awesome experience creating the course and I look forward to hearing from students as they take it and seeing what they have to say about it – as much as I teach and advise in my profession, my clients and students teach and advise me every day!

So go out there and learn a little something new today – even better if you do it with music!

 

 

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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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“Seeing” Music Differently: 3 tips from the NDSB Braille Music Institute

Filed Under : Braille Music,Education,Other Special Populations,Visual Impairment by Natasha Thomas
Jul.19,2012

One of our NDVS/SB Braille Music Institute Students, listening to Beethoven on her computer – photo by John Stennes from a recent article in our local paper, the Grand Forks Herald (click here for link to full article)

 

This past week, as I mentioned in my last post, the North Dakota School for the Blind hosted it’s first ever Braille Music Institute.  During that time, we were lucky enough to have with us Bill McCann, founder and creator of the Dancing Dots company, which produces the Goodfeel Suite of software that can be used by and for Blind Musicians to produce what he calls “accessible scores,” or music that can be read by either a sighted or blind individual.  During our institute, students learned how to do this by scanning print music into a computer equipped with the program JAWS, a screenreader that collects print information and reads it aloud to the user.  From the scanned music, students were able to convert the lines and dots on the page to braille music that could be played back auditorally on their computer or read with their fingers through a tactile braille display below the regular keyboard.  We were also lucky enough to be able to purchase equipment called Limelighters, so our Low Vision students could additionally get their music enlarged on a touchscreen for easier reading and portability.

 

Image of a Student using a Limelighter, another piece of equipment our students were able to learn about this week. Runs the Goodfeel software with additional perks for enlarging music for low vision users to advance measure by measure with a foot pedal.

Screen Shot of the Computer program Sharp Eye, part of the Goodfeel Suite by Dancing Dots (click the image for link to website). On the lower part of the screen is the image of music scanned into the computer. In the upper part of the screen is the digitized, converted version in a playable, auditory and print format.

This is what the Braille looks like when converted digitally to an accessible format in the Goodfeel Software. Think of those toys you might’ve had as a kid where you could press your hand into pins and watch them raise up on the other side of the device – the pins on this display change their alignment phrase by phrase as the student moves their fingers along to the music.

As I’m sure you’ve gathered from the sheer girth of each photo’s captions alone, there’s a lot that these programs can do for users who are blind or low vision, and a lot that we did this week using them – far more than I could certainly go into detail about here!  In the four days students were on campus, they spent a total of 9 hours in direct instruction on music notation and transcribing technology,  visited two local theatres (attending an audio-described production of Oliver at one of them – very cool!), and had the opportunity to network with local peers from the Summer Performing Arts Company (SPA) about the challenges and rewards of pursuing a life full of music and art.  But I thought I’d share with you some of the basic things I learned this week about music for and by individuals who are visually impaired, in the form of 3 considerations you can make as an individual, student, educator, or therapist:

1. Never be afraid to move beyond your assumptions and ask an individual who is blind how their experience is going.  If you’ve ever found yourself working with a blind or low-vision student and wondering “Are they understanding this?” – that one consideration can mean the difference between an individual truly experiencing the music, and just “being there” for it.  If the individual you’re addressing is verbal use questions like “How is this going for you?” “What are you gathering from everything that’s happening?” or “Tell me what you’re hearing right now – what does that mean to you?”  and follow-up from their answers with confirmation or providing additional information (i.e., “Ok, you heard that – good! So did I – you might like to know that while that was happening, this was also going on,” etc.,) Frequent comprehension checks open the door to letting them express any concerns or gaps in understanding that they may be experiencing, as well as educating you on how they are learning and perceiving, so that you can adjust as is necessary and you are able.

2. If the individual you’re working with isn’t verbal, or you’ve determined that they aren’t getting everything there is, ask the question (either of yourself, or of them directly) “What do you think would make this easier to understand?”  Most likely, a verbal individual will tell you what would help (i.e., “if I could have a braille program telling me who the characters are, I might be able to better follow the relationships unfolding onstage.”).  If the individual isn’t verbal, think creatively.  What is the information they’re missing? Is it something that could be represented in a tactile, physical way? Or maybe an auditory one?  If so, are there adjustments you can make in that moment, or (like the Braille program example) is it something you’ll have to log away and remember to do next time?  Make whatever adaptations you can in the moment, and then confirm to the individual you’re working with that you’ll make further adjustments next time and thank them for their input.  Then it’s time to…

3. Locate the professionals near you that can help to make the necessary adjustments for the individual you are working with the experience a fuller understanding of whatever material you’re using.  Perhaps your local School for the Blind has an audio describer that can work with you like the one we found, providing descriptions of any visual information your client might miss via a microphone that they wear to communicate to the blind or low vision individual wearing the headset to hear them. Or perhaps you can contact someone about arranging an advance tour of the theatre or performance hall, so that the individual can get a sense of the layout or costumes before the show. Free-lance Braille transcribers operate all over the country as well, making reasonably priced Braille transcriptions of everything from menus to programs and more – many of them have websites or can be found via referral through calling your local school or other agency for the Blind.  Don’t ever let “well I can’t do it!” stop you from finding someone who can!

You might find these tips useful in a variety of scenarios. It never hurts to challenge the status quo and seek out the adaptations you need.  An internet search and a phonecall or two may well show you someone out there has had the same issues you do and found a solution!  Until I discovered the ND School for the Blind, I had no idea Braille Music was out there, or that so many students were hungry for it.  Now I know that the more tools and opportunities I discover to enhance my students’ learning, the more people I involve in the process, and the more places I can get to accommodate those people and opportunities, the more success my students will have – more people, more places, more often, more progress – and that goes for every individual I serve!

Coming soon: a look at the new journey I’m embarking on as a Music Therapist on vocal rest.  What I’m learning in my 8 weeks without singing (spoiler alert: it’s a lot!)

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Music as a Third Language

Filed Under : Adolescents,Bellydance,Education,General,Movement,Social Skills,Songwriting,Studio Music,The Therapeutic Process by Natasha Thomas
Jul.9,2012

Hello and Happy July!  Hard to believe our last post was all the way at the end of MAY – quite the schedule I’ve been under lately, but so much fun information to share!  As I type this, we’re preparing for our first ever Braille Music Institute at the North Dakota School for the Blind, which I’ll be sharing more about as we get further into the week, but over the last month, my attention has been dedicated to something completely different: English Language Learners, also known as individuals learning English as a Second Language, or ESL Learners.  My work with this population came out of an experiment started last year by the popular Summer Performing Arts Company (SPA), which engages young students in the Grand Forks community from kindergarten through their highschool years in the performing arts (theatre, music, and dance).  Last year, the program pioneered their first ever sections of SPA specialized for ESL students (called ELL SPA) and students with Special Needs (which was called MY SPA).  I was fortunate enough to be asked to facilitate some drumming activities for ELL SPA at that time, and it was enough of a hit that they wanted me back this summer, this time to coordinate the whole of the ELL SPA program – quite an undertaking to be sure, but it’s been a tremendous learning and growing experience for me and one I hope to embark on again and again with these wonderful students as often as they’ll let me in future years!

The students in my two sections of ELL SPA (we met from 8am to 10:15, and 10:30 to 12:30) totaled 34 in number, with 30 of them from Nepal.  Our community has seen a huge influx in the number of refugees coming from Nepal, and some of the students I worked with had been in the country less than 2 months before starting our program, which ran from May 29th through the 3rd of July.  During the 2 hours I had each group for over the course of the month, we worked on everything from learning to play rhythms on the drums and chords on the guitar to writing a play, creating costumes and designing a set, and putting together a video presentation of their final performance to show everyone in the last week.  Our goals were to help students develop an understanding of the English Language and American culture through the performing arts, as well as provide them with opportunities for social interaction through sharing their own cultures with us and participating in activities that took them out of their own comfort zone and forced them to work together to achieve success.  One favorite game of our students for achieving this last goal was “The Blob.”  In this version of tag, one person is deemed “The Blob,” and tasked with chasing everyone else in the group.  When “The Blob” manages to reach someone and touch them, that person has to connect to them (either by linking arms or holding hands) and then together they have to tag the next person, who connects to them, and so on, and so on, until you have a giant “Blob” in which all members of the group are eventually “assimilated.”  We played this game in a large library (amazingly, without any major injuries – there were times when I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea!) but the game can also be played in small circles, with the movement of the group limited to small shuffling steps, or by blindfolding the members of the “Blob.”  Adaptations abound and the game is great fun to work on team work, while addressing issues of personal boundaries and freedom of movement.

This group was also the first one where my expertise in Bellydance was really able to combine with my job as a Music Therapist.  Many of my Nepali students were very interested in Bollywood, or East Indian Dance, which many Bellydancers study, so we had several “dance days” where I would bring in my hipscarves and props, and we would teach each other all the moves we knew, boys and girls alike, taking turns plugging our phones and other music-playing-devices into the speakers we were provided, and just enjoying the community of sharing with each other in music.  Those are days I’m going to miss for sure!

At the end of the summer, students shared that some of their favorite activities were the same as mine: playing games like the “Blob,” dancing in the library, and learning rhythms and chords to songs like Greenday’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams.  Many of them stated that they were proud of the work they had done, and I would have to agree with them as well: I was tremendously proud of all we were able to do in one short month, but above all it was my honor to be part of such an amazing group of international students, share in learning about their culture’s customs and traditions (and FOOD! Never again will I assume that salads can’t be spicy!)  All in all, this was a very new experience for me, but one I can’t imagine having a summer without!

I know I’ll be able to say the same about our Braille Music Institute coming up this week – students are just arriving now, and our special guest Bill McCann of Dancing Dots is hard at work preparing a demonstration of some of the software they’ll be learning to use to create music in both Print and Braille this week.  Already, I love the sound of sweet music coming from every corner of the building, from the Technology room to the Commons area – it may be a little hectic, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!

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