Share Your Experiences Using These Three Songs

If you do not have the opportunity to use these songs within your clinical practice. Consider working with them on your own and exploring how they could be used clinically. If you have young children of your own or family members with young children it may be a lot of fun to engage in the music with them, if you have the opportunity.

I tried the song “Just Like Me” with my son tonight. He had a big smile as I sang and patiently waited during the rests. I could see the purposeful silences be used to increase attention as the child reaches the trust stage and looks toward us during periods of silence.

I sang the “Just Like Me” song to my niece. At 10 weeks, she is too young to understand the words, but it was cool to see her eyes widen at the higher pitches and my facial proximity etc while I sang to her.

I am interested to be able to take some of the musical elements of the songs presented, and use them in my work with adults. I do see where some of the songs might be appropriate for certain clients, and also my brain is thinking of songwriting ideas to make them more ae appropriate for my own clients. I can see the idea of “musical surprises” to be particularly exciting for a lot of the people I work with!

“Just Like Me”: I learned earlier this year that babies look at the eyes of the singer on the downbeat or pulse and for this song, the baby could be making eye contact on the words, “You” “just” & “me.” (Also “two”) I could see myself naturally moving my head forward and pointing on “you” and briefly nodding to the word “just” and pointing to myself confidently when singing the last “me.” Exploring the emotional content of those three moments in the song through facial expression. I love the “just like” being two beats for two hands!

I have a client who plays with discrete separation between very deliberate eye contact and then (delayed) beating on a drum…moving back and forth between those two states for long spans of time (the pulse and meter possibly changing from one measure to the next)… and this is making me think about ways to support our musical relationship. I would place his musical interactions in the Stage of Control. I could see a re-harmonization or arrangement of the song (e.g. in the style of The White Stripes) and changing the lyrics to be about things/ways we both like to play. “You are playing loud like me” “You are playing tambourine, just like me, just like me.”

Thank you all for sharing your experiences. I’ve enjoyed hearing about how you each engaged with the songs and how things unfolded within the experience.

I haven’t had the opportunity to use these songs within my practice yet, but I’ve explored them and am eager to use them soon.

I really enjoy “Just Like Me”, that effortless repetitive structure and built in rests that reflect what’s happening in real time – a pause to observe the named parts within the music. I also liked the importance highlighted of using a clear structure/chant to then build from within these songs. It creates such a nice access point for both MT and client and safe space to see what the client is maybe particularly drawn to or motivated by. Finding these pieces and using them i.e. glissandos or changes in tempo, using a toy they love etc can all become a part of engagement.

I’ve been trying to incorporate some of the musical elements presented here – especially the idea of musical surprises/anticipation – into patient-preferred songs. It’s been interesting to see how the kids have been responding. I’ve been using it strategically, when I notice that attention or interest is starting to fade, and have been getting some increased eye contact and lots of giggles as a result!