Discuss with the board the traditional and cultural music in your home community.

[Meredith Pizzi]

[Bernadette Skodack]

Up here in the Detroit area, Motown music is big with my clients. A lot of them who are from Michigan grew up listening to The Supremes, The Temptations, and Smokey Robinson. Many of my younger clients gravitate towards rap and hip hop; some of them even write their own raps. What they listen to and what they write about are the struggles and overcoming- it fits not only the client and their current situation, but also represents Detroit and the state of Michigan itself. My clients from more of the rural areas enjoy country music (which is actually what I grew up on in the South!).

I try to integrate a mix of music, especially around holidays and events. Christmas is a big one; I mix in Christmas music with Hanukkah and give background (even playing the dreidel). Our Activity Specialist does a dinner for certain clients once a month called Dinner Around the World. Each month, she makes food from a different country (chosen by clients), and one client does a presentation on the country and the culture. One of the clients plays saxophone, and we’ve been able to find a piece of music to represent each country. For France, the client played “Alouette”, for Mexico, “La Cucaracha”. Not only is the client learning about the different music for each country, but the client is performing and boosting self-esteem.

Just outside of Detroit is Dearborn, which is home to a big Arabic and Muslim population. In the past, I’ve tried looking for Arabic music, but haven’t had any luck. I do remember from a religion class that I took in undegrad that Muslim music isn’t really written down because of how sacred it is. If anyone knows of any resources, I would love to know about them!

[Kristen Crouch]

Here in South Florida we have quite a mix. There is a lot of Hispanic families here and one of my goals has been to learn more Spanish songs. There is also a Haitian presence. I haven’t personally had clients who are Haitian but I have done workshops for professionals here who requested songs in French. Also, there is a very large Jewish population so whether working in Hospice or with young children Jewish songs have been in my repertoire. I grew up with traditional American folksongs and have been surprised how many children have never heard them. I made it a point to teach them when I taught general music ed, but perhaps its not a priority any more to music teachers and parents. At least its not as common.

I’m curious when it is best to introduce multicultural music to babies. I have created playlists of different types of world music to play for my baby so that he is at least exposed to them. In the power point I think it mentioned multicultural music at the Responsibility level. Would like input on this.

[Kristina Rio]

Kristen, I have sent your question on to Meredith and Beth, so look for their response. Before my SM groups start, I have CD’s playing for background music. I like to use the Putumayo Kids CD’s, and I recommend parents purchase them. They have a great collection world music, and are a great alternative to the traditional American Folk songs. Parents love them!

[Lauren Roberts]

Thinking about my own personal preferences, those of friends and family, clients I have worked with in various settings, and of course the general community, I hardly know where to begin with this one because it is so varied. There’s such truth behind our being a “melting pot” country. Just thinking of the south in general, I would say that country music is quite popular. Older populations would likely prefer hymns and/or southern gospel church music, as we are in the “Bible belt.” But then, as you get closer to Atlanta and other urban areas, rap and hip-hop are likely to be the most dominant genres.

[Lauren Caso]

In and around Boston, there are many Italian, Irish and Latino families, as well Christian, Jewish, Caribbean, Asian and others. I often emphasize multicultural/world music, specializing in West African culture, when teaching general music. However, I don’t always find it appropriate or applicable for practical use, when in a music therapy session consisting of several children from different cultural backgrounds. My fear is I will lose connection with some clients, perhaps?
I do try to use culture themed music surrounding holidays; although certain schools have been requesting less holiday themed music, as to not exclude any one culture. Other schools request Christmas sing-a-longs, etc. Sometimes it is difficult to separate folk songs from religious ties, be it Pagan, Catholic, etc. I have one child this year in a public school who is a Jehovah’s Witness, and is not permitted to celebrate more secular US holidays such as Valentine’s Day, Halloween or birthdays, which has been a challenge for me this year. But in general, I do try to sprinkle in global songs throughout the year, and find most children respond positively!

[Sarah Gagnon]

Hi Everyone,
Bernadette, Paige Robbins Elwafi has done great work with presenting information about Islam and Music Therapy. I’ve actually hired her as a supervisor when I needed to learn more about the arab muslim approach with music for a private client a couple of years ago. She is a fantastic resource and I highly recommend her. I have some information as well that I can share either here or privately! FYI: Actively music making is considered forbidden for some….ask first!!!

My home community is metro-west Boston where the heritage is predominantly Irish and Italian. I’ve had the good fortune to live in New Orleans as well as New York and those cities gave me a great deal of experience with so many cultures.

My favorite experiences are from New Orleans.

[Barb Blackburn]

Working in Colorado Springs, it’s a pretty big melting pot. With that being said, we don’t really have a very diverse culture of clients. We have one Hispanic client and one client who is Asian and Hawaiian. So we use a few Spanish songs, and will be adding some Hawaiian songs (this client is brand new) to our repertoire. We always ask cultural questions during our music therapy assessments, if families have any cultural or spiritual needs. Typically they tend to not really answer the cultural part of the question, they normally state that culturally, they are American and like most music. They will move on to spiritual and tell us of their religion (usually Christian or Catholic) and whether or not they enjoy/approve of holiday music. I do think it is important to validate their culture. Our Hawaiian client’s mother has been teaching us some Hawaiian words, which has been fun. We plan to write some songs using the Hawaiian words for “more”, “all done”, “hello”, “goodbye”, and other simple terms.

[Bernadette Skodack]

Thanks, Sarah! I would really appreciate any information that you can pass on! I’ve seen Paige present, but I think it was about using music therapy with kids who have hearing impairments.

[Kasey Sollenberger]

There are two parts to the cultural music from what I consider my home communities. I live and work in Texas, but I went to school and grew up in southern Louisiana. So in Dallas, country western, folk songs, and a few Texas-specific songs are well known. I really enjoy embracing the cultures of different regions. Being from New Orleans, with its rich music culture, I find myself always sharing those experiences with my clients and find great joy in educating them about the music culture there.

[Caitlin Kauffman]

This is a tough question! Currently living in Dayton, Ohio, I found that country music and gospel music were the biggest preferences with my hospice patients. With the typically age group of patients, WWII era music was also quite popular. I grew up in the Carolinas, which I would guess has a similar preference to this area. I have encountered people of various ethnic and religious backgrounds, of course, and their preferences were across the board.

[Katherine Sestrick]

I am just starting to get to know the culture of the area I live in now (suburban Philly). I work in 0-3, and I have found that most cultures still do the “traditional” baby/pre-school songs with “Twinkle, Twinkle” and “The Wheels on the Bus” being the favorites. This is a very diverse area and I currently have families from American, Indian, and Taiwanese cultures on my caseload. I have encouraged the mother of the Indian family that I work with to demonstrate Hindi songs that she sings to her daughter, but she prefers that I teach her “American” songs as she really wants her daughter to learn English and be a part of American culture. The Taiwanese family that I work with is just starting to teach me songs from their culture, but I am finding them hard to learn because of the dialect.

[Amy Dunlap]

This is a tough one. I live in Columbus, which is not extremely diverse for a big city, although I am sure we have more diversity than I witness on a regular basis as my sessions tend to be in more suburban areas. I also did my internship at a general hospital in San Diego, which is a much larger and much more culturally diverse city. Most of my older adult groups prefer songs from the American Songbook, WWII era, American folk tunes, Big Band, Broadway, Patriotic, etc. We are doing a few groups this summer with the Hispanic Children’s Coalition, which will be a good chance to connect with the growing Latino population in Columbus and to incorporate more multicultural music. The most prevalent religion is Christian, but we also have an increasing number of Muslims in the city (I don’t know anything about Islamic music! Does anyone else work with this culture?). That being said, I often work about 45 mins – one hour southeast of the city, where the culture changes dramatically as we head into Appalachia. I notice a lot more requests for Country Western and Gospel music here and even some Bluegrass.

[Elizabeth Schwartz]

I have just had the chance to read over everyone’s responses to this question, and I am so impressed with the vast range of experiences. Thank you for sharing resources and thoughts…especially the reminder to always ask before expecting active music making.
Kristen had asked a while back about introducing babies to multicultural music. I think we need to closely examine how each piece of music from a specific culture is created and how each musical element is specifically used. I like to then use music that resembles the way the elements are used in the child or family’s culture even if I am not recreating the exact music. The earlier you make this connection for children the better. The reference to multicultural music in the video, really refers to how a child in the responsibility level will begin to consciously align themselves with music from their culture and use that music to express and create their identity.

[Ann Dardis]

In my home community we have mostly German, Polish & Finnish heritage. However, there is also an increasing presence of Hispanic’s due to plenty of work being available at the local food processing factories. Country music, religious music & pop music are popular.

[Brandy Jenkins]

**Late Entry as I am Catching Up on Posting**

Most of the traditional and cultural music in my community are the Country and Christian Genres. Even though I work in a religious based school, I don’t feel comfortable using Christian music with the little ones because it isn’t their “choice” and they are immersed in it through the schools praise and worship classes. With that said, I will use a familiar religious tune to piggyback from. Here in Oklahoma, I just don’t see the diversity I did in Dallas. I try to bring in other cultural music and that has gone over well.

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