How have you used these four music experiences in your practice?

[Meredith Pizzi]

How have you used these four music experiences in your practice? Have you made any changes in these areas since beginning this course? Post your remarks to the board.

[Ann Dardis]

Singing: I’ve imitated the pitches sung by the children in a call & response type game. They love it when the recognize that I’m following them.

Playing Instruments: We play a game where we sing a sustained tonic pitch & shake egg shakers close to the floor. Then I quickly say “bop” in a high pitch voice and hide the eggs behind my back. After a few moments of silence, we do it again, and again and again. Sometimes they take the lead, sometimes the don’t want to stop the game.

Moving: We do a simple circle dance – walk to the left, walk to the right, move to the center and “whoooo”. Other times I had out scarves to the group and encourage free, flowing movements.

Listening: To encourage audiation, I sing part of a song and remain silent on other parts to see if the children will fill in the space. For example after singing the complete song a few times, I sing theh “This little light of mine” lyrics, but keep quiet during the time I would be singing “I’m gonna let it shine” in order to give them a chance to audiate.

[Barb Blackburn]

We currently only have only one client that is functioning within these developmental ranges but we are still using these four music experiences in just about every session, but all of our clients are in “responsibility” and beyond. For our lower functioning client in singing, she seems to be in between trust and independence. We sang familiar songs and left out words for her to fill in some type of verbal approximation. We sang “Old MacDonald” and she was matching the pitch during “e-i-e-i-o” quite frequently, as well as babbling with a melodic inflection. For playing instruments, she seems to be in between trust and independence as well. She very briefly use meter/pulse when shaking her jingle bells during a song, and she purposefully explored each instrument that we introduced her to. She enjoyed having the cabasa played down her arm and hand, she would hold her hand out after each time as though saying she wanted it again. For movement, she seems to be, again, between trust and independence. She is somewhat able to isolate her arms and hands to clap (with assistance) or to dance. She can move her arms up and down during the music (with some assist to begin the motion). For listening, she is also once again in between the trust and independence stages. She smiles when she hears familiar tunes such as “Old MacDonald”, “If You’re Happy And You Know It”, “Jingle Bells”. and when we played faster paced music she would smile and rock at near the same tempo. We tried some sustained attention interventions with her playing and stopping on the drums as well.

It’s so interesting to see each of these developmental levels and be able to see which one your clients are in. It’s helpful to be able to see what’s coming next!

[Lauren Roberts]

Although I have not made any changes in these areas since beginning the course (I don’t currently work in early childhood), I definitely use singing, moving, playing instruments, and listening in my practice. I thought about my “song of the month” activities, specifically. This is where I choose one song that is included in each session for the entire month. This allows us to explore the song in a variety of ways, which will usually, by month’s end, mean that we have used each of the four music experiences. For example, I will often have students complete a fill-in-the-blank lyric worksheet as they LISTEN to the song. They all naturally just SING along with the recording, or me if I am playing it live. Depending on the song, we may change the instrumentation and PLAY our own version, or learn how to play it on boomwhackers. And, of course, we get up and MOVE to the song!

[Kristen Crouch]

Singing: Singing familiar tunes like Twinkle Twinkle always grabs the attention of my little ones with ASD. They usually stop and focus attention to my face and voice. When I leave blanks in the song they are able to fill in the blanks.
Playing and Listening: I do a lot of instrument play to songs that have start/stop, directions up/down/side to side, and tempo fast/slow, usually with maracas or bells. Little ones are able to follow along after repetition of the song over several sessions.
Movement: Most of the movement songs are listening to direction and imitation of simple movements like clapping, stomping, jumping, etc. After many sessions they start to follow the sequence.

I haven’t had a chance to make any changes as I’m not working with any clients in this age range right now. I will be more aware in the future to the developmental sequences as I am working with the little ones.

[Lauren Caso]

Singing: echo nonsense sounds and real words/phrases, encourage singing vocables such as “la” to a modal vamp, singing favorite foods, name or “hello”
Playing instruments: encouraging staff to allow able children to take their own “time” to play the lollipop drum without hand-over-hand assistance, in response to the music. Sometimes, I find staff are too eager to help child play an instrument right away, when I observe they are still positioning the drum and stick into their hands and finding a suitable grip.
Moving: jumping up and down with children more, to experience the free movement they are feeling in their bodies.
Listening: looking for nonverbal cues, mouthing and babbling children may show in response to “questions” or content in music. Most of my groups with early childhood end this week, although I was able to make some observations and implement some changes based on the material presented in this course thus far.

[Sarah Gagnon]

Singing: Greetings, names, mimicking simple melodies or tunes, many infant and child- age appropriate songs.
Playing Instruments: Given children instruments to play for songs that have action verbs to incorporate
Movement: Shaking, stomping, singing, waving..etc.
Listening: I use flute, soft guitar and/or parents singing to help encourage soothing (when appropriate) I also pair story books with music ex: Puff Magic Dragon, 10 Ladybugs, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom…etc.

[Amy Dunlap]

Like some others, I do not currently work in early childhood on a regular basis and therefore, I have not had the opportunity to modify these four interventions in my practice with children. However, I think these four experiences can be found at the root of almost all that we do in music therapy (I really can’t think of any exceptions..).

I have noticed that I have adapted many of the ways that I think about musical responses in general after completing these modules. Recently, I had the chance to supervise music therapy students working with children with special needs in Jamaica. The children were pretty high functioning, but some really benefitted from the “Rule of Three Thousands,” which I was able to introduce to the music therapy students. In our supervision, I was able to point out that some children began playing when we said “and stop!” and we agreed that this was not a behavioral response, but a cognitive one related to development. Another nonverbal child who uttered squeals and moans to communicate was quietly humming a m3 interval during a singing experience; one of the music therapy students picked up on this and supported his humming by doing it herself and saying, “I hear you!” Because of my Sprouting Melodies training in these levels, I was able to provide the music therapy students with higher level of supervision with these children than I would have been able to without it.

[Kasey Sollenberger]

All of these experiences are utilized in each of my sessions. Singing is used during greetings and goodbyes, to facilitate calming and relaxation, and as a vehicle for generating vocalizations/approximations. Instrument play is often a time to practice social skills: taking turns and sharing. We play instruments to address fine and gross motor skills such as grasp and range of motion. Movement songs are often incorporated. Imitating movements, following direction, and gross motor skills are addressed here. I like to use a variety of props for movement such as ribbons, scarfs, and parachute. Playing stop and go songs, and imitating each other on instruments and vocally are common listening strategies used in my sessions.

[Brandy Jenkins]

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

Singing: Familiar music to encourage participation and building rapport. I am still in the rapport building stages. I also imitate what the child is doing vocally

Playing: Use musical games with stops and starts. I imitate the child as much as I can as well as give the child opportunities to imitate me. I also use free play to a 2-minute selection of instrumental music

Moving: I incorporate small and large movements. Sometimes we march, dance, or just wiggle. I incorporate directive movement and free movement.

Listening: Songs with simple directions or sequences. Stop and go songs work well here.

[Caitlin Kauffman]

As some others have said, I do not currently work in early childhood and also am not working at this time, so there have not been opportunities to make changes since beginning the course. That being said, there are endless examples of uses of singing, playing, moving, and listening in work that I have done in hospice (both in work with patients & families, as well as in my grief groups with campers).

Singing was one that I used most clinically, as such a large part of what I offered was patient-preferred music and encouraging the patient (and family members, if present) to sing along. This would sometimes move into playing instruments, when appropriate. At camp, we did more instrument playing with the kids as a way to process and share feelings. We also did a songwriting project, which led to listening to others and contributing ideas, in addition to singing the song for their family members. All of these types of experiences are essential to the practice of music therapy in any setting. This encourages me to look more critically at how responses change over time and how each can be used specifically for a purpose.

[Bernadette Skodack]

I haven’t been able to use these experiences in my practice…yet. I am looking forward to working with children again and getting to try these out!

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