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.

[Cynthia Cross]

One tool I have really been excited about using is introducing one timbre at a time. I had been struggling with seeing that my students didn’t really seem to ‘hear’ the music (we are a very adult-prompt heavy setting). I began introducing a single sound, such as a desk bell. I played the song on the bells, combined playing and singing and then invited the students to play the bells with me. I have noticed a definite increase in students attention to task and awareness of the music since I’ve been working this way. So that involves listening and playing instruments… for movement I again struggled with students not really hearing the music but looking to staff to see what to do. I think I will begin to work more with supporting the students movements and see where that leads me. For singing I have used a lot of voiced syllables in the past. Right now I have very few students who even vocalize so this is a challenge. I find the more free I am with my vocalizing the bigger response I usually get from students.

[Mary Carter]

Here are some examples from my last clinical site where I worked with severely medically and developmentally delayed children. I have not put changes into practice yet as I am not currently seeing clients as I build the business side of opening a private practice.

Singing: I worked with various ages in “choirs” where I would start with simply making sounds and matching pitches and intensities (very little ones), to adding consonant sounds, to memorizing words to put at the end of a phrase (elementary school age), to singing a line to finally singing a whole song and performing (high school age).

Playing Instruments: Most of my clients were in the beginning stages of Trust, Awareness and some in Independence. For those in the trust stages we would work to get them to show preference for an instrument or sound by looking towards one of two instruments that made a different sound such as bells or a shaker. For those in Awareness and Independence staff would support the client in grasping (some with independence) and shaking or striking an instrument or exploring how the sounds were made with instruments like chimes or a thunder sheet.

Movement: Again, the majority of my clients had very little purposeful movement so they were in the early stages of Trust and Awareness. I would tie scarves, bells and rattle like shells to parts of the body that could move to encourage movement by giving them an audible or in the case of the colored scarves a visual amplification of their movement.

Listening: My favorite listening exercise I would do with my clients was to create a “rain” storm with the use of different instruments one at a time. I would introduce the ocean drum, then the thunder sheet, then a giant rain stick then wind chimes. It was a very sensory experience and I would turn off the lights so the clients could really focus on the sounds. I found this was the times when my clients were almost able to move into the control stage by really stopping and attending to the sounds.

[Emily Baroody]

I try to utilize all four musical elements in each of my classes, singing, instrument play, movement, and listening. And I find the instrument play to be the trickiest particularly with babies and toddlers.
Today I tried something different in my music for little ones class inspired by some of this weeks topics. The group consists of babies and toddlers in the awareness, trust and one or two in moving in to the independence phase. </p>
<p>Usually I start the class with all of instruments I intend to use for the day laid out in the middle of the circle for all the kids to come and explore before we even start the class. Then before the hello song there is a transition song to clean up and then instruments are introduced one at a time after this. This was going just ok. Even with the transition song some children really disliked putting away the instruments and often there was a baby that was upset by the cacophony of sound.</p>
<p>Today I only introduced one instrument at the beginning, some brightly colored plastic shakers. I kept these instruments out through the hello song and went right into songs that utilize the shakers. This seemed to go much better. The little ones in the awareness stage were not as irritated by the volume because the timbre was more uniform and the older ones were more willing to give up the shakers after having had them for an extended period of time.</p>
<p>I also saw the little little ones following the shakers as they moved high in low (as indicated in one song) and not just their parents movement but around the group, and this is something I hadn’t seen previously. I also feel like the older babies and toddlers felt more comfortable imitating and exploring the instruments in an organized way. They had a longer discovery period with the shakers seemed more interested than usual in imitation.</p>
<p>Its also possible that I noticed more of these things because I am looking for them because of what we are learning in this class.

[Corie Barkey]

In each session I lead I try to use all of the four experiences. I can see the value for children to experience music in all of these ways. Many of the teachers that I work with often comment about how some students respond most consistently in the music therapy group. I attribute this to providing developmentally appropriate music experiences which support the corresponding responses. I am now feeling more confident to share with the other family members or educational team members that starting and stopping instrument play with the music is EXACTLY what I am looking for from that particular child. I have placed an obvious “Toys to be cleaned” bin in the room to let parents and teacher know that the children in the awareness/trust level can explore instruments with their mouths and it is OK. The combination of singing, moving, playing and listening is a powerful combination of experiences for a music therapy session.

[Molly Moses]

I worked for a period of time in an outpatient clinic for children who had cochlear implants. Although they were in early elementary school, and not infants or toddlers, they were learning to hear and use their voices for the first time.

Singing: We did a lot of singing together, and depending on the what each child was capable of, made adjustments. Some of the children could only sing a few pitches and we worked to use those is songs and get the melodic inflection. Some were capable of call and response singing, where I would sing one line and they would repeat and try to match pitch.

Playing Instruments: These patients were typically good with rhythm, pulse, and meter. We used pitched instruments to add another auditory layer.

Moving: These children generally used purposeful movements, and learned musical movement is sequence.

Listening: Groups were often beneficial for these patients because they learned to listen to the music the others were making and play along.

[Melaine Pohlman]

I work to incorporate all four experiences in my sessions and interactions with the kids I work with. What struck me most during this week’s information was the notion that as therapists we can remind parents that their children ARE responding to the music in developmentally appropriate ways. Too often some of my families are quick to try and control or shape their children’s musical responses, feeling like the kids shouldn’t play and explore instruments on their own, play in silence or feel like they should have a better sense of melody or pitch at a certain age. As an example, in a session just today, I had a parent apologizing for her child not singing along to the whole melody, yet her child isn’t at that stage yet. The child is just beginning to vocalize and use pitches more consistently with music. It’s more appropriate to do some matching of her pitches rather than expect her to sing an entire song. I think this week reminded me to trust my musical instincts and observations and feel confident in sharing these observations with families.

[Mary Kerrigan]

I too like some of the other therapists here try to involve all four experiences in all of my sessions. Again I work primarily with adults with developmental disabilities and it is a wide spectrum of abilities from those adults still at the stage of awareness up to responsibility and unlike the emphasis in sprouting melodies I don’t always have the ability to split people into groups according to their level of abilities which I believe would create a better experience. I find the most consistent and beneficial is the singing and listening. Especially for my clients in the stage of awareness and trust, they truly are hearing and responding to the music through slight vocalizations or eye gaze and facial expressions when hearing a familiar and preferred melody/song. The most difficult I find amongst any of the musical developmental stages is the movement and instrument playing. Many of my clients will fit into one musical developmental stage for singing and listening, but may fall in a different developmental stage for movement and instrument playing. I am hoping to use some of the information from this week’s module to become more aware of what my clients are doing during these experiences and try to start where they are at and build from there. Is it possible to be in different musical developmental stages for each of these experiences? I feel as though for many with the exception of the especially naturally rhythmic individuals that either they don’t have control over the intrinsic rhythm of their bodies or they are not listening to the music as I believe they are which causes them to play and move not rhythmically to the music. I hope I made sense.

[Laura Silvestain]

In each practicum I’ve had, I’ve used elements of each. In the practicum with children with severe and pervasive developmental disabilities, the children were mostly in the awareness through independence stages. My partner and I utilized these experiences to elicit reactions in the children. For singing, we mostly worked on an awareness of the self. Some of the children were non-verbal, but we wanted them to recognize themselves within a song, by either pointing to themselves or saying “me”. We had the children play shakers, encouraging those that were able to move the shakers up and down and to each side. This combined both movement and instrument playing. We also encouraged them to reach out and above them by motivating them to hit a shiny tambourine, which caught the attention of those who had cortical blindness or who were not as reactive during the session. Their reactions to listening to music were more subtle, but every reaction noticed was recognized and praised, for one of the main goals during this practicum was to encourage longer periods of awareness of the world around them.

[Anonymous]

Hi Mary,

The sibling music group in Sprouting Melodies, Family Sprouts, has the most significant developmental differences. Although I also see different areas in the other groups as well. In Beth’s book You and Me Make We, she has a section in the back of the book that highlights which songs are most conducive to meeting multiple developmental stages. Another tool that I use a lot in my Family Sprouts group is determining how I can make each song and experience meet all the developmental levels in the group. So for each stage I will be looking for different levels of engagement and participation depending on what stage each child is in. An example in an instrument song would be Awareness stage is having a sensory experience as the caregiver is moving the instrument in front of the child while the children in the Responsibility stage would be using the instrument purposefully, following most of the rhythm of the music, and also following the dynamics, tempo, and if the song is singing about moving that instrument in a specific direction. I would also be looking for the other stages to be using the instruments in a way that is typical for that stage.

Does this make sense?

[Mary Jane Dibble]

I learned a lot in this section that I am going to start implementing more as I work with my clients. For example, I had never thought about why you should not use the song Head Shoulders, Knees and Toes with children who are in the early stages of development. Also, it was interesting to learn that we need to allow the clients more time to start and stop, letting them do it more independently first. And I didn’t realize how important listening is in the developmental process and how much the children are developing by just watching others.

[Brianna McCulloch]

I incorporate singing, instrument play, moving and listening into my early childhood groups and my music therapy sessions. I loved walking through the appropriate developmental responses to each of these music experiences because, especially when I was first starting out, I have had moments when I tried a song (i.e., movement songs) that were too developmentally advanced. It was a challenge to figure out how to adapt certain songs to fit the developmental stage of the children/families I was working with in the moment so that the entire intervention didn’t fall flat. With experience, I have been able to plan my sessions better and those moments are fewer and further between (but still not unheard of!). I feel better equipped to prepare appropriate music for my groups after walking through this process, and I really love thinking of it as a fluid, evolving process and not discrete steps.

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