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.

[Meredith Pizzi]

[Anonymous]

I definitely always included, singing, instrument playing, and movement in every session I did with young children. I never specifically thought about listening except that I typically included a relaxing / sensory experience where I would include listening to more relaxing music, turning off the lights, and using sensory toys, scarves, and/or bubbles. I realize that I’ve probably included great experiences for my clients, but never fully understood what I was doing. I find these areas a great way to help me structure what I do and help me to see outcomes better. I am really looking forward to changing my thought process and using this in the future!

[Megan Goddu]

I have always used singing, playing instruments and movement in every session I have done with all my clients. Regardless of age, I feel that all my clients respond to all three in varying levels of engagement; however they are still engaged. Working in school settings, I find that in the classroom a lot of the time, teachers try to get the students to do what they want the students to do and that can be as simple as having that student sit in a chair for the full class time. With that in mind, I like let my students (within reason) make as many choices as possible within music. All of my clients right now are above the age of 5; however I still can see the different levels of development in their singing, instrument playing, movement and listening.

Making sure there are listening experiences in my sessions is hard. I think part of that is a result of being a musician..you sometimes feel that you have to be making music all the time. Even though, the importance of listening was taught multiple times to me as a student, I have had a hard time explaining the importance of it to others. With some of my older clients, I use music listening as a means to help calm and center that student. She is able to lay down with all the lights off and shades closed and able to listen and breathe along with the music in order to help process her emotions. A thought I just had is that, while she is listening…I am listening as well, however I am not necessarily doing anything or actively listening to the music. Most of the time, we listen to prerecorded music; however I am played music for her to listen too in the past. We both get something different out of the music listening. I’m not sure if I am explaining this very well; however I believe that out of the 4 categories (singing, playing instruments, moving and listening), Listening is the hardest to do, because as a therapist, you have less control over it than the others. It is harder to see the outcome of a listening experience than say a singing experience.

[Elizabeth Schwartz]

Yes, it is often difficult to understand the value of listening. This is where I look to our new knowledge of brain science and find the small physiological changes that indicate internal changes. You are already seeing this when you notice your client beginning to breathe with the music, to calm her physical movements and to relax her affect.

 

[Kristen Macleod]

I usually structure my sessions thinking about singing, playing and movement experiences and like Erika and Megan I feel that the listening part is harder.  Recently I think I have been less aware of this element in my sessions. When I used to work with hospice patients I think that listening took on a large part of the sessions when I would use listening experiences to relax and for pain management through using the iso principle to allow the client to begin to breathe with the music and become one with the music emotionally, physically and spiritually resulting in overall calm.  I think I need to look at listening within my sessions and become more aware of how this element might be more present.  I think that looking at each of these elements developmentally this week also gives me a new way to approach session planning and to think about these elements in a different way within practice especially with the younger children I am working with.

[Vanessa Talbott]

I think working on each of the music continuums has increased my awareness and my observation of the children and pointing those continuums out to the adults. I had a wonderful moment last week explaining the mirror neurons to a group of parents in an infant class. I could feel the parents relax with the understanding that their infant did not need to be doing everything that by watching they were learning as well. I think it also emphasized the use of modeling for the parents and how important it is for their infant to see them singing, playing instruments, moving and listening.
I use focused listening with every age especially with the introduction of new sounds and instruments. It is a great way to get the attention of a busy classroom and focus attention.

[Emily Seymour]

I have always made it a point to include singing, movement and instrument play experiences in my session plans.  Like Kristen, I have most typically used listening when working with hospice patients.  After this week’s training, I look forward to bringing these experiences to infants and toddlers in a developmentally appropriate level.  When I first started working with 3 year olds in a group setting, I saw children in different stages of musical development but didn’t know it at the time.  I remember that the teacher’s aides would discourage children leaving the circle when moving to music, or discourage a child from putting an instrument in his/her mouth.  Now that I am familiar with the levels of awareness, trust, independence, control and responsibility I can create specific interventions that will support children according to what stage they are in.  I am happy that my work with this population will be more intentional in the future.

[Jillian Brown]

Singing: I’ll try to get children to sing along to familiar songs if able, fill in the blank, or vocalizing. With some clients I’ll use fill in the blank with vocalizing and give plenty of space to fill in.

Playing instruments: I like to use action song a lot with musical instruments, music improvisation, free music making, and call and response

Moving: I’ll admit that this is one I don’t do as much of because I had a lack of ideas for it besides some action songs. I’d like to use this more

Listening: this is another one I don’t use as much except when a client is in a tough space and I’m trying to use music to help them relax or engage them. I should try using it purposefully for just the sake of listening.

[Lauren Bevilacqua]

Yes – I have used the four experiences in my sessions. Although, like many others have commented, listening experiences are experiences that I have not used as often. I think listening, at least in my early childhood groups, is sort of the opposite of our playing experiences. The experiences seem more inwardly focused, introspective. After a rousing session of playing and singing and moving, listening seems like a break from active music making and participation to a more passive and receptive mode – a sort of sensory break… but still in music (if that makes any sense). I think it balances out the session nicely. Since starting this course, I have given more consideration and intention to my ‘purposeful crafted clinical music interventions’ (read: songs) and the same kind of attention to using listening experiences in session planning and implementation. 

[Lisa Klostermann]

As the others mostly all mentioned, it is easy and intuitive to include Singing, Moving, and Playing Instruments in my classes. I have not always included a specific intervention (or song) specifically directed at Listening. More likely I (and perhaps the others as well?)  have incorporated listening and looked for those responses within the other music experiences.

I really appreciated the words that you gave us for parent education this week.  This is the area that I would most like to improve in my classes.  I understand and implement so many of these concepts, but I tend to lack the easy vocabulary to relaying this info to parents.

[Channing Shippen]

I have certainly used all four of these areas in my practice. Most recently I have been working with a pair of twins who are 2 years old. Each child has been diagnosed on the spectrum. I treat them each with 30 min individual sessions. We are working towards increasing vocalizations in each child. After my latest session with each of them it has been interesting to come back to this weeks slides and compare to my notes and decipher the stages that each child is at. One of the children has demonstrated independence in vocalizations responding by changing volume, sound, vowel, and pitch when matched by the music therapist while the other child has shown a level of trust by matching the sounds I create. I felt this helped put into perspective the different developmental levels of each twin.

[Courtney Fanello]

Since I am not currently practicing, I have used these experiences with my one year old, and it has been great to look at her with a different lens, and really see what she is doing musically. She is not just babbling, she is singing intervals. She has begun to dance and spin and shake her shoulders, and imitate motions. I am so excited to start teaching classes to see this excitement in other children too. I love how Beth takes simple songs and make them so engaging and appropriate for each age level. Although, I think I view listening as a different thing than just sitting and listening for a whole song. I think listening in a session can be that moment when the music stops, and someone has a solo, or when a little baby tries to hear mom’s voice over the sound of everything else, or when a child loves the sound of the bell and searches for it in the room so they can grab it from whoever has it, and the perking of a child’s ears when they are exploring instruments and have just made a new sound. …I feel like everything we do in music has layers of listening built in.

[Elizabeth Schwartz]

I love the way you describe listening. Courtney. I suspect that most of you do more listening interventions than you realize, but maybe just needed a reminder to think about how you use it with children.

[Michelle Muth]

I regularly try to incorporate singing, playing and listening in my sessions but have been  inconsistent with using movement in my sessions.  I am now starting to regularly incorporate movement with a 4-year old client and will be working to do so with my other young clients.  I’m focusing most of my changes with a 4-year old client on the spectrum.  For example last week we did movement to begin the session.  Experimented with new instruments (tambourine and egg shakers) and vocalizations.  he loved doing starts and stops based on the experimenting he was doing with the egg shakers.  In his silence I would play the tambourine and than begin to do circular glissandos with my voice.  He enjoyed this greatly, his sense of control with starts and stops and he begin to vocalize with me – major breakthrough!

[Michelle Muth]

I just read through the other posts and I too, love how Courtney describes listening as it is much how I see listening.  I think we were taught in school that “listening” in music therapy is about listening to “something full and complete” such as a song.  However, I view listening as both a “full and complete activity” and more commonly as a “moment in time” that might be about following directions, finding a caregiver using sound, being aware of silence.  If a goal is attention to task, if a client follows verbal directions then they were listening and understanding.  I think the concept needs to be expanded to recognize the minutiae of moments in time.  That’s why I stated that I incorporate singing, playing and listening in all my sessions because my understanding of what it is to “listen” may be a bit different than the standard.

 

[Elizabeth Schwartz]

I particularly love those moments when the child stands stock still, and just stares. I know that this is the posture of intense listening.  I sometimes have to remind parents or teachers to respect those seconds and give the child time to integrate.

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