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

[Anonymous]

How have you used these four music experiences in your practice?  Have you made any changes in these areas since beginning this course?  

Be sure to come back and respond to others as well.

[Maria Ramey]

I’ve not had the chance to implement this in my own practice just yet as all my young kiddos are on summer break at the moment and I’m only working with adults and almost-adults until September. I HAVE thought a lot about how I WILL be using the songs though! I especially like the gathering songs and information as I’d already decided I needed to find something fresh to bring my youngest preschool kids in the fall for our hello/beginning time.

I do also plan to get some early childhood music groups going in the not-too-distant future, so I’m excited to imagine all that we can do with these approaches!

[Erika Svolos]

Great thoughts! You are welcome to share how you use these music experiences with the community you are working with now too.

[Mikelia Wallace]

I have not used these music experiences yet, however I will be using the transition songs later this week to help my kiddos with transition anxiety, I have one older child with ASD who is going to be moving homes and I will be finding a transition song for him as well. Gathering songs could be useful in some of my sessions, but I actually don’t see groups right now and the kids I see that need that structure are being seen virtually, I will be using these gathering songs for them and see how it goes!

[Erika Svolos]

Wonderful ideas!

[Samantha Springer]

I love the gathering songs that they use! I used one of the gathering songs this past week in a 1:1 session, but it was still effective. This person likes to sit on the couch or hide at the beginning of sessions so I tried one of the gathering songs and it went well! I used this song to indicate that it was time for music before we sang “hello.” They engaged in the session at the beginning and throughout the entire “hello” song.

In terms of the four musical developmental sequences of singing, playing instruments, moving, and listening:
I’ve been focusing more and noticing these areas more and more with the music therapy clients that I work with as well as with the traditional lesson students that I teach weekly. Learning about these developmental sequences has opened my eyes in identifying what potential musical development stage the person is in at that moment and has helped me tailor the session to their immediate strengths and areas of growth.
For the singing developmental sequence I used a song that I wrote with the scarves to encourage this individual to increase their vocalizations and pitch matching. When we raised the scarf, our pitch got higher and when we lowered the scarf, our pitch got lower. I changed the vocalizations throughout the song and soon they were singing with me on the pitch and vocalization.
For the playing instruments sequence, I encouraged several of my clients to reach out to manipulate instruments on their own time and when they were ready, we practiced “start” and “stop.”
With the moving sequence, the client that I worked with demonstrated control by imitating various movements they had learned previously during a movement exercise. I love movement experiences-I use them a lot during sessions!
Lastly, for the listening sequence, I used a relaxation based intervention to encourage a relaxed response and calm demeanor for this particular client. I focused on how I used my vocal timbre (I have a relatively high pitched voice).

[Erika Svolos]

Thank you for sharing these wonderful options of how you used the four music experiences.

[Debbie Merideth-Zantout]

It was very interesting learning about the four music developmental sequences of singing, playing instruments, moving, and listening. I have previously thought of them in the terms of verbalization, fine motor, gross motor, spatial awareness, sensory processing, and auditory processing. I enjoyed thinking of these developmental milestones in this manner. Today, I utilized the piano to help a client visualize his voice moving up and down the keyboard, and also moving through vowel sequences to practice oral motor skills to form these vowels. I utilized marching to a beat and patting knees to help a client organize his sensory system when he became disorganized. I utilized arm movements combined with breathing and calming music to help a client breath through her anxiety regarding Oral Placement Therapy techniques. I also had a client that demonstrated active listening when I sang/hummed preferred songs to encourage active participation in Oral Placement Therapy activities. I often utilize movement songs to provide sensory/spatial awareness input for clients. When I worked as solely a music therapist, I often utilized movement to help develop gross and fine motor skills. There is research that supports using movement to develop expressive communication skills. I am excited to think about these four areas of music development in a new way to utilize in my practice.

[Erika Svolos]

Debbie, I think you pointed out how we can convey the work we do in language that would be understood by other professionals. Great insights!

[Samantha Springer]

These are fantastic ideas and as Erika pointed out, a great connection to common language used by other clinicians. I hadn’t thought about connecting the four areas to the developmental areas that you mentioned. It made sense to me how the four musical developmental areas connect and translate to the other non-musical developmental areas.

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