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

[Julie Palmieri]

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

Have you made any changes in these areas since beginning this course?

[Sarah Braverman]

I have made changes in all areas of these four music experiences since the beginning of the course.

For Singing, I used to use my voice only when providing verbal instructions and singing songs. Now, I’ve varied the pitches of my voice to help children I work with be aware of behaviors that are and aren’t acceptable in the session space.

For Playing Instruments, I used to have my clients pick their own instruments and assumed they knew the different ways to play the instruments. Now, I’ve had my clients take turns in sharing instruments with me to show them different way of playing them.

For Moving, I used to use songs that only had repetitive movements that involved instruments in the songs. Now, I use a lot of repetitive movements to songs that have lyrics that have specific actions with and without instruments, like “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.”

For Listening, I used to only use my singing voice for songs the clients wanted to hear. Now, I use my voice to match the pitch of instruments, like the xylophone, as my clients play the individual notes on the xylophone. I also have learned to vary the rhythm of my voice based on certain pitches with my clients.

[Erika (TeamRH)]

Hi Sarah,

How wonderful that this course has informed your work. Thank you for sharing how you are now using these new experiences.

[Talia Morales]

How have you used these four music experiences in your practice?
I incorporate opportunities the four experiences in a variety of ways in the sessions I do in the schools. The “how i use” them ranges depending on the classroom settings and serve different functions depending on individual IEP goals being targeted, group developmental ranges, ages, group dynamics etc. Some ways and functions that each are used in my practice can include some of the following examples:
Singing:
Echo vocalization songs eg. singing similar melodies with different vowels song ‘ooo’ ‘ahh’ ‘eee’….
Song Stories: different qualities of voice for different characters
Drawing/painting while vocalizing (squiggles, high, low, straight, dots)
Singing familiar nursery rhyme songs
Singing familiar songs in different ways – choice making opportunity (eg. singing wheels on the bus slow, fast, loud, quiet, staccato, legato)
Playing Instruments:
start/stop instrument play song (MT as leader and/pr individual peers as the leaders)
Sequencing instruments: Each phrase of a familiar tune get their own instrument (eg. “Twinkle Little Star-bells “how i wonder what you are”-shaker “up above the world so high”- castanet…etc)
Moving:
As a regulatory movement song to either arouse or calm
As opportunities to follow one-step directions (ie. clap hands, stomp feet, stand up, come close, run, jump etc).
As shared social experience:eg. follow the leader
As communicative intent: eg. indicate choices of how to move
As a sequential activity: eg.first pat, then clap, last stomp..
As spatial/language concepts: up high, on nose, under chin, behind back…
Listening:
Start/stopping song listening activity (individual students are the “dj” and determine when the song starts, is paused, returns, get volume up/down etc)
Chrome music lab: song writing/choice making of different elements and listening to choices
As a way to convey the music session schedule and expectations: Every week I repeat listening to the welcome back to music song as part of the start of the session which reviews the familiar schedule pattern for the day. “welcome back to music, so glad you’re here today, it’s time to sing and move and learn and dance and don’t forget to play. My whole body’s ready, to listen to what you’ve got to say. I listen with my ears, my hands, my eyes, my heart is here today. Right here, right now let’s see what we’ve got to do. Right now right here, here is our preview, First we’ll check in; then explore; recharge; last it’s time to connect and then cool down our schedule is.
Have you made any changes in these areas since beginning of this course?
The theoretical framework has inspired some songwriting and new music activity ideas in Spanish, specifically for the infant series I’m currently creating.
Unfortunately not yet in the live setting, as I am out on summer break so not currently working with my students in the schools. However, I am pleasantly surprised, that through the analysis this course has offered so far, I realize how I have been naturally weaving these into my existing sessions, how I can beef up more opportunities, like listening, within my sessions AND also have another lens to look through when I do assessments for qualifying for MT via the IEP here in in the schools. I’m thankful to have the “four musical experiences” framework to think about and inspire me when doing my lesson plans in the future!

[Erika (TeamRH)]

Thank you for sharing such a detailed response and I am so glad this informed your work.

[Julie Palmieri]

I am not currently practicing or leading early childhood music groups, but I am thinking back to each developmental sequence that I saw in my past (either as a therapist/teacher or a parent).

When I would plan any early childhood experience, I had a similar “flow” that i followed for each session. A greeting song, a movement song, an instrument song, singing (singable books were a FAVE!), another movement song, and then finish with a closing song.

With my own kids in music classes, there would be a very similar routine with lots of experiences with instruments, singing, bonding, movement, and books.

This course makes me want to start up early childhood music groups again!!!

[Brooke Langley]

I love doing singable books! It helps me practice using my voice during a session, but creates that idea of sitting and listening and looking at the pictures/words with the kids!

[Brooke Langley]

So I have never been confident in my singing voice, even with all the music training we do as therapists! So I tend to exclude my voice during our sessions, and I realize just HOW IMPORTANT our voice and singing pitches, singing commands, or imitating sounds is! This is definitely something I’ll be working on personally. During this section, you talked about not letting our musical repertoire hold us back from creating a musical space for our group, and me not singing holds back their development.

With little kids, I feel like its always go, go, go! And I mentioned in our zoom that I FLY through all the planned activities in 15 minutes and then I don’t know what to do for the other 15 minutes! So one session, I had the kids and parents just LISTEN. I played “Jupiter” from The Planets, and passed out scarves (because I knew 4 year olds with Autism would not sit still) and we just swayed and listened to the music. Afterwards, the parents realized why I picked that song… Because it was a familiar tune to everyone since it’s featured in a Bluey episode!

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