Where will you go from here?

[Meredith Pizzi]

Where will you go from here? How will this training impact your work as a music therapist?

[Victoria Fansler]

I feel quite motivated and inspired from this course to create parent-infant opportunities in the Tulalip community as a preventive measure to mitigate the commonness of children being taken into state or tribal custody. I really appreciate the feedback you gave in terms of creating language that funders are looking for and finding financial support to create an accessible community program for young families.

I am also certainly applying the practical information already in my work with young children. I hope to build upon the style and purposeful nature of songs I’ve learned from this training and move into creating more of my own songs to address developmental issues I’m seeing.

[Peggy Grace]

First of all, I want to thank Meredith and Beth for organizing a wonderful course and offering your expertise in early childhood music therapy. This course has really helped me to understand more clearly childhood development, and how to incorporate music to support that growth. One of my music therapy instructors taught the concept of “transfer”, and how knowledge and training can always be adapted and transferred to work with other populations. I have already incorporated some of the songs and concepts taught in this course in my work with special needs children. So I will continue to learn the songs and use what I’ve learned with these children.

If I ever become a Sprouting Melodies provider, I am glad that I have a foundation from which to work. I now feel more comfortable with working with children and have the desire to start a group through my agency with the children we serve in the rural communities that I serve.

[Joanne Van Eycke]

This training will have a significant positive impact for me professionally. As a military spouse, I am still trying to find a balance in my professional and personal life. I find it difficult to “set up shop” in a new town only to move and start all over again somewhere else. Sprouting Melodies is something I feel that will travel well with me. Since families can sign up for blocks of time it will make any future moves less abrupt as the dates were set up front. In fact, as I was watching week 10 videos, my husband called to tell me we would be moving one year earlier than anticipated. I still plan to continue my partnership with the early childhood center from January-June but by September will be out of state. I am so glad I will be able to access the SM community online wherever I am.

[Courtney Kjaldgaard]

As a Canadian, I know that the Sprouting Melodies brand is not as well-known here as it is in the U.S. and I was aware of that when I started this course but I am super happy that I decided to do this and I am excited that I will be able to spread the word on the benefits of Sprouting Melodies up here in Canada. I feel that this training has helped me immensely in gaining a better understanding of this age group and has given me a lot more confidence in knowing that I can provide a high-quality community music program for families in my city.

This course has motivated me to want to do more and to think bigger than I have been about the role that early childhood music could have within my private practice. I started doing early childhood music classes because I wanted to expand the breadth of my services and to provide myself with another stream of income. It was a smaller part of my business to begin with and now I feel that it could be one of my main services as a music therapist here within my community. I am also interested in starting Sprouting Melodies programs in the smaller towns that surround my city. This course has left me feeling inspired and I am so excited about all of the ideas that I have to expand these services. Thank you Meredith and Beth so much for all of your expertise and knowledge!

[Anonymous]

I am so glad to hear how you each have found a benefit from this training and how you can incorporate it into your own work. It has been a pleasure being in this training with each of you. I look forward to welcoming those of you who will be joining the Sprouting Melodies Provider Network.

[Megan Neil]

I signed up to take this course so it would coincide with starting my new job in early intervention as a music therapist. In hindsight I wish that I had waited till I was a bit more settled but the joy is that with the song book & the textbook & my notes I can revisit this material anytime I want and need. I know that personally this information has helped me feel more confident in my work that is very new to me. In music therapy we learn a lot about a lot of populations and it’s hard to absorb it all. My focus prior to now was with teenagers so early childhood has been a HUGE shift for me and one I didn’t feel prepared for. This course has helped me feel more confident and given me the tools I need. This training already has impacted my work & will continue to impact my work.

Who knows what’s to come down the pike but for now in early intervention I will be taking all of these tools and applying them.

[Tori Clark]

I was able to use the training yesterday with a 4yo with autism. I picked up Beth’s songbook at Conference last week, and I was looking for a better Hello song to use with my kiddo. (He has perfect pitch, btw!) I used “I Like This Song” but changed the words to “I Sing Hel-lo”. Such a fun chord progression to play on piano! The second time through, he filled in “hello”. I’m hoping I can get him to sing the la’s with me eventually.

We (my center and I) are still trying to figure out how we can best address the needs of our center and community. We have lots of ideas and aren’t sure where to start! There is definitely a need for parents and children to connect through music, but we also have a lot of siblings (neurotypical) who are looking to connect with their sibling with ASD, and we are thinking that music therapy could be a great way to facilitate those connections. We still need to crystallize our vision a bit. For this reason, I have found Meredith’s experience as a business owner to be very helpful in thinking about marketing, advocacy, and vision.

[Debrah Evans]

This training has really given me a better understanding in early childhood development and the unique ways that music can help them to grow. I’m excited to take this knowledge and apply it to the intergenerational groups and preschools that I work with to help form connection between the residents and the kids, and how to use music in a way that supports them developmentally. I’m looking forward to using the songs and knowledge that I’ve gained throughout the course and I am excited that in planning new sessions and activities, that I no longer feel lost in leading groups of children. Overall it’s given me a new perspective on how to use music in early childhood and of community music therapy programs in general.

In the future, I do hope to join the Raising Harmony/Sprouting Melodies community as a provider and work within my own community and use early childhood music therapy to advocate in the field as a community leader.

[Janet Buchanan]

This has been an interesting 10 weeks for me–as I’m finishing my internship with older adults, I am actually enjoying the population and seeking employment in a nursing home setting instead of in a preschool like I expected! The training has already had quite an effect on my work. I’ve found that I have been applying and adapting a lot of the concepts from the SM training in an age-appropriate way for our seniors/DD folks and getting great results.

Wherever I end up, I hope to be doing at least some work with early childhood, whether it’s a typical SM group or more of an intergenerational thing. As I mentioned in the other forum post, I have an awesome relationship with the preschool where I previously worked and will be doing an inservice about music and early childhood at the beginning of next year. At some point I plan to become a SM provider and use the community-based setting as a way to advocate for music therapy and provide quality music experiences for all sorts of young children.

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