[Laura Montesano]

Tomorrow I will have the opportunity to incorporate some of these songs into my day. I have a feeling that the little guy I mentioned in the other post (about developmental stages) is going to love the car song!

In the meantime I am getting comfortable with playing them and ‘making them my own’. There is no doubt I will be using these. I have always loved how Beth takes a song that we all know, such as “When Johnny come marching home” and makes it so new and meaningful and vibrant, and it’s also something that families remember and also enjoy singing.

[Laura Montesano]

I mostly work with the Mexican population of Boulder County, and I often invite the parents to share with me some of the songs that they sing with the children. One that comes up more often than not is Pin Pon- which is about a “handsome doll that is made out of cardboard”, and this song just goes on and on and on – there are no repetitions and the language is VERY involved (at least for the children I’m working with….as well as for my Spanish skills! 🙂 So no, this is not the case for all Spanish children’s songs, but many of the songs that the families have shared with me are bit complex in their language, and have few repetitions. So often times I will take a familiar tune (perhaps that doesn’t have any words in the original composition) and add some very simple lyrics. For example, today I used the Mexican Hat Dance tune, and instead we used our shaker eggs and sang “bail-ar bail-ar bail-ar, vamos a bail-ar….” (“Dance, dance, dance we are going to dance…”).

I do have another family that sings a lot with their little boy, and they seem to know more simple Spanish finger-plays, so we’ve used those only we’ve adapted them a bit to add more movement- which works well.

I admit, when I do attempt to incorporate the musical elements of their culture I’m often doing more upbeat songs, we haven’t explored the more introspective type or sedative music…that gives me something else to consider and include.

[Laura Montesano]

I immediately thought of this little guy I’m working with right now who is three years old, he has very limited language but he is SO musical. I would say that he is in the trust stage (and beginning to dip his toe into the independence level). He is highly responsive to pauses within music. He’s beginning to say his first words through familiar songs- during pauses within the music he not only attempts to approximate the word but also the pitch (he impresses me with how accurate his pitch is…his approximations of words are less accurate). Whenever he engages in play I often use embedded songs with him- similar to the car song that Beth shared, it is often within those embedded songs that he learns new words and uses them functionally within his play, as we play the pauses get longer and he attempts to fill in the words/pitch more consistently. He was playing with a ball toy, one of those toys where you drop the ball from the top and it runs down a short maze to the bottom, and it would often get stuck (which often times was my doing 😉 and we sang, “Come out”- in a simple song and each time I’d pause a little longer, now he uses that phrase consistently with that toy at the appropriate moment. 🙂

[Laura Montesano]

Hi Ladies,
So at this point I’m working primarily with the very little ones (birth to three), so Alyssa unfortunately I don’t think I have anything that I have used myself to offer you for your adolescents, but will certainly keep you in mind. Did you see that The Rebecca Center at Molloy College is going to be offering music therapy for Spanish-speakers- I’m VERY curious to hear more about that.

As far as music that I’m using, I tend to adapt familiar songs and well, make up my own songs as I go- my goal is to get these songs recorded and get them out there!

I’ll keep you updated. I’m sure I have some books on language development, particularly bilingualism – if you’re interested in those.

Thanks for the encouragement.
-Laura

[Laura Montesano]

I will bring playfulness and create an environment of acceptance to my early childhood music therapy work. Much of my work right now is with the latino population and some of the families, not all, but some of them, at first are quite hesitant to let go and be silly and play, they have expressed to me that they have taken on the role of care-taker but not necessarily as play-mate, but modeling playfulness and giving them permission to be silly has really been a fun experience, and quite a transformation to watch. Having the stages of development on hand to refer to to explain why specific actions are important and what exactly we are working on, validates the work, and also increases the chances of carry-over in the home in every day routines.

[Laura Montesano]

At this point in my career my work is focused on children birth to three years old, however an overview of child development is still ALWAYS helpful for me. As much as I am familiar with child development, I am more often in the company of children who are not nearly meeting their milestones and it still surprises me to see where they actually fall in developmental stages. I guess that can also be looked at as a good thing though, because I am focused on all of the things they can do rather than can’t do.

[Laura Montesano]

Hello fellow music therapists!
I am so excited to be part of this training and to connect (and reconnect 😉 with you. I too have had the honor of working with Beth Schwartz, I did my music therapy internship with her, gosh- over 15 years ago! Shhh! Don’t tell anybody it’s been that long 😉 after my internship I worked as a music therapist on Long Island for a few years, working at a school for children with special needs (preschool age to 9yrs) and I also had a private practice. But then I decided to move to beautiful sunny Boulder, CO and went on to school for my masters. I received my masters in speech-language pathology, and it was always my goal to use both disciplines in my work. Currently I do in-home therapy serving the birth to three Spanish-speaking population of Boulder County. However within just the last couple of months I accepted a very part-time position at a pediatric clinic where I am in the very beginning stages of developing a music therapy program. I plan to give a talk on music therapy by the end of the month and then hope to start groups by the first week in March. Ultimately my goal is to offer music therapy groups in Spanish, but one step at a time. This training is being offered at the perfect time, as I am looking to offer new programs to my community here. Thank you!

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