[Maggie Johnson]

The instruments I’ve used include: Remo Gathering drum, Kala ukulele, Green Tones wooden sparrow shaker (this one is super cute!), basic beat jumbo egg shaker (a bit spendy for egg shakers, but really satisfying for all ages), Remo baby maraca, juggling/movement scarves (west music or similar), Nino percussion 2 bell jingle stick. I also like the 8 resonator bell sets that come in rainbow colors in a clear green case, but I don’t recall the brand.

[Maggie Johnson]

I have no clinical experience with this age group. My life experience includes family member’s/friend’s children and relatively limited interaction like for visits and family gatherings. I remember lots of whispering and the rocking motion mentioned in the videos, especially for the sleeping newborns. As they got closer to the end of the SM1 age range, I remember coming up with little spinning or peekaboo games, trying to find sounds/objects/motions to explore, playing with toys, crawling around with them or singing familiar songs like “the itsy bitsy spider.” Generally with this age range, I feel a sense of fascination with them while trying to put myself in their shoes/see the world through their eyes.

[Maggie Johnson]

I believe the role of music therapy in community-based settings includes providing a vessel for musical health to flourish in community. I think I’ve already mentioned this in a previous reply, but I’m reminded of music theorist Christopher Small’s description of music being for exploring, affirming, and celebrating ideal relationships (I think of these ideal relationships as values/ideals) through-often- nonverbal means via the gestural language of music. In SM this can look like exploring e.g.: the relationship of the family unit within community, sameness/contrast, “beginnings”(life, development, the musical relationship), rondo form, attachment schemas, V7-I, leading tones, pitch class, baby/parent as listener, passing the torch of musical values to the next generation.

We as a community-based music program can provide opportunities to explore the self, the self-within community, or inter/intra community identities through musical processes. Each SM group gives opportunity for rich musical exploration of the self-child, family unit within community, etc. Community music therapy groups offer a way to “play” with the concept of community in a way that is strengths-based and affirming.

[Maggie Johnson]

5 words:
Gentle, swaying, slower, in-the-moment, natural voice-like (pitch/tonality)

5 sentences:
“Your baby wants to hear YOUR voice.”
“What do you see changing when the music changes in this song? How does their attention shift?”
“Your baby can hear the differences in pitch and changes in quality of voice/sound when we sing…[A] vs.[B]…”
“We’re going to sing this song many times. Repetition is really important for babies to learn and integrate the benefits of the musical experience.”
“Allow yourself to gently let go of the stream of outside thoughts and keep returning to this moment while you are singing and your baby is reacting.”

Session Plan:
1. “A Place For Us to Be” (original, not fully written yet 🙂 but…) A transition song that helps welcome parents and caregivers as well as babies while everyone is setting up their “nests.”
2. “On A Day Like Today” gathering song.
3. “Row Row Row Your Boat/Little Bit Faster” bonding/lap ride
4. “Wiggly Jiggly Car” bonding/lap ride
5. I Like This Song – Baby Maracas/Jingle Bells
6. “Pick Your Hands Up High” w/scarves
7. “All Of This is Me” -Song About Me with parent/caregiver pointing to body parts of baby or self.
8. “It’s Time to Say Goodbye”

[Maggie Johnson]

Advocating for “the right to learn” in these spaces is so important. I love the supportive energy you have conveyed in your responses!

[Maggie Johnson]

Thank you for sharing your experiences of encouraging families in the hospital and your insights about ameliorating isolation both in community and within a family of a loved one in the hospital!

[Maggie Johnson]

Music therapists bring their knowledge and depth of direct experience of clients in music and a perspective that incorporates individual ways of relating to the music into the musical choices made when making music with a child and their parents and caregivers. When young children are learning about their bodies, the self, and the world, music therapists can provide supportive musical frameworks for children to conceptualize the various components using a multi-sensory approach to music making. Families can have a space to be co-creators of their experience and can benefit from the unique opportunity to learn in real time from an expert in musical responses and experiences for young families, music therapists can hone in on music-centered connections between family members and helping parents recognize musical development in their child. Music therapists can be attuned to experiences that translate into the home for use outside of groups and sessions to maximize development and caregiver bonding.

[Maggie Johnson]

The most common need with my clients and families and why they seek services include self-expression, community connection, improved mental health, development of the musical self, stress reduction, and assistance through difficult life transitions. Portland families may struggle with poverty, access to services, violence, abuse, and more. We are a very gentrified city and Oregon as a whole has its own unique iteration of social & structural inequality. I would say that Oregon families have very little access to music therapy services as a whole compared to other states.

There are a lot of young families who are struggling with the effects of COVID, specifically the social impact that it’s had on young children. In a recent in-service we provided, early learning educators said that they wanted to learn from music therapists more musical cultural competency in the form of songs in different languages including songs from the cultures of various local immigrant communities.

Portland boasts both a lot of high-quality children’s entertainment as well as more music-centered developmental spaces. For example, Portland has one of the most successful “Music Together” programs in the nation. One of the challenges is finding our footing within this rather large ecosystem of options for families.

[Maggie Johnson]

Thank you for recounting this clinical moment! It’s great to learn how you used variation in the music as I learn the characteristics between trust and independence in particular, and seeing examples of fostering trust through forms like ABAB with high and low arousal sections.

[Maggie Johnson]

Yes! I was able to take their CMTE course at a WRAMTA conference called “Musicking Across the Lifespan” which I return to my notes often for group work, and I was able to hear Elizabeth’s moving presentation about her mother, Honor, at another conference. It feels like I’ve come full circle to finally take all the Raising Harmony courses after those two presentations! I look forward to future opportunities!

[Maggie Johnson]

I too have not had the opportunity to work with young infants. Thank you for sharing your experience!

[Maggie Johnson]

I feel similarly about the worksheet assignment, and now I want to use it to practice how a single experience or single song can move through the developmental levels (either for like an assessment, or if you are using the same song with clients/participants of different developmental levels.)

[Maggie Johnson]

I do a lot of musically matching, reflecting, etc. what clients sing, how they play, and how they move, and then move into them being able to shift in small ways by musically contextualizing so that habitual musical responses become part of intentional musical conversation.

I find assessing client’s listening skills somewhat of a challenge, especially when I don’t know if they are processing the information or not, or rather where the breakdown occurs, like outlined in chapter 12. For e.g. I can tell when a client is discriminating pitch if they positively demonstrate it, however if they don’t demonstrate the ability to reproduce a pitch or otherwise show me that they can discriminate the pitch (e.g. ID-ing the note on a piano), and there is some sort of possible “false negative” in my assessment, I’m curious what is the best approach in describing what stage they are in (particularly in listening)? I think a great treatment approach to this is to keep providing opportunities for them to feel motivated and to demonstrate the skill in different contexts, but I’m curious about those who consistently fail to demonstrate characteristics because of the necessary context or maybe even lack of motivation/comfort. Would you describe their level as “unknown” or the highest level that you are able to assess a response in? To try to answer my own question, I think of Elizabeth’s description of these stages operating like a ladder, where you can kind of be on several rungs moving up and down, depending, makes sense here. But this does signal to me the responsibility that we have to be able to accurately assess in order to provide developmentally appropriate experiences and opportunities for growth/development and sometimes that is a challenge.

I’ll give an example, I had a client who for many years I thought he could not keep a steady beat, but then one day we got an electric kick drum with a small pedal that tracked very subtle foot movements. Suddenly he was keeping a steady beat no problem with his legs and feet. He clearly didn’t gain this skill overnight 🙂 That doesn’t mean that I won’t keep giving him opportunities to gain the skill with his hands, especially because he was very motivated to beat rhythms with his hands, but there was a part of me that had wished I had access to that drum kit much earlier so we could expand upon being in the Responsibility stage of Play!

I think the biggest changes I am making since the beginning of the course is listening with more intention of identifying characteristics of the 5 developmental levels, starting out with a focus on listening to singing responses as they relate to the levels. I think I also am beginning to formulate more ways to assess and guide or deepen experience within the different areas.

[Maggie Johnson]

Sing: Awareness – Uses pitched vocalizations in simple rhythms and variable duration. Trust – Singing is purposeful & matches pitch ~50% w/simple 1:2 ratios w/in rhythms and generally using descending intervals. Independence – Responds to music w/vocalizations & sings with varied vowels, consonants, & babble. Control – Follows melodic contour of familiar songs (w/out solidified accuracy of pitches w/in contour.) Varies vocal dynamics, & tessitura is D-A above middle C. Sings spontaneous song fragments and familiar songs. Responsibility – Uses melodic rhythm in familiar songs. Maintains melodic intonation of familiar song. Sings in both major and minor keys.

Play: Independence – Purposefully explores variety of instruments. Can strike a drumhead, shake a maraca, transfer instrument from one hand to another, and bang two objects together. Control – Likes to pound and bang on things and has a fast internal rhythm. Responsibility – Imitates simple rhythm patterns and groups into sequence, and can match loud and soft. Can maintain a steady beat.

Move: Awareness – Engages in simple, instinctual rhythmic movements & actions. Trust – Responds to music with repetitive movements that are not synced to the music. Briefly uses pulse and meter. Independence – Bounces, rocks, and moves rhythmically using the whole body or isolated body parts (e.g. hand claps). Control – Imitates learned movements and dances spontaneously to music. Responsibility: Uses pulse when moving musically and follows pulse of familiar songs, stabilizes rhythm of movement patterns, repeats rhythm patterns and uses musical movements in sequence.

Listen: Awareness – Can discriminate pitches and timbre, responds differently to sedative vs play-songs, and prefers consonance. Trust – Prefers higher pitch, moves focus inward to lullabies and outward to play-songs. Recognizes familiar melodies, changes in rhythm or melody in familiar songs & differentiates tempo changes from rhythmic changes. Locates sounds at a distance. Independence – Enjoys crescendo, fermata, glissando, and pauses. Control – Practices vocalizations through repetition. Responsibility – IDs low pitches easier than high. Increasing recognition of melodic rhythm without lyrics, recognizes loud and soft, IDs the sound of an instrument within a group. Listens to play of others.

[Maggie Johnson]

Awareness
•turning towards a parent’s singing voice because of the familiar timbre
• turning away from discordant sounds
• co-regulation and appear being soothed through outside stimuli of repetitive bouncing while a lullaby is being sung

Trust
•matching pitches of an a cappella song being sung to them, at times
•locating a new instrument being played across the room and when the adult brings it to them they might bring it to their mouth
•smiling in recognition when they hear a familiar melody

Independence
•a child moving independently throughout the space a lot during the session exploring instruments and making a choice of instruments
•squealing with delight sounding like a glissando when a welcome surprise happens in the music
•bouncing along to the music but out of time

Control:
•a child being able to freeze while listening
•singing that follows melodic contour
•beginning to play two-handed instruments with success

Responsibility:
•playing a simple sequence of desk bells or resonator bars
•following two-step musical directions
•matching their vocal quality to the music

[Author]

Posts