The Daily Muse: Enjoying the World that Brought Us Tony Drake

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Another example of music empowering someone's life:



Born at 24 weeks, blind and then later diagnosed with Autism, Tony Drake wasn't expected to live through the night. Now, 23 years later, Tony has overcome many obstacles to become an outstanding blues guitarist and singer. Here he performs "Sometimes You Love Me" with the Roy Roberts Band, May 21, 2011.


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The Daily Muse: Glee Shock!

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Like the show or not, Glee is rapidly re-shaping what is considered popular and preferred music. Even some Broadway tunes can now be used for music therapy in high school settings!


see more Funny Graphs

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The Daily Muse: Deep Thought

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

"Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue." ~ Plato

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The Daily Muse: Music Therapy Recognized for Aiding Patients With Dementia

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Internal Medicine News has a nice article about music therapy with dementia patients. The author has an accurate description of music therapy and makes some references to new research. I really like the fact that the article includes links to the original research material! You can find the story here.



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The Daily Muse: Friday Fun with Bach and the Bouncing Ball!

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

If a ball bounces down a huge xylophone in the middle of a deserted forest, does it make any sound?? Susan Seale at Make Me Musical shared this amazing video on her blog. She has several great blogs and a knack for finding superb videos! This video is apparently a commercial for a cell phone encased in wood! You can find it here.




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The Daily Muse: Music in the Cosmic Cloud!

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

I know you've been there...a music therapy session with a client but you have forgotten to bring that special cord that connects your MP3 player or iPod to the stereo! Now you have to rely on the little speaker in your phone since you also didn't bring in your laptop for the session. Or you remember that the one song you need isn't in your iTunes library, but is an MP3 file on your computer instead. But, don't panic, maybe you are one of the trendy people who have moved to the "cloud!" The cloud is that ethereal space located in some 4th dimension (or somebody's basement in Taiwan!) where you can store gobs of information for little or no cost. You may even already have a cloud storage from Amazon, Apple, Microsoft or Google! Therein lies part of the problem. Too many different cloud banks! (no pun intended!) Wouldn't it be nice to have all your music, no matter what the file format, saved in one place? They you could access it from anywhere at anytime and play it through a computer or connection that belongs to somebody else when you forget your own equipment!


Audiogalaxy presents itself as just the answer! Save all the music on your computer, no matter what file format, to one cloud-based storage site that you can access from anywhere! I think something like this would make things a lot easier for everyone, but especially music therapists. Has anyone tried this already? Let us know how you like it!



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The Daily Muse: Music Makes Sense For People With Alzheimer's

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

The Utah Symphony is performing a series of concerts this month to benefit the Alzheimer's Association. It is part of a larger effort called, "Making Sense of Alzheimer's Month."  The symphony recognizes the important part that music can play in helping people with Alzheimer's disease improve their quality of life. The full story is here.






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The Daily Muse: Today's Free MP3 Download From Amazon!

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Young Jackie Evancho is being highlighted today on Amazon. You can download her newest song, Ombra Mai Fu, for free today!



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The Daily Muse: How to Hear Without Your Ears

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

This is an amazing TED talk given by Evelyn Glennie.  She is a phenomenal percussionist who also happens to be deaf since the age of 12.  Although this was a lecture from 2003, it is worth revisiting.  Evelyn provides such ideas about how she "hears" rhythm and music and encourages all of us without hearing loss to expand our conceptual view about sound.  This is a must see for every music therapist! 











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The Daily Muse: A Sunday With the Rolling Stones

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"The preacher said, you know you always have the Lord by your side. And I was so pleased to be informed of this that I ran twenty red-lights in his name."

~from, Far Away Eyes, the Rolling Stones

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The Daily Muse: Autism and the iPad Continue to Impress!

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Here is the headline: Autistic Children Use iPad at Toronto School to Reach Out and Communicate. This story caught my attention because I had recently heard about a little "dust-up" in Texas regarding a school district fighting the use and purchase of iPads to use with some of their students in special education. This district was worried that if they purchased iPads for students with special needs, then they would have to buy them for every student. Instead of buying something for a few hundred dollars that is proving to be a revolutionary aid to communication, they wanted to spend thousands of dollars on more traditional augmentative communication devices that didn't "look" as trendy, but cost many times more than an iPad! But the stories and research about the incredible success children are having using new mainstream, touchscreen devices continue to proliferate.  Hopefully, school administrators will step up to the plate and act like the leaders they are paid to be!



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The Daily Muse: An Inspired Adapted Performance!

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Music therapists are often asked to adapt instruments or compositions to fit the type of instruments available or the abilities of a client. This performance is nice because it gives our imagination a chance to consider possibilities. These are obviously very fine and talented traditional musicians (in other words, don't try this at home!...or at least have adult supervision!), but I love the non-traditional ways they use the instruments in order to get the desired sounds. This is like a STOMP performance, but with melody added!





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The Daily Muse: Finding the 100 Best Acoustic Songs

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

I found this site called, "The Top Acoustic Songs." This website not only lists what they believe to be the top 100 acoustic songs, but allows you to listen to all of them right on site. This is useful for those songs you can't quite bring the melody to mind right away! I am interested to know what you think about their ranking? Are there songs missing from the list? They seem to have a nice mix of new and old, but Matchbox 20 takes the top slot.



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The Daily Muse: Help Save Music Therapy at the University of Michigan!

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I didn't know that there was still a possibility to save the music therapy program at Michigan State, but it looks like we can still help out the effort!  Here is the latest news:

The Advocates for Music Therapy Education (AMTE) continues to work to save the Music Therapy Degree Program at Michigan State University. Students, alumni, and community members are working from multiple vantage points on behalf music therapy at MSU. Financial support is needed for some of these initiatives, such as collaborative efforts with other professionals, expert support, and legal council, to name a few. Visit AMTE?s website at www.musictherapyedu.org and the Advocates for Music Therapy Education Facebook page.



AMTE kicked off a fundraiser Saturday, May 14, 2011 through Barnes & Noble and it CONTINUES THROUGH THIS THURSDAY, MAY 19 !! Barnes & Noble will contribute up to 12% of ALL SALES FROM CUSTOMERS WHO USE THE BOOKFAIR ID# 10487650 to AMTE .



The great thing about this fundraiser is that it applies to ALL Barnes & Noble stores THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY AND ONLINE SHOPPING. Barnes & Noble offers books, music, DVDs, educational toys and games, gift product and so much more. More details are included on the website.


Please consider visiting the Barnes & Noble website and making a purchase on behalf of AMTE. Click on the link below to start shopping, and please ensure you enter AMTE?s organization bookfair ID listed below on the payment page to ensure credit is received.


Advocates for Music Therapy Education

www.bn.com/bookfairs

Bookfair ID: 10487650



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5 Tips for Drumming with Psychiatric Consumers

I have the pleasure of working with consumers* in an in-patient acute psychiatric setting. One of the interventions I do is a "music expression" psychosocial rehabilitation group. I usually have approximately 8-20 patients at a time depending on the hospital census and doctor referrals. The group of male patients is always changing, so I never have the same set of people twice. Even though the group is different each week, however, there are certain things that remain constant. One of these factors is safety. The safety of patients and staff is always a concern and something I have to consider for each activity. The group participants are all considered acutely mentally ill while residing in the unit where I go to do the music expression group. It can be challenging to engage these consumers in music-making since they are at all different levels of functioning because of their illness, physical condition or effects of medication.

Drumming activities are often a very good way to engage the clients in my group. I have done both organized rhythms with them as well as more loosely structured facilitated drum circle activities. The consumers seem to like the drumming and usually stay engaged with this active type of music-making. I want to offer you some of the things I have learned in doing drumming activities with this population:

1. Take caution! Some instruments like the REMO tunable tubanos have tuning bolts and other potentially semi-sharp or exposed parts that could be dangerous in the hands of an agitated patient. In addition, I usually will not take tambourines or a Gankogui into an instrument activity with the acute psychiatric patients.





2. Emotions. Expressing and managing emotions are very difficult for many people with mental illness. Exploring emotions and appropriate ways to express feelings is a good topic for music therapy sessions. This can be done through song-writing, improvisational instrument ensembles and especially drumming. After you have taught the clients that they can make unique sounds by playing drums in different ways, it is a great activity to have them express feelings exclusively through playing on drums or rhythm instruments. I like to do a guessing game where I assign emotions to different people and try to have them play a drum in a way that the group can determine the emotion.

3. KISS! The old adage, "Keep It Simple Stupid", applies to rhythms. Many of the patients are on high doses of medication that cause drowsiness, decrease focus of attention, and sometimes motor skill impairment. The easiest way I have found to overcome these obstacles is to use words and syllables as the basis for rhythms. Drumming your name is probably the most common example. You can actually have a pretty rockin' rhythm just by getting everyone to play rhythms that match how they say their names!

The Daily Muse: PBS Highlights the Power of Music to Increase Creativity

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Science Nation, on PBS, recently broadcast this little gem of a report about how music learning and training may increase creative thinking across settings. The story is relatively short, but is a nice plug for the power of music. I especially like the app for the iPhone called La Di Da! I don't have an iPhone to try this out, but let me know if you have it and how well it really works! I would also like to know if anyone has been able to use this app in a clinical setting?




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The Daily Muse: Kat Fulton Talks to the Wall Street Journal About Music and Older Adults With Dementia

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Kat Fulton was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal regarding music therapy with Dementia patients. This is a really great article and wonderful exposure for the benefits of music therapy! You can find the full article here.





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The Daily Muse: Words of Wisdom from Bob Marley

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

"One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain."

~Bob Marley

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The Daily Muse: Metronomes of the World, "Unite!"

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Music therapists often talk about the idea of "entrainment," especially when using drumming with certain population groups. Entrainment is the phenomenon that occurs when things with motion tend towards moving together in synchrony (Here is the Wikipedia definition for entrainment). A very steady audible pulse, for example, will often create a very uniform drum beat among groups of people who might otherwise find it difficult to play a steady beat on a drum as a result of cognitive or physical impairments. Michael Marcionetti, one of the music therapists representing Music Therapy Drumming out of Texas shared this video about metronomes. I am not sure if this is really an example of "entrainment" since they use the cans and the board underneath the metronomes to help them synchronize? I took physics in high school, but that was a long time ago! What do you think? Does this video support or diminish the idea of entrainment?




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The Daily Muse: Music Therapy and Drumming for Tornado Ravaged Alabama

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Music therapists around the world often are some of the first people to respond after natural disasters. There are many examples of music therapists helping after 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing and after the tsunamis. The news out of Alabama after the tornadoes has a similar story. I love how drumming is being used as one of the mediums for music therapy! Foxnews has the story here.


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The Daily Muse: The Naked Scientist Explores the Influences of Music

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

The Naked Scientist is a show out of the U. K. on BBC. They recently did a show that covered many different aspects about the influences of music on people. The show has many great and interesting examples. I also just love a show where all of the hosts and guests talk with cool accents! The podcast is here and the transcript can be viewed here. Enjoy! It is worth a listen!




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The Daily Muse: New Study Shows Autism Rate at 1 in 38 Children??

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

An alarming new study out of Korea is indicating that the prevalence of Autism may be much higher than previously thought. The study which was done in conjunction with researchers at Yale and George Washington Universities found that the Autism rate is really 1 in every 38 children! Current research in the U. S. has shown a rate closer to 1 in 110.  How are we missing the other children?  I am sure this will cause a stir in the autism advocacy circles and we will need to investigate the methodology of the research. The news story can be found here and the abstract to the research is here.


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The Daily Muse: Meditate on This! FREE Gregorian Chant Music

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Here is your chance to own a new collection of real Gregorian chants for free! Everyone needs a little of this in their collection. Classic and beautiful!



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The Daily Muse: Glee Star Helping to Raise Money for Music Therapy

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Matthew Morrison, of Glee fame, has also signed up to help raise money for music therapy! Foxnews has the story here.




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The Daily Muse: Quote of the Day from the Righteous Brothers

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"If you believe in forever, then life is just a one-night stand. If there's a rock and roll heaven, well, you know they got a hell of a band!"

~from, Rock and Roll Heaven, the Righteous Brothers

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The Daily Muse: Wretches and Jabberers Released Nation-Wide on May 12th!

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

"Wretches and Jabberers" is a movie with a funny name, but a serious subject. This documentary movie chronicles an international trip by two older men who have autism. After struggling through life with the symptoms of autism, they both later discovered that they could communicate through typing! This opened up a world of opportunities! The movie is being released in a limited national event on May 12th. Unfortunately, I am not near a city where it is showing, but I hope that it continues to enjoy some popularity and spreads to more cities! You can find out where it is showing here. I have also embedded the movie trailer for you below. If you are able to go and see it, please come back and let us know what you thought!

The Daily Muse: The Orange Grove Center Choir: "After All"

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

The Orange Grove Center Chorus in Tennessee is highly sought after for local music performances. Kathleen Coleman brought this group to my attention and I wanted to pass it along. The following video shows them performing a beautiful song describing some of the thoughts and feelings one might have when they are dealing with some kind of disability. This is a nice performance and a great way to spread the message!



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The Daily Muse: Dr. Gupta Talks About Music Therapy at TIRR!

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Many of us have been following Representative Gabrielle Gifford's recovery at the TIRR rehab hospital in Texas. CNN's Dr. Gupta recently spent a day at the rehab center going through simulations of some of the therapy typical to patients in rehab. The news article has a nice segment on some of the ways music is used in therapy. CNN will broadcast Dr. Gupta's program on May 8th and the story on CNN can be found here.




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The Daily Muse: The Rhythm of Life

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

As a drum circle facilitator, I often encourage drum circle participants to get in touch with their own natural rhythms. Some good examples of this concept are the heartbeat, breathing and walking rhythms. Sxip Shirey has taken rhythmic breathing to a whole new level!  His presentation is a bit odd at times, but TED felt it worthy to include in their prestigious TED talks series.  What do you think?  







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The Daily Muse: Music Therapy Expands in Kentucky

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

The University of Kentucky in Lexington has a new music therapy program slated to start in Fall 2011. Dr. Lori Gooding is currently developing the exciting new program while providing music therapy services at the Children's Hospital. The following news story describes the program and Dr. Gooding's current activities. This new program is a great step for music therapy! Thank you Dr. Gooding!




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Music For Relaxation: A Flowchart for Decision-Making

There are many situations where a people or music therapy clients may want to use some music to help them relax.  I have often found that most people not familiar with music therapy interventions have a very simplistic view of using music to relax.  They may often say, "Oh, do you just put on some Mozart for people?"  It is important, however to determine the real purpose of the music and what kind of music would be appropriate given the conditions.

The Daily Muse: Amazon Has Over 1,500 Albums at $5 For the Month of May!

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

Amazon has a sale on albums through the end of May! Over 1,000 albums are $5! You can see them here.







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March Headlines From the Daily Muse

     Welcome to the Daily Muse page!  This page on Music Makes Sense will archive the current month's posts for The Daily Muse.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

(4-30-11)

"Life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans."

~From Beautiful Boy, by John Lennon

(4-29-11) 8tracks.com is a cool website that combines elements of Pandora Radio and iTunes! You can choose your own theme and then put together a mix of music that reflects your idea. I thought this would be a great idea for patients in the hospital or music therapists working with adolescents. This could also be a worthwhile project a music therapist might facilitate in a support group setting. You can check out what kinds of mixes other people have already done and see the feedback they are receiving here.

(4-28-11) Recent research has been indicating that some lack of joint attention and use of gestures can be a predictor for autism in children as young as 12 months old. A new study coming out reports on a screening program that looked at some of these indicators. The researchers explain that the screening process might not be ready for widespread use, but it is an important milestone in making the process a reality. The story is brought to you by FoxNews.

(4-27-11) Kat Fulton at Rhythm For Good has written about her experiences doing Skype drum circles! I have had the pleasure of participating in two of her Skype sessions with my music therapy drum class! These "DrumSkype" sessions really are a different kind of experience and Kat has done a very good job explaining all the unique elements of a DrumSkype session. I look forward to the continued development of DrumSkype and "Telepractice"! Thanks again, Kat!

4-26-11) PBS just finished a series of programs on PBS Newshour about autism. Natalie Mullis at KeyChanges Music Therapy Services pointed out that Robert MacNeil received some criticism for his handling of certain questions during the show. He is supposed to address some of the feedback on the show tonight. It will be interesting to see how this is handled. The show was actually a series of broadcasts about autism and covered a wide range of topics related to autism spectrum disorder. I think it was very informative and thought provoking and you can find it here.

(4-25-11) I admit this one is a little old, but I am still amazed and intrigued by the creativity! I teach a music therapy drumming class and one of the things we experiment with is improvising different sound pattern loops that compliment each other. This musical creation demonstrates that you can make music from almost anything! Enjoy it here!

(4-24-11) Lori La Bey is an advocate for people with Alzheimer's and has a blog, "Alzheimer's Speaks." She recently shared a wonderful video showing a music therapist and a client with late stage Alzheimer's. Anyone familiar with this disease will immediately recognize the inherent power of the right music to connect with a patient who has this debilitating disease. The story and video are here.

(4-23-11) I have discovered Pamela Ott who writes the blog, "Music for Special Kids." Not only is she a music therapist, but she has many songs and some materials available for download that are really nice. I like her melodies and the singing is well done! I have subscribed to her blog and I recommend you do the same! Check it out here.


(4-22-11) I realize it is still Easter, but that means Mother's Day is only two weeks away! Amazon is having a big Mother's Day sale on MP3 players you can find here. An iPod nano would be a fun gift preloaded with all your mom's favorite music! And just in case you want to send something else a little special, you might try out one of the cards from Lydia's Handmade Cards! Remember, even if you don't see a card that specifically suits your mom, you can contact Lydia to make a special order for your mom or any occasion!



(4-21-11) Just in time for Earth Day, Alfred Music Publishing talks about how it is going "green." You can find all the fun facts here. I just don't know if I am on board for the waterless urinals!

(4-20-11)

"Music is an ever-moving blob of mercury."

~Roseanne Cash

(...you have to ponder this one.)

The Daily Muse: Music and Magnetism

     Welcome to the Daily Muse feature of Music Makes Sense!  This daily update brings you up to the minute news about music and music therapy as it relates to our professions, events and individual lives.  You can follow the daily entries by subscribing to Music Makes Sense on Twitter or by "Liking" the Facebook page for Music Makes Sense.  Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

This video shows how magnets apparently affect the ability of the brain to process language. The researcher seems to believe that there will be some applications for this phenomenon in therapy or medical treatment. I think the research is still in its beginning stages, but it is intriguing how a person can sing through the magnetic interference but can't talk! (Go here to see the video at the original site.)