Facebook: Get Ready to Tango!

The Daily Muse     


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!

Facebook set to launch music listening service?? 

 This could get very interesting! I am already signed up for Spotify and they are saying that Spotify might be integrated soon with Facebook. Watch out iTunes! 

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Art Materials for Combined Music and Art Therapy: The Collage

Art Materials for In-Patient Psychiatric Consumers During Combined Art and Music Therapy Activities

#3 Collage

       Art and music therapy have been practiced for many years in the treatment of individuals with psychiatric illness.  This series of posts will focus on patients in an in-patient psychiatric hospital, where consumers stay an average of 13 days.  The male and female consumers range in age from young adult to senior citizens.  The consumers are housed in separate units by gender, severity of illness or forensic status.  One unit for more stable patients is co-ed.  The patients are seen for therapy both on the unit and sometimes off the unit in an “art room.”
  
Music and art therapists often work at the same facility, but are likely to work independently when conducting therapy groups.  Some art therapy directives may be effectively combined with music to provide a different experience or outcome.  This series will explore the materials needed for five combined art and music interventions: drawing, using clay, creating mandalas and collages, and painting.

A Great Sunday Read!

The Daily Muse     


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 have to admit that I just spent over 30 minutes reading my own newspaper! The Musicmakessense Weekly on-line newspaper is a great way to catch up with all the great bloggers and newsmakers out there regarding music, music therapy, music education and even some fun political and entertainment stories! I really like this weekly newspaper because it is just once a week, so I don't feel overwhelmed by so many different additions to my e-mail inbox! You can check out the latest edition here. While you are there, don't forget to subscribe! It's free and delivered right to your virtual doorstep every Sunday!


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How Does Music Become Part of Us?

The Daily Muse     


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 propensity to music -- this "musicophilia" -- shows itself in infancy, is manifest and central in every culture, and probably goes back to the very beginnings of our species."

~ from, Musicophilia, by Oliver Sacks

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Nina's Story and an Experience with Live Music

The Daily Muse     
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 of my readers sent me this video about her daughter named Nina. They live in the Netherlands and Nina seems to love music. One day they were visiting an outdoor shopping area and came upon a brass band. The video tells the rest of the story. It was really nice of the band to get closer to Nina and bring the live music and social interaction right up close. You can find Nina's full story here, including a personal message from Kenny Rogers! I want to thank Nina's mother for sharing her story and inviting us to experience the joy of music with Nina!



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The Daily Muse: Therapy O' the Irish!

The Daily Muse     


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!

More than words - the Art and Power of Music Therapy

The Irish Medical Times

It looks like music therapy in Ireland is doing well! John Garvey is a music therapist in Ireland who provides a nice write-up about music therapy in the Ireland Medical Times. His article provides a little historical perspective as well as references to more recent research demonstrating the effectiveness of music therapy intervention. This is great exposure for music therapy and we wish Mr. Garvey success in his music therapy business across the pond!




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Art Materials for Combined Music and Art Therapy: Part 2

Art Materials for In-Patient Psychiatric Consumers During Combined Art and Music Therapy Activities

#2 Mandalas

       Art and music therapy have been practiced for many years in the treatment of individuals with psychiatric illness.  This series of posts will focus on patients in an in-patient psychiatric hospital, where consumers stay an average of 13 days.  The male and female consumers range in age from young adult to senior citizens.  The consumers are housed in separate units by gender, severity of illness or forensic status.  One unit for more stable patients is co-ed.  The patients are seen for therapy both on the unit and sometimes off the unit in an “art room.”
  
Music and art therapists often work at the same facility, but are likely to work independently when conducting therapy groups.  Some art therapy directives may be effectively combined with music to provide a different experience or outcome.  This series will explore the materials needed for five combined art and music interventions: drawing, using clay, creating mandalas and collages, and painting.

All Things Healing Publishes a Second Article From Music Makes Sense!

The Daily Muse     


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 website, All Things Healing, has highlighted another post from Music Makes Sense! You can see my article as well as others by music therapists here. Thank you to Bernice Chu and all those at All Things Healing for supporting music therapy!

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Art Materials for Combined Music and Art Therapy

Art Materials for In-Patient Psychiatric Consumers During Combined Art and Music Therapy Activities

#1 Drawing

       Art and music therapy have been practiced for many years in the treatment of individuals with psychiatric illness.  This series of posts will focus on patients in an in-patient psychiatric hospital, where consumers stay an average of 13 days.  The male and female consumers range in age from young adult to senior citizens.  The consumers are housed in separate units by gender, severity of illness or forensic status.  One unit for more stable patients is co-ed.  The patients are seen for therapy both on the unit and sometimes off the unit in an “art room.”
  
Music and art therapists often work at the same facility, but are likely to work independently when conducting therapy groups.  Some art therapy directives may be effectively combined with music to provide a different experience or outcome.  This series will explore the materials needed for five combined art and music interventions: drawing, using clay, creating mandalas and collages, and painting.

Side Notes: Protect Your Work While You Are On The Go!

The Daily Muse     
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!

Schools are getting back into session, and whether you are a teacher, therapist or student, you need to know how to protect your mobile devices! I am starting to write my dissertation and have implemented several backup strategies for my files. But I would be dealt a serious blow if my laptop was stolen or lost! When I was doing music therapy in the public schools, I also relied on my laptop and mobile phone to keep up with schedules and reports. Luckily, I never had a problem, but I have heard from many friends who lost their tech devices due to theft! 

How Do Songs Work?

The Daily Muse     


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!

"Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought."

~ Yip Harburg

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Ananda Shankar Jayant Shares How Dancing Helped Her Fight Cancer

The Daily Muse     
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 following story is an amazing experience shared by a world renowned dancer. She shares her love for dance and how it helped her to win her fight against cancer. I really like the way she used dance to "conquer" the cancer. Enjoy!






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Gabrielle Giffords Story Highlights Challenges to Insurance Practices

The Daily Muse     
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!

Gabrielle Giffords Tweets "Happy Birthday" to Astronaut Husband

Gabrielle Giffords was the congresswoman who was shot in the head many months ago. She has recovered some of her physical and cognitive abilities after intensive therapy that included music therapy. She was also able to utilize an iPad with various programs that converted the touch screen into a communication device. The article specifically mentions, "Proloquo2Go", as one of the programs she used to facilitate expressive communication. I found it interesting that the story goes on to mention that insurance companies are reluctant to cover the purchase of iPads or similar brand tablet PCs because they can also be used for "non-medical" applications. We have already seen this phenomenon rear its ugly head in the school system, so it looks like it is a pervasive problem. The author of the news article thinks it is a silly policy and I would tend to agree.  What do you think?






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Operation Harmony Bringing Music to Wounded Vets

The Daily Muse     
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!

Modern music therapy has its foundation in the treatment of WWII veteran's. A story out of Texas reminds us about how powerful music is as an agent of healing for war veterans. Operation Harmony seeks to bring instruments and music lessons to our wounded warriors. It sounds like the program is experiencing great success! It is also very cool that the great-niece of Gen. George Patton is running this gig!


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Group Leading Tips for the Music Therapist in the Acute Psychiatric Setting

Recently, I wrote up some thoughts about group leading in the psychiatric setting.  My focus was to help music therapy interns and/or new hires to be more comfortable and adept at leading small to medium-sized groups of adults in an in-patient acute psychiatric hospital.  This kind of setting is a little unique since there are so many different kinds of patients (we call them "consumers" because they consume psychiatric services...) together in one group.  Hopefully, the following tips will be helpful:



Group Leading Tips

Celebrating 300! Music Makes Sense Since 2007

The Daily Muse     
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 Makes Sense officially crossed the 300 mark yesterday! I can't believe the first post went up on the web on October 30, 2007! You can find that post here: Schoolhouse Strategy: Counting Using Music. The website has gone through many changes since that day and many more people have started blogging about music therapy! I didn't start counting visitors until 2009, but since then Music Makes sense has had over 30,000 pageviews! 

 Thank you to all my readers and family and friends who have supported me in this endeavor. I have loved every minute of the experience and look forward to many more years of interaction with those of you on the world wide web!

Exploring Outside of Pandora's Box

The Daily Muse     
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!

7 Alternatives to Pandora...

This post from Mystery Tricycle is from last year, but it still has great information about the available music streaming sites around the web. They offer a very handy breakdown of all the differences between websites like Pandora, Stumbleaudio and Songza, to name a few. Each of these services has its own focus in providing music listening, and I learned a lot about how to use each website more effectively just by reading the commentary by Mystery Tricycle!



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Music: Beethoven Said it is Like Fertile Soil

The Daily Muse     


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 a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents."

~ Ludwig van Beethoven

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Top 5 Music Therapy Activities for In-Patient Psychiatric Groups: #1 The Mandala

I currently have the opportunity to work once a week with a group of male patients in an acute, in-patient, psychiatric setting. The group I see is part of a larger series of psychosocial rehabilitation classes aimed at helping patients stabilize, recover and move back out into society. My group is titled as "Music Expression." We do a huge variety of activities during this group, but I wanted to share some of the ones that are almost guaranteed to be successful! These music therapy interventions also work well with female patients or in co-ed step-down settings. The first activity I will share, although in no particular order of importance, is the mandala activity:


Group Mandala: Traditionally, a mandala was a circular art piece that served to center the mind and spirit in an art form from Asia. In modern art, the mandala form has been used for all kinds of different themes and formed out of a variety of art materials. Some of the purposes of using a mandala in therapy could be to increase focus of attention, self-awareness or as an activity that re-centers and structures time, space and focus. A mandala is usually an individual project, but can also be effectively employed as a group project. There are many possibilities for encouraging social interaction and problem-solving during group work where the participants must either combine their individual mandalas into one piece or work to create a single mandala together at the same time.

Switch Into High Gear for Music-Making!

The Daily Muse     
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 our music therapy clients have physical disabilities that limit fine and gross motor skills. One of the ways we adapt music interventions to help these clients participate is by using switch devices. These switches are large or small "buttons" that are easy to activate just by pressing on the button.  They activate recorded audio or can operate as on/off switches for electric devices.


Kathleen Coleman, with Prelude Music Therapy, recently mentioned a computer music program called, Switch Ensemble, that can be used with up to five switch devices! Music programs like this are a great way to involve clients with Cerebral Palsy and other physical disabilities in using the popular and innovative programs now available for computers. Thanks to Kathleen for passing along this wonderful idea!



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Online Zen: A New Resource From Kat Fulton at Rhythm for Good!

The Daily Muse     
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, music therapy and drum facilitator extraordinaire, is starting a new on-line presence to help people with blogging and building websites! If you have missed the buzz already surrounding this, you should check out her new site, Online Zen and see what all the excitement is about! For starters, you will be treated to a cool new boomwhacker video and arrangement!



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Cochrane Review: Music Therapy Effective Against Anxiety in Cancer Patients

The Daily Muse     
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!

There is some great news from the Cochrane Reviews! A new analysis of 30 trials and 1891 participants has found a significant effect for music therapy and music medicine intervention on several key indicators. The review specifically looked at music interventions with cancer patients, but this is a great step forward in the research literature for many other types of patients. The researchers concluded that music interventions are especially effective in treating anxiety and in improving mood. They also found some evidence that music interventions may reduce heart rate, blood pressure and respiratory rate. 

The Music Makes Sense Weekly On-Line Newspaper

The Daily Muse     
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 Music Makes Sense Weekly paper is now out with the second edition! You do not want to miss this weekly summary of all things music and music therapy! You can click here to read the current edition. Don't forget to subscribe while you're there! Thanks for reading!




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Too Much Music?

The Daily Muse     
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 enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music."

~Sergei Rachmaninov

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New Evidence to Support Music Therapy for Depression

The British Journal of Psychiatry has just published a new study about the use of improvisational music therapy to help patients with depression: Individual Music Therapy for Depression: Randomised Controlled Trial. You can find the abstract here. 

New Article in Series about Music Therapy in the Huffington Post

The Daily Muse     
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!

Ronna Kaplan, President of the American Music Therapy Association, has been writing articles about music therapy for the Huffington Post. Her latest entry is: Music Therapy: Global Perspectives. The article is a great summary of some of the research presented at the recent World Federation of Music Therapy in Seoul, Korea.  Definitely worth a look!




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Music Makes Sense Debuts on All Things Healing!

The Daily Muse     
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!

It's here! I had already mentioned that one of my blog posts would be featured, and now the moment has officially arrived!  Music Makes Sense debuts on All Things Healing! Many thanks to Bernice Chu and all those at ATH for choosing to highlight one of my articles! You can find the article here.



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Music Therapy Growing in the Blogosphere!

The Daily Muse     


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!

A music therapist by the name of John Lawrence, MMT, MTA, has been keeping track of the growing list of music therapy bloggers. Thank you for this great resource! I had no idea that there were 30 active bloggers! The list is here, and you can find more great information at his blog: Global Music Therapy.


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Music Makes Sense Gets Published!

The Daily Muse     
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!

Paper.li is a feature of Twitter and FaceBook that searches through people that you follow and puts together blogposts that they write in to a newspaper format. This is a cool way to find out what other people are reading and keep up with certain topics. I think it will also promote music therapy on the web.  


I have created a Paper.li for Music Makes Sense that mostly follows music and music therapy topics from the people I follow on Twitter. I have really enjoyed the #musictherapy Daily that has been organized by @AssoEchos and wanted to join the fun! The Music Makes Sense Weekly will come out once a week on Sunday. You can subscribe by clicking on the paper in the sidebar. It looks like this:







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