Music Therapy Musings

A colleague of mine sent me this video. It was attached to an article on the US New & World Report website. The article was entitled, “Keeping Your Brain Fit.” Because I work with older adults, many of whom are living with Alzheimer’s Disease, I read this article with great interest. When working with clients I often wonder what I can do to prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s in myself as well as what I can do to help clients who are already suffering with the disease.

The article was full of suggestions for exercising your brain throughout your life. One of the methods included playing video games. Who knew that my son was actually benefiting health-wise from all those hours on his X-box? Of course, being a music therapist, I just nodded my head in agreement as I read about the many benefits to creating music, both for the old and the young.

I think what I most enjoyed about this article was that it supports one of my fundamental beliefs: that no matter what physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual challenges human beings may be facing, there is still a creative being inside that music and music therapy can reach. Once that creative self is tapped, I can help my clients lead more productive lives and foster overall health.

if you have the chance to read this article and view this video, let me know what you think. I would love to hear from you.

I have been teaching clarinet lessons for about a year now. It has been really fun to share what I have learned over the years as a musician with my students. Most of my students are in high school and have been playing for several years so, for the most part, they have a good musical foundation for playing their instrument.

This past Fall I started working with a student who was brand new to the clarinet. Instead of helping to perfect tone and technique I was to teach her everything from the beginning: how to put the instrument together, how to hold the clarinet, how to put on the reed, how to create the proper embouchure (mouth position), and how to create good tone. Then we had to tackle reading the music and how to properly finger the notes on the instrument.

It was at this point in my teaching that I realized my student was going to need to be taught in a different way than many of my other students. Reading the music proved more challenging and I found myself needing to adapt how I taught her. Before this I hadn’t really thought about learning styles of people or how I could adapt how I taught. But here I was in a situation that required I do just that!

The different styles of learning hit home even more a few week later when, in my own guitar lessons, I found myself needing to be taught differently than the way my teacher was currently teaching. I have come to realize that I am a visual learner. Seeing things written on a page helps me to process information. But in my guitar lessons, some of the material wasn’t written down and I was struggling to memorize triad and finger patterns from somewhere in my own head. Fortunately in my lesson last week I finally had a discussion with my teacher about my style of learning and what I need. The interesting thing was that it really got him to thinking about how he was taught and how he teaches.

We don’t always think about the different ways in which people learn or, if we are teachers, how we teach. But after these experiences in my own work, I won’t be making that mistake again.

Welcome! My name is Kathy Lindberg, a board-certified Music Therapist in Ohio.  For the past several weeks, I have been working on this new website and blog and it has been fun unveiling them this weekend.

I have been a music therapist for 17 years and have had the pleasure of working with a variety of people living with many different challenges. Currently I work with older adults, both the healthy aged and those suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s and other developmental delays.

Along with this blog, I am unveiling my company’s new website, Melisma Music Therapy Services and invite you to browse the site. The mission of my company is to provide quality music therapy services, workshops, and music lessons not only to persons in my community of Wooster, OH, but to persons throughout the state as well.  I believe so strongly in the power of music therapy that I want to bring it to as many people as possible.

I am looking forward to sharing my journey as a music therapist with you.