VIDEO: Mashup for Drumming with Older Adults: Ayub + Opera
Ayub Rhythm + Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen = Successful Older Adult Drumming and Singing Here’s a fun way to drum with older adults in your music therapy or group drumming sessions. I particularly enjoy introducing something new by way of something old and familiar. (Granted, the Ayub rhythm is much “older” than Carmen, it will [...]
9 Tips: Drum Circles for Kids with Special Needs
Marilyn, one of my subscribers, recently asked me about drumming with kids who have special needs. She and her business partner have been hired to run a drum circle at a summer camp! Marilyn is a drum circle facilitator in Jacksonville, FL, she runs Heart 2 Heart Circles, and she blogs at Marilyn’s On The [...]
VIDEO: Introducing Black Eyed Peas to Boomwhackers
Thanks to support from the Cancer Coping Center, I am going to make music, drum, and play boomwhackers with kids at Camp Kesem, a camp for kids with a parent who has (or has had) cancer. The camp is a week long, and they do all sorts of fun activities. I awoke from sleep one [...]
9 crazy ideas for playful spontaneity during the work day
Sometimes my eyeballs get stuck on the computer screen. Sometimes I find myself doing the same daily routine, and I need a change. This week I found bits of time during the day to give my left brain a break, clear my mind, gain new perspective, exercise my imagination, and return to work refreshed. Here’s [...]
45 Hospitals with NICU Music Therapy or Supportive Music
You can watch and read a NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) Music Therapy overview here. Now, find the closest hospital to YOU that offers NICU Music Therapy services. The following hospitals use music therapy in the neonatal intensive care unit. Hospitals outside of the US may use either supportive music or music therapy. The links will [...]
I’m very grateful for the work that I have in San Diego. In the Drum Call with Christine Stevens, a listener asked the question “How do you get clients?” What a great question! There are a million and one ways to get work and clients. I answered “When you do what you love, work just comes.”
I’d like to add to that idea. I’ll use my experience in speaking with NICU administrators and older adult community directors as examples.
1. First, you have to be the person you love to be. This is at the core of selling. When you are living authentically, you come across to others as authentic and genuine. There are many resources available on living authentically. Read any book by Osho, Wayne Dyer, or Leo Babauta (blogger) to get started living an inspired life. Living an inspired life allows your purpose, drive, direction, and motivation to naturally become available. Don’t go “looking” for your purpose. It’s already there. I recommend simply and effortlessly unveiling it~ Start peeling off the layers. I do this partly through transformative movement sessions with Draza Jansky.
I’ve recently been working on socialization, providing an outlet for creative expression, decreasing isolation, providing a basis for reminiscence, improving communication, managing stress, and promoting wellness in my older adult clients. I provide music therapy to independent living, assisted living, skilled nursing, Alzheimer’s/dementia, and everything in between. Here’s a rainstorm video. Watch at your own risk, and don’t be surprised when the gray clouds come rolling in
Last Friday, I was honored to be a guest on the longest-running music therapy podcast, Janice Harris’s Music Therapy Show. I spoke about music therapy in corporate settings, self-care, and wellness. I transcribed the show below. (I have a new-found appreciation for transcribers – This took me forever!) Read below, listen to the show, and check out Janice’s blog!
Janice: Hello everyone! Welcome to the Music Therapy Show with Janice Harris. I’m Janice Harris, the host and producer of this show. I have been working in music therapy for 15 years with a variety of populations, and designed this show to talk about music therapy, to educate people about what music therapy is, find topics that I think are interesting that I’m interested in learning more about, and to hear from you all to find out what’s interesting to you. Today is Friday, August 20, 2010, and I have a very special guest with me today, but before I introduce my guest, I’d like to invite all of you to go to TheMusicTherapyShow.blogspot.com and let me know what topics you’re interested in hearing or let me know what questions you have about music therapy.
My guest today is Kat Fulton. She has a Master of Music in music therapy. She’s a board-certified music therapist, and she also has her certification in NICU music therapy (with the neonatal intensive care unit, doing music therapy with that population). Kat Fulton is a speaker and board-certified music therapist whose passion is achieving therapeutic goals through making music. Her motto is “Be well, feel good, and make music.” I think that’s an excellent motto. She has a Masters in Music Therapy from the Florida State University, which is the headquarters for the Institute for Infant and Child Medical Music Therapy, and she holds high standards for scientific research and maintains a practice infused with the latest evidence-based techniques and strategies. She’s also associated with Remo as an endorsed facilitator. Remo is a corporation that produces drums and encourages drum circle facilitating. Kat maintains a professional membership in the American Music Therapy Association, the Early Childhood Music and Movement Association, and the Drum Circle Facilitators Guild. Kat welcome to the show!
How many times have you heard “If you can’t take care of yourself, then you can’t take care of others.” A million times, right? This is so significant in my life that I even manage to take care of myself while facilitating sessions.
I wouldn’t say I’ve mastered it yet, but my self-care practice has evolved tremendously in the past 5 years. These suggestions come from my own experience and the experiences of some colleagues with whom I’ve spoken about the topic.
Self-care is the act of maintaining personal wellness (physically, emotionally, cognitively, spiritually, and socially) that allows one to function at his/her most optimal level during daily activities.
I’ve chosen this is as the #1 myth in the countdown because I work with tons of older adults, but most of my peers are in their 30s. So, when one of my friends mentions “Oh, it’s way too late for me to pick up music again” or “I haven’t picked up the clarinet since middle school, and it’s my biggest regret,” it drives me crazy! This post is for YOU, my dear friends who have hangups about how you wish you still played music. (The point of this post is only an aside to the topic of music therapy because of course, no level of musical skills or ability is necessary to benefit from music therapy.)
I know from real life experiences and clinical experiences that it’s never too late in life to play music. In order to back my argument up with substantial evidence, I had to dig around to find some research and ask the experts. First, check out one of my favorite books: The Brain that Changes Itself. It’s all about brain plasticity, and the author shares stories of people in physical rehab and people with special needs who end up teaching their brain new tricks at different ages.
Also, I asked Blythe LaGasse of the Music Therapy Research Blog, a blog with a community of readers interested in maintaining evidence-based practice. I can’t say enough good stuff about her work. You *have* to read her blog. She explained that two studies show neuroplasticity in adult non-musicians after a short period of musical instruction (Pascual-Leone 2001 and Lahav et al. 2007). She says, “In essence, it takes longer [to learn music at a later age] because it is new and our brains aren’t wired for music. BUT we can change that with practice in a relatively short amount of time.”
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August 31st, 2010 
Kat Fulton 
