The Music Therapy Show

This week starts off the month-long series exploring the proposal to move Music Therapy to a Masters Level Entry degree.  Currently, music therapists are board certified at the Bachelor-level or its equivalent. The Education and Training Advisory Board proposed moving to a Masters Level Entry. I will read the proposal and all associated information about this issue. Then in the following weeks, I will have guests on to talk about different perspectives on how this issue will affect our field.Call in to the show and give your input!

DrumHeart.org is the website of Michael Kenny, MMT, MT-BC, a music therapist, educator, and performer based in Dallas,Texas.

Michael Kenny offers individual and group music therapy for all ages. Michael has over 15 years of experience as a music therapist. He has worked with a diverse set of populations including: psychiatry, autistic and special needs children, Alzheimer’s and geriatric patients, developmentally delayed and physically challenged individuals.

He brings a sense of healing, sacredness, and wellness to every musical experience.

TaKeTiNa is a group rhythmic process that utilizes sight, sound, and movement to activate human and musical potential through rhythm. It was developed in 1970 by Austrian musician and composer Reinhard Flatischler. Participants in a TaKeTiNa circle are guided via call and response and the pulse of a surdo drum through a series of steps, claps, and songs. This process induces a flux between two states: being IN rhythm and being OUT of rhythm. Participants fall in and out of rhythm in the circle; a process analogous to our movement through life. Each time TaKeTiNa participants find their way back to the basic pulse and fall back in rhythm, they experience rhythm at a more profound and intense level.

This week I gave some announcements important to the field of music therapy and the schedule of upcoming music therapy shows.

My guests are Ryan & Jody, the creators of urTalker.  urTalker is all about enabling individuals with a voice.

Their applications are designed with the individual and their unique needs in mind. While every application comes with default categories and images, every solution provides the ability to create any number or additional categories, load any type of image and most importantly record your voice for use with those images and words.

urTalker was developed by the founders to help their non-verbal autistic child, have a voice. Many non-verbal, autistic and special needs individuals have the ability to learn and use assistive technology, but the price for specific devices can be prohibitive. urTalker was developed to be affordable.

This week, my guest is Jason Moon. Jason Moon's song "Trying to Find My Way Home" has won the 2012 gold medal for the Veterans Administrator's art's completions in the special recognition category. Jason is honored to be recognized for his work, both healing him and other veterans through music.

      Jason began his musical career playing around campfires in his home town of Eagle River, Wisconsin. He later relocated to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, where he attended UW Oshkosh and was a focal point of the burgeoning Fox Valley music scene. He hosted several open mics, wrote dozens of songs, and played hundreds of shows from 1995 until he was deployed to Iraq in 2003.

     Jason recently released Trying to Find My Way Home, “an accidental concept album” based on his own war experiences and on his attempts after his homecoming to regain the man he was before he was deployed. In Iraq he frequently performed for his fellow troops, but for over five years after his return in 2004 he was unable to finish more than a single song – despite songwriting once being his greatest joy in life. Jason’s other original solo recordings include Naked Under All These Clothes and Poverty.

     In 2009 Jason was interviewed for the forthcoming documentary feature film On The Bridge and was asked to record one of his original songs for the credits roll, an experience that energized him to finally begin to write songs again in earnest, and which ultimately led to Trying to Find My Way Home.

Join me as I talk with Mia Maegan Morrow, the music therapist who worked with Gabrielle Giffords.

She is a Senior Music Therapist and Neurologic Music Therapy Fellow at TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston, Texas.

Maegan Morrow graduated from Sam Houston State University and received her advanced fellowship training in Neurologic Music Therapy at the The 'Robert F. Unkefer' Academy of Neurologic Music Therapy, maintained at Colorado State University.  She is a Board Certified Music Therapist and she works at TIRR Memorial Hermann. She is also a Certified Brain Injury Specialist and has spent most of her career with the Brain Injury and Stroke population in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. She is also an internship supervisor on the National Roster of Internship sites under the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA). She has been practicing for 10 years as a clinician. She is also a performing artist and guitar teacher. She is well known for her work with the recent patient and congresswoman at TIRR Memorial Hermann. She has been featured in the media including: Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s medical interviews on CNN, Newsweek, and on the Grammys.com.

Her website is www.maeganmorrow.com where you can see her using Neurologic Music Therapy at TIRR in the media over the past year.

Board Certified music therapist Tim Ringgold is Director of Sonic Divinity, which provides music therapy services in Orange County, CA, and teaches business and success principles to new and seasoned professionals alike. 

Tim serves his music therapy community as Vice President of the Western Region Chapter of the AMTA, and is a regular presenter at both regional and national conferences. 

Tim has delivered no less than 16 presentations on music therapy topics since his internship at Musicworx, Inc. in 2008, and has gone on to earn a certificate in NICU music therapy and in HealthRHYTHMS. 

Inaugural recipient of the WRAMTA New Professional Award in 2009, Tim is a graduate of Chapman University in Orange, CA, where he served as President of the Student Music Therapy Association, as well as received the Music Therapy Award and Guitar Award from the Chapman Conservatory of Music.

Find out more about Tim at www.sonicdivinity.com.

Dr. Eric B. Miller is a psychotherapist, music therapist and biofeedback therapist with experience in inpatient, outpatient, corporate and educational settings. He lectures on Music Therapy at Immaculata University and Montclair University and is a regular speaker at international conferences. Dr. Miller founded the Biofeedback Network and serves as Executive Director of non-profit organizations Expressive Therapy Concepts and Music for People. He resides in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

 

His book: Bio-Guided Music Therapy

A Practitioner's Guide to the Clinical Integration of Music and Biofeedback

Forewords by Joseph P. Scartelli and C. Norman Shealy

2011, Paperback: $29.95

ISBN: 978-1-84905-844-5, 9.25in x 6in, 256pp

JoAnn Jordan is a board certified music therapist and a graduate of the University of Kansas. With more than 25 years in the field working with older adults and preschoolers, JoAnn has a passion for providing resources for those who work or live with older adults, children, or both of these populations. Her big passion is intergenerational groups that combine preschoolers with older adults. Many posts filled with ideas and access to her newsletter can be found at her business site: Music Sparks. 

Website - http://www.music2spark.com

Maria Ramey, MT-BC, is a graduate of the music therapy program at California State University Northridge. While working as a music therapist at Hope University, a fine arts program for adults with developmental disabilities, Maria wrote the book Group Music Activities for Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, a collection of 100 session activity ideas published by Jessica Kingsley. Maria is now the music therapist at Royale Healthcare Center TRC, a residential psychiatric hospital in Santa Ana, CA. She was invited to create the music therapy program from the ground up at this facility where she provides both group and private music therapy sessions to three locked units. In addition to focusing on her passion as a music therapist Maria is also a professional flutist, wife and mother to three homeschooled children.