My intention for this episode is to jog our brains a bit to think more deeply about the music we hear each day. After recently reading the book Peak Mind, my mind has been wrapped around the importance of bringing our awareness to the mundane parts of our lives to evoke new brain pathways, strengthen old ones, and overall enhance our ability to experience our world and life.

Maggie sits down with Dr. Hiller to dive into understanding music-centered music therapy and how it is used in addiction and substance use therapy.

Elizabeth sits down with music therapist and piano aficionado Harry Beckett to help listeners identify practical ways to improve their improvisation and jazz piano skills.

We're celebrating Jazz Appreciation Month by learning about the history of a famous Jazz Standard as well as sharing some inspiration on how to use it in music therapy.

Today is going to be a fun episode honoring National Kazoo Day on January 28th! We’re going to talk about different uses for wind instruments in music therapy and share some fun song ideas that support a kazoo solo….

Today Maggie guides us through a music and imagery experience. This will be followed up next week (May 3rd) with more information about the Guided Imagery and Music method for our learning segment.

In this episode I sought out to gather specific music strategies for “trauma-informed care”.....but you know what I found. EVERYTHING! I found every kind and type of intervention. To summarize the techniques being used in trauma-informed care would be a review of what interventions a music therapist can do.

I’m going to be going over some very basic and doable techniques for vocals, guitar and piano that will add some character and authenticity to your music performance. I’m no expert by any means……..but I want to give you some ideas from things that I’ve thought about and link you to teaching resources so that you can take your practice to the next level.

With the advent of instant and unlimited music streaming and headphones, it may be hard to keep tabs on what music kids and adolescents are consuming for almost 15 hours a week. A question that many parents ask, and some may not know to ask is- how does explicit content in music affect my child? And for music therapist’s out there, when utilizing songs with explicit content, or entering into lyric based discussions- it’s important to know how your client’s preferred music may be influencing their behaviors and attitudes in your session and in day to day life.