It’s a brand-new year! It seems as though 2021 ended in such an unexpected way and I’m hoping 2022 has lots of great things in store for us. Although we’ve had several days of early summer like temperatures here in north Texas, I hear we are in store for some much colder temperatures. I, for one, am very excited for it to actually feel like winter! Using winter as my theme for this month’s blog post, I created an intervention to address improvisation. A lot of times in music therapy, we take a theme and allow the client and therapist to use instruments to express aspects of that theme. For example, we could take the theme of “a rainy day” and use instruments to play what a rainy day may sound like. May sound pretty simple, but we could expand that and say we initiate a theme of “how it sounds when I feel mad”. As you can imagine, the sound may get pretty interesting. For this intervention, I used the theme of “winter” and incorporated several spots where the client can play what they think that line may sound like. There are a few different options for this one; the client can either use an instrument, use their voice, or even body percussion. Take for example the line, “we had a Merry Christmas”. At the end of the line, the client could play jingle bells or use their voice and say, “Ho! Ho! Ho!”. The options are endless, and the great thing is, there’s no wrong answer. It’s always fun to see what the client comes up with and it serves as a talking point for the client to elaborate if he/she wants. We hope you give this one a try and, as always, let us know how it goes! Stay warm and happy playing!

Sara Chigani, MA, MT-BC