My New Job

I am very excited to announce that I have been offered a full-time music therapy job (with benefits!) at a facility in Irvine. Let me tell you the story of how I created this job opportunity for myself...


My job search started in late July, early August. I really wanted to wait until we were settled back in California to start the search, mostly because it is so time consuming. Once I finally started looking online, there were no music therapy postings anywhere. Uh oh. No need to panic, I signed up as a TakeLessons instructor, got a contract for a company down in San Juan Capistrano, and a contract for the Children's Music Fund. By no means was this going to pay the bills.

I started searching Craigslist and came across numerous companies hiring for speech therapists, behavior therapists and occupational therapists. Unfortunately, and obviously, I didn't qualify. However, a thought came across my mind. Why not offer my services to these companies that offer amazing therapies that go hand in hand with what I do? I had to be creative. And that's what I did. I emailed various companies in the Orange County area offering music therapy. I included a cover letter, resume, recommendation letters...the whole shebang.

You know what? It worked. All it took was one hit (and several interviews and meetings) and now I have a full-time job.

I will be working as a music therapist for a facility that offers speech, occupational and behavioral therapies. I am starting from nothing, starting a program I have always wanted to start, fulfilling my dream on someone else's dime. And most importantly, I will be working with kids with Autism, making a difference one smile at a time.

Ten Days of Easter

Major holidays always make lesson planning easier. It gives my sessions a theme and allows me to teach my clients about what's happening around them. Easter allows us to talk about springtime, flowers, baby animals, Easter (of course), and all the fun things to do during Easter time. Piggy-backing off of Rachel's post "Ten Days of Thanksgiving," I came up with the "Ten Days of Easter."


Working backwards, here are the lyrics:

On the 10th day of Easter my true love gave to me:
10 BABY LAMBS
9 SUNS A SHINING
8 CHIRPING BLUE BIRDS
7 CHERRY BLOSSOMS
6 GEESE A LAYING
5 GOLDEN EGGS!
4 FLYING BUTTERFLIES
3 ORANGE TULIPS
2 MARSHMALLOW PEEPS
AND A BUNNY IN AN EASTER BASKET!

My clients favorites so far are the peeps, eggs, and baby lambs.

This is a wonderful intervention to work on counting forwards and backwards, sequencing, and speech production. I like to have my higher functioning client(s) be my Vanna White :) They love to help flip over my pages.

Pictures to come.

The Note-Ables

Just came across this news story and video and thought I'd share it with you. Music Therapy is used in this case to help a young man with autism learn to communicate and to become more sociable.

The Note-Ables: Changing Lives Through Music

Here is the Note-Able's website. They are a non-profit organization based out of Reno, NV.