Lerner & Loewe. Rodgers & Hammerstein. Kander & Ebb. Lennon & McCartney. Simon & Garfunkel. All famous songwriting duos whose names just belong together, right?
To be honest, I’ve never collaborated with another songwriter when it comes to music therapy/children’s songs. (Unless you count therapeutic songwriting with students or piggyback songs, that is!) I’ve definitely used input from custom song clients, teachers, parents and others, but the actual process of creating the song is an independent one.
However, I do have a songwriting partner for other kinds of music. My mom and I have written wedding songs, choral Christmas pieces, songs for nonprofit organizations, and more over the last five years or so. We both bring our own strengths to each project, and the finished product reflects a nice mix of our styles. Goulet & Rambach has a nice ring to it :)
I’d love to collaborate with other music therapists at some point for a breath of fresh air and new inspiration. Any music therapy songwriting duos out there we should know about? Maybe you’re half of one — if so, let me know!
Hi Rachel! I’m finally catching up on all your blogging. :) You’ve got some great posts!
Thank you so much!! And thanks also for becoming an L&L Plus member :D
Oh definitely! I work with a very creative speech language pathologist. We piggyback songs for her AAC user group to learn where the buttons are for certain topics. (food, cell phones is our most recent, calendar, days of the week, etc)
In music therapy, I tend to work alone, but I actually collaborated with my dad once during my internship! We were talking on the phone as I drove back early one morning to my internship. I told him my ideas and goals I wanted to address with one of my groups, and we wrote it right then while we both drove to work!
I’ve also collaborated with a friend to write our own Christian songs for worship and reflection. It’s amazing how much of a stress reliever it can be to just write a song! When we work together, he balances out my ‘cheesy lyrics’ and I help him with more advanced melodies and chords.