Browse the Blog
Colors All Around
This week's song topic comes courtesy of my mother-in-law, a special education teacher who works with young children. Every month I make her a CD of Listen & Learn songs to use in her classroom, and she creates amazing visual supports to accompany the songs. This...
Friday Fave: Singable Stories About Habitats
I spent some quality time (as in 4+ hours) with these books last Saturday afternoon...and I'm still not tired of them. After finishing a special project for one of my Listen & Learn Plus! members, I am just that much more excited to use these singable stories with...
The “La La” Song
Earlier this year, I had the chance to see one of my favorite singer-songwriters, Eilen Jewell, in concert. Pokey LaFarge was the opening act, and I haven't been able to get his song La La Blues out of my head ever since. So I used that to my advantage and wrote The...
Friday Fave: Being Elmo
Earlier this month, my dad told me to check out a documentary on Netflix called Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey. I found his suggestion to be a bit random, but he insisted that it was quite entertaining and I would enjoy it. So I finally watched it, and he was right...
I Love the Rain
Spring not only brings a change in the weather, but it also brings a change in mood. At least, that's true for me and many of my students -- like me, lately they've seemed just a little more smiley and excited than usual. Day after day of sunshine and warmth has been...
Friday Fave: Night of Music Therapy
It's hard to believe that it's been almost six years since I finished my graduate coursework in music therapy at Illinois State University. But lucky me, because I get to go back this weekend and hang out with music therapy students at their student organization's...
Student Spotlight: Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain”
I can pretty much predict the songs that will be the most requested by students in my studio by what is popular on the radio. Let's just say that this has been the year of Adele: over the summer it was "Rolling in the Deep", in the fall it was "Someone Like You", and...
Wake Up!
That's exactly what I need to do...because after a long day that started at 4 am and included traveling by plane followed by a full schedule of lessons and music therapy, I need to find the energy to catch up on lots of work! But the long weekend I spent in Mexico...
Look Into My Eyes
One of the goals that I'm constantly targeting with many of my music therapy students is eye contact. And while there are many ways to build this into other interventions and activities, I've never written a song specifically for this purpose...until now. I kept the...