music therapy session

Very exciting news – I’ve launched a YouTube Channel! 

After being in the field of music therapy for over 10 years and mentoring three interns I wanted to give back to the Music Therapy community and save MT’s time and brain power by sharing musical tutorials to learn songs FAST – and have interventions for them which are specifically tailored (and tested) to reach certain goals! 

Especially for myself as a piano major all of sudden having to be able to replicate popular music on guitar was challenging and I’ve seen some of my interns struggle with this as well.  Over the years it’s gotten much easier for me to be able to figure out the strum patterns, chords and styles that work best with the current hits.

As Music Therapists we strive to use client-centred music and when you’re working with teens and young adults there is a huge spread of repertoire you need under your belt.  I really hope my channel helps you, music therapist, feel the most confident musically and professionally going into your own sessions!

For my first video I chose to focus on Hotline Bling by Drake! Check out the video here (or read below for a transcript):

Partial Transcript:

Hey music therapists.  ? It’s Katherine here from note by note music therapy. Today, I’m gonna show you how to turn the song Hotline Bline by Drake into an intervention you can use in your sessions, and I’ll teach you how to play it on the ukulele, even if you’ve never used the ukulele before in your sessions.

Watch until the end and I’ll explain how you can use this song as an intervention to reach the goals of peer to peer interaction and social skills.

Here are the 3 ukulele chords we will be using:

And here is the strum pattern:

INTERVENTION: Phone a Friend 

So now let’s talk about our intervention. So we’re targeting the skills of peer to peer interaction and also improving social skills. So this can be used in a one-to-one session, but I love using it in groups.

It even works over zoom. You’re gonna have one client choose a peer that they can phone (and we’re just pretending) and they can practice their social skills of a phone call, saying, hello, how are you?

Practising conversational skills and using question words. I usually find a prompt is needed for saying goodbye once the conversation has kind of dried up.

I use this primarily in groups of adults with developmental disabilities.  If I was gonna use this song with a mental health group, I’d probably use it to open up a discussion around healthy relationships versus unhealthy relationships and what those look like.

I hope this helps you have a fun song you can use in your sessions that can help reach the goals of peer to peer interaction and social skills. Thanks for watching. If you found it helpful, make sure to subscribe and feel free to reach out and let me know what songs your clients are requesting that you would love to implement in your sessions, but might need a little extra help coming up with an intervention or how to replicate it on guitar or ukulele!