Nine associates from eQuality – Pathways to Potential visited the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis, MN for a Music Therapy session. It was a great learning as well as recreational time, and we had a blast using various musical instruments and singing songs.

Our Therapist did the “Hello Song”. The elements of learning there were melody, pitch, memory and access to feelings. We had to sing back how we were feeling. Then, after going around the room, we had to remember how each person was feeling and then we said “That’s ok”.

The second activity that the music therapist did was “sound identification”. We were to identify either pitch (high/low) or melody (recognized on piano) and showing that we recognized by using a particular music instrument. For low on the piano, we were to play the drum, for high up on the piano, we were supposed to play an egg shaker. For the “other” part on the piano which was neither previous melody, we were supposed to play that extra third instrument that were given; some had a tambourine, or a rain stick.

The other activity that the threapist did was mimicking, kind of like Simon Says. The Job Coach played an instrument and we followed in beat of the music and then the Job Coach changeed instruments in the middle of the song and we were supposed to play that same instrument. The therapis said that they were learning how to follow, or pay attention to the leader and showing this through playing the appropriate instrument. In the beginning it was quite confusing, but once we got a hang of it, we had a really good steady tempo.

The last activity was “composing”. We voted on a song (that is on the radio), then we were going to change the words to be a love song. We will write some words and next time we will be able to create our mixed love song. Please stay tuned to our melodious music therapy session as we prepare our song.