It’s been a minute since I’ve posted, and A LOT has happened (if you want to know, keep reading).
I’ve recently had people ask me what my day consists of as a music therapist. Now that I'm working full-time, I thought I’d share.
No matter what kind of work you do, everyone has other commitments outside of their full-time job. Music therapists will often have other musical and non-musical commitments outside of the 40 hour work week. Music therapists work in a variety of settings including (but not limited to) NICUs, Hospitals, Schools, Mental health facilities, nursing homes, prisons, juvenile detention centers, adult “day cares", Hospice companies, etc. They can also work on their own by having their own private practice, working for a private practice or contracting in many different settings. With the variety of settings that a music therapist might work in, it’s hard to share what a typical day might look like. So… I can only speak to what I know.
You might think that all a music therapist does is play music for people to make them feel better. I mean… yes. we do play music and HOPEFULLY we do make people feel better. But there is SO much more to it. There are goals behind what we do (physical, emotional, spiritual, educational, familial, etc). We have to take time to plan for each session that we have. We have to know the music. We have to know our clientele. We have to document everything that we do with our clients. We need data to prove to the “higher ups” that music therapy is beneficial. We have to communicate with the interdisciplinary team of each client. We freshen up on our research to make sure what we’re doing is up to date. We participate in continuing education opportunities. We learn new instruments. We advocate. We volunteer. and so much more.
So. Music therapists work their day job (in whatever setting that they choose). Most jobs don’t include practice time. So after a full day of visits with clients or advocating or meetings, we need to find time to practice (which I think we should definitely get paid for) to enhance our repertoire for future visits.
Like I said, everyone has commitments outside of their day job. As a music therapist, you play music all day and most likely do musical things in the evening, which can be exhausting but wonderful! Some music activities might include teaching lessons, taking lessons, church activities, band practice, coffee shop gigs, etc. And unfortunately, some music therapists need another part-time job because the full-time work isn’t paying as much as they’d like.
I decided to make this my topic because there are a lot of misconceptions about what I do as a music therapist. Music therapists have to advocate so much for their profession which kind of becomes a profession of it’s own.
So if you have any interest in seeing what I’ve been up to, here ya go. Also, I’ll be doing “a day in the life” Instagram story tomorrow!
20 hours of hospice music therapy
Grade school contract - 4 kindergarten classes, 2 early childhood classes, 1 second grade special education class, 2 life skills classes - weekly
Grade school - 7 individual student session - weekly
1 individual client - weekly
3 nursing home contracts - 1-2 times a week
3 piano students - weekly
Tumbling - weekly
Volleyball - weekly
Celebrate recovery worship team
Weekend church- worship team
Spending time with my husband :)
Catching up on Netflix!
We’ve been house hunting too :)
So if you felt that you wanted to catch up on what I’ve been up to, there you go. What have you been up to? Let me know, and let’s catch up!
