In Harmony Music Therapy of Middle Tennessee

Author: carrie

Clinic Closure for Covid-19 including Music Together Classes, music therapy groups and individual sessions effective 3/16/2020 through 3/28/2020
Hello Everybody!

I have been following the news and the CDC, the WHO, and the government’s concerning COVID-19. Several of the places where I run groups including Blakemore United Methodist Church and Franklin First United Methodist Church has suspended any group work in their churches for two weeks. However, I do find that within the work I do, with both the very young and folks over 65 years, it is best cancel classes, groups, and even individual sessions at least until March 28, 2020. Since, COVID-19 takes time to incubate within a person’s system, and there have been at least 17 cases of the virus reported in Davidson’ County at this time, it warrants cause for social distancing and staying in our homes as much as possible and taking care of ourselves.

However, please keep in touch! If you have not, please follow In Harmony Music on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/Inharmonymusicmidtn/ to keep up to date on the latests happenings and some video messages from me to help keep everyone singing and promoting health and wellness through active music making! Until then, please sing to your favorite song today and be well.

All the best,

Carrie Friddell, MT-BC
March 16, 2020
Infection Control Procedures and COVID-19
With the recent news about COVID-19 diagnoses in Williamson and Davidson Counties, I am writing to reassure you that the In Harmony Music of Middle Tennessee team is following these developments closely. Nothing is more important to us than the safety of the clients, children, adults and older adults we serve, and we are putting extra attention into the infection control procedures we have always had in place.

We have reviewed our infection control policies and procedures as a team, following a review of recommendations from the CDC, Music Together, LLC and the American Music Therapy Association, and we will continue working with our clients in a manner that minimizes infection risk.

First, both Ms. Nina and I wash our hands or use hand sanitizer before and after contact with clients. We have reviewed proper hand-washing procedures and use of hand sanitizer. We carry hand sanitizer with us.

Second, we have procedures for keeping our instruments clean, using bleach wipes and spray. It has always been our practice to carry bleach wipes with us at all times. For children and adults who use instruments and props that we bring, we have changed the disinfectant to be compliant with the CDC list of disinfecting agents. We will use Clorox Disinfecting Wipes. It is important that the items air dry in order to be effective. We will be wiping instruments and props as they are used, rather than waiting until the end of the session. Please note that these disinfecting agents are not safe to ingest, so we will be monitoring children to make sure that they don’t put instruments and props in their mouths.

During this period of heightened risk, we have also minimized the number of instruments we use that are difficult to clean, and we have reviewed ways to minimize physical touch during greetings and sessions without compromising the quality of our music therapy services.

As a board-certified music therapist and a trained Music Together teacher, I have had training to know what to do to reduce the spread of infection. Infection control is one of the competencies covered in music therapy education and training, and is tested on our board-certification exam. We have trained in medical settings with strict infection control protocols. We also consider it an ethical obligation to stay home when sick.

We value having you as a partner in care for the children, adults, and older adults we serve and in navigating this public health concern. As always, thank you for the opportunity to serve you and your loved ones!

All the best,

Carrie Friddell, MT-BC
March 9, 2020
The six times in the day that music makes a difference to infants and young children

Young children need routines, rituals, and predictability to feel secure in there environment. We are often creatures of habit but good habits are often learned and established to gain that sense of good health and feelings of security. In the post focused on singing to infants 0-9 months, I talked about moments of musical play to increase babies musical enrichment which helps foster bonding between parent and child. Songs can also help transition from one activity to another. One of the best techniques is singing or chanting while the children are helping to clean up instruments used during Music Together Classes or in Music Therapy sessions. My favorite is using the rhythmic chant, Saying and Doing, which is featured in this semester’s song collection, Flute, and adapting it to the clean up time.

“Cleaning up instruments, cleaning up instruments, cleaning and cleaning and cleaning up instruments!”
And, ”Helping our friends, helping our friends, helping and helping and helping our friends!”

Even if you don’t find yourself to be particularly “musical”, rest assured that your young child LOVES your VOICE! Your voice brings comfort and security to them as well. The more you sing, the better encouraged your child is to love music!

The following are some other ways you can use music throughout your child’s daily routine. Making tasks fun and enjoyable at a young age can help reinforce positive behavior and emotions. This is also important as children learn what is expected of them as valuable and helpful contributors to the family.

1. Waking up: Sing a wake up song to your infant or young children when you greet them in the morning. I often have sung the song, Good Morning from the musical, Singing in the Rain, to my children, but they have also heard, Frere Jacques, This is the Day, and the Music Together ”Family Favorite” song, Biddy, Biddy. Singing an upbeat and happy sounding song can help set the tone for the day ahead. Hearing your voice can bring comfort to your child after a nights sleep. Wake up songs help regulate mood and emotions and helps the body to physically wake up.

2. At Mealtime: Music is a great way to help pass the time when your child is nursing, taking their bottle, or learning to eat. Any fun song will do. Laurie Berkner’s Valley of Vegetables, the folk songs Sweet Potato and All Around the Kitchen are songs that speak directly about food and eating fun. Playing recorded music during meal times is also fine, but remember to sing along when you can to show your child how fun singing is! Also, grab a spoon and a pot and play along to the beat!

3. When changing diapers and potty training: Choose a fun, easy song and sing it every time your child’s diaper is changed or to help them sit on the potty. Pairing a song to an otherwise mundane ritual, such as when being changed, helps to create a more relaxing setting. The same is true for potty training. Singing a song can help define the length of time a child sits on the potty. Enjoyable songs are Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Mary Wore a Red Dress (verses can be changed and made up to this tune), and She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain.

4. While being buckled in: If there is one moment a song may help a potential negative experience, it is getting into the car seat. Babies and children often fuss and squirm. My own children when they were small often fussed in the car seat and singing to them helped. Just like changing diapers and potty training, singing a favorite song every time you help your child into their car seat may help calm them enough to get them buckled in with fewer protests. Although any fun song your child likes will do, several travel related songs include, Drive My Car by Laurie Berkner, Driving in the Car from Music Together, and Driving in My Car by Peter Allard.

5. Sing during bath time and getting ready for bed: This is a great opportunity to sing about baths, bubbles, washing up, getting dry, brushing teeth and hair, and getting dressed for bed. Make up verses to tunes you already know like “I’ve been scrubbing in the bathtub, all the livelong day!” to the tune of I’ve Been Working on the Railroad. My kids enjoyed their daddy or me chanting Jack in the Box from the Music Together collection while they hid under their towels getting dry. Singing to the tune of Frere Jacques, you can make up a verse: “Brushing, brushing, scrub, scrub, scrub, cleaning your teeth, cleaning your teeth, polish your smile, polish your smile.”

6. And don’t forget the lullaby moment: What a great way to finish the day, bond with your child, and say goodnight by singing one last song to your child before bedtime. Even if they are wiggly, singing a soothing song not only helps your child calm down but also is beneficial to focus you as the parent after a long day! Singing a lullaby helps to express your love for your child. The songs my children enjoyed when they were infants and toddlers were, Amazing Grace, Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and Down in the Valley. As a bonus, having a good rocking chair for an easy rocking rhythm is great for that physical, rhythmic input that babies often crave to help calm their bodies.

Singing with your child throughout their day is a great way to help foster musical appreciation, learn to sing, and increase rhythmic development in their growing brains and bodies. What are your favorite songs to sing to your child? What are your child’s favorite songs? How do you use music to make the most of your days? Feel free to leave a comment on the In Harmony Music of Middle Tennessee Facebook Page, and share this post with other families in our community of music makers!

Music is moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and charm and gaiety to life and to everything – Plato

Join a Music Together Class and learn songs that help get your child through their day!

Carrie Friddell, MT-BC is a Board Certified Music Therapist, the Music Together Center Director and owner of In Harmony Music of Middle Tennessee. Find out more at: In Harmony Music of Middle Tennessee

July 13, 2015
How to sing to your infant 0-9 months

Parenthood. The virtues of parenting one another with unconditional support and care are to be celebrated! Caring for infants involves leading by example and providing the necessary care to provide a good life for them.

I learned from my own mother one of the best lessons about bonding with my children musically. She doesn’t have a music degree. In fact, I already had the music degree and the certification to practice music therapy before I had children. Yet, just a few short days after having my first child, I learned something they don’t teach in a classroom. I knew that music is an important factor in bonding so, at her birth, I sang “Jesus Loves Me” while she was laying on my chest for the first time. I’ll never forget how wide-eyed she was in that moment. But, after we took Lucy home, I was a bit overwhelmed. I had held babies before but not 24/7. I didn’t know how to fill the time between feedings, sleeping, and diaper changes. Then, one morning a few days after Lucy was born, my mother sat down on the couch with Lucy, leaned Lucy on her (my mother’s) propped up knees to get face to face with her, and began to sing “The Wheels on the Bus” while stretching Lucy’s arms back and forth to do the motions for her. My mom said to her, “You need to do your exercises” and proceeded to sing other songs while continuing to gently play out the motions with Lucy’s arms and legs. After all my education, I was being taught how to musically play with my own baby by the wise mother in my life.

Music Together, LLC, curriculum has a great explanation of why the lap/dyad is important:

Infants learn with their whole bodies and with all of their senses; developmental psychologist Jean Piaget characterized this as “sensorimotor” learning. Infants are also thought to not yet fully differentiate themselves from their caregivers (Winnicott, 1986); they likely consider their grownups as an extension of themselves. Thus, nestled in the lap of an adult who is moving rhythmically, the baby is in an optimal position to take in beat information through both her senses and her body, as well as to experience what it’s like to move to the beat. In addition, an adult who is the role of “baby mover” may be more comfortable moving to the beat, because she is doing so for her child. As the baby grows out of infancy, an adult who began as an “uncomfortable mover” may become more at ease with moving and dancing without needing to be holding a child. (Guilmartin and Levinowitz, 2012).

After my mother’s lesson, I sang many other songs with motions and Lucy facing me. It also encouraged her eye contact with me. Sometimes, I incorporated a rattle or bright baby toy and moved it slowly back and forth over her face to help develop her eye tracking. I sang or read simple board books and turned them to face her so she could look at the pictures and strengthen her sight and focus her attention. I came to cherish those first few months of musical play time with my daughter. The truth is, she was colicky and cried a lot the first three months. Yet, when I sang to her in this fashion she was calm and engaged. This was an important technique to have in my “mommy” bag of tricks.

What musical techniques are in your bag of tricks for supporting children musically? Feel free to leave a comment on the In Harmony Music of Middle Tennessee Facebook Page!

In my next post, I’ll blog about another infant-music bonding technique that I used when my children were infants.

Come try out a FREE Music Together class soon!

May 21, 2015
FAQ: When is my child ready for private music lessons?

Eliza – Age 6

Elora – Age 10

Emily – Age 12

“When is my child ready for piano lessons?” or “How old does my child have to be to take piano lessons?” These are two frequently asked questions I am asked by parents of young children. I began my career teaching piano lessons to children in my senior year of college almost twenty years ago. Since then, I have taught hundreds of lessons – most to children but some adults, too. As a rule, I have told parents to wait until the child is six years old and he or she has begun to read. However, a few years ago, before I became a trained Music Together teacher, I advertised lessons for four and five year old children. I had four families contact me and I gave each child six weeks of individual lessons using the a lesson book for pre-readers. This really wasn’t an experiment, but I learned some lessons of my own along the way.

1) Children at the age four and five are wiggly. Sitting on a piano bench for even twenty minutes is difficult because, developmentally, their bodies want to move to the music.

2) Fine motor skills are still working to develop so the learning curve on mastering a simple five finger scale is steep and often frustrating to the child.

3) Parents have to sit and “practice” with the child… Every. Single. Day. Refer to #1: “children are wiggly.” If the parent wants their child to learn how to play the piano or any other instrument, it will take great patience to keep a four year old on task to get through a piano practice assignment. As they finish Kindergarten and start first grade, most children have gained experience to sit and listen for a longer period of time. Although some parental involvement in practice is always encouraged, a six year old is far better able to to read and understand their practice assignments than a four year old.

4) Music Together classes are designed for children under five years old. Music Together sought me out because I had a background in music education. After reading their research and taking the teacher training course, I was hooked. The classes allow them to be wiggly and have fun within active music making. The parent still needs to be involved, but it’s learning through play, experimentation, and modeling grownups, not formal sit down practice. In my experience, it is less work for the parent, more enjoyable for the kid, and makes happier families.

After the six weeks of lessons were over, I retained one student who was four years old. I kept her on because her mom was highly involved in keeping up with her practice and she had an exceptional sense of rhythm and melody. As I later found out, her mom had taken her to several semesters of another local parent-child music class. I could tell this child had some “experience” in music and had almost achieved what Music Together calls “basic music competence.” Basic music competence happens when a child achieves an improved sense of rhythm and can sing in tune to simple songs. If a child takes multiple semesters of Music Together classes and is supported by musical play in class and at home, basic music competence can easily be achieved by the age of five. By the time a child is six, he or she is ready for private lessons and is more likely to succeed because they have already found a love in making music.

So, here is my answer to the original questions: If the child is six or older, it is a good time to begin private music lessons. Before then, enroll your child in Music Together classes to help build your child’s competence and confidence in active music making. I am passionate about how these classes prepare babies and young children for a lifetime love of music. It’s a win-win solution.

Top Row: Me and Ethan with my students Emily, Eliza and Elora. Seated: Mary age 5 and my Lucy. Taken in 2010.

January 23, 2015
Music Development: The First 5 Years
Ages and Musical Developmental Stages: Infant to 5 years

Music class through the ages…

Greetings!

This upcoming winter season offers music classes for infants as young as 6 weeks to children as old as 5 years. How can this be? Music Together research has found that all children are musical and exhibit certain behaviors when music is played for them. Here is a short list of some of the musical behaviors to look for in your child when your child participates in Music Together classes on a regular basis:

Under 1 Year:
- When it comes to music development, babies are generally in “receptive” mode, much of what they are learning at this stage is a result of what they’re taking in.
- Babies are sensory beings and they take in information from their environment – so your job as parent or caregiver is to simply provide a rich environment of music and movement.
- As babies become familiar with the music, they may turn toward the sound, make sucking movements, stretch their arms, or kick their legs – these are all musical responses!
12-18 Months:
- Toddlers crave the familiar: the same story, the same song…repetition is comforting and transitions are hard. That is why the Hello Song and Goodbye Song are so important to sing in every Music Together class! Listening to the CD’s and having a music time at home are important. This translates to when toddlers come into class they become excited that Ms. Carrie is playing “their music!”
- Toddlers will find a way to request the Music Together music with a sound or gesture, by pointing, speaking one word out of the song, or physically doing the motions they’ve learned with the song.
18 Months – 2 Years:
- Still ever the toddler, children at this age will begin to distinguish themselves from their parents or caregivers.
- Some of the less shy children will begin to dance excitedly in the middle of the room so everyone can see.
- Some of the shyer kids may stay on the fringes of the group observing and possibly refusing their parents encouragement to participate! However, they are participating by observing. As the caregiver, your role is to keep participating with the teacher to communicate that active music making is fun! Your toddler is watching to see how much the music means to the grown ups too!
- When listening to the CD in the car, you may be surprised to hear rhythm or tonal patterns being echoed from the car seat!
3 – 4 years:
- For 3-year-old children, being in a play situation with peers is often still a novelty, they may be observers at first, and join in parallel-play besides their peers.
- At home, however, you will begin to see just how your child transfers the classroom activities into daily life. Children at this age often are heard singing parts of songs or repeating sections of rhymes and asking for the Music Together Music to be played at home or in the car.
- As a 3 year old grows, balance improves and she may increasingly be able to walk or dance to the beat of the song she is hearing.
4 – 5 years:
- From 4 – 5 years, children are increasingly able to focus on the musical activity in the class.
- Children at this age are empowered to be “helpers” to the younger children in class by modeling movement and singing.
- Preschoolers look to be praised for their abilities and often share ideas for movements and new song lyrics to the music together songs.
- On the flip side, children at this age can also enter a period of participating less in class. They are more careful observers and listeners, comparing melodies or patterns they hear to their own attempts at musical expression. This important developmental period often comes just before a child “breaks through” and achieves basic music competence.
Now is the time to enrich your child’s life with the love and appreciation for music and build her competence and confidence while she is young! This hands on, interactive class is great for young learners. Register your child for a semester today!
November 21, 2014
10 Therapeutic Characteristics of Music

10 Therapeutic Characteristics of Music

1)      Music captivates and maintains attention – it stimulates & utilizes many parts of the brain

2)      Music is easily adapted to, and can be reflective of, a person’s abilities

3)      Music structures time in a way that we can’t understand (“that’s the last verse – my exercise session is almost over!”)

4)      Music provides a meaningful, enjoyable context for repetition

5)      Music provides a social context – it sets up a safe, structured setting for verbal and nonverbal communication

6)      Music is and effective memory aid

7)      Music supports and encourages movement

8)      Music taps into memories and emotions

9)      Music – and the related silence – provide nonverbal, immediate feedback

10) Music is success oriented – people of all ability levels can participate.

This was a list given to me during my training as a music therapist. If you want to know more about Board Certified Music Therapy or to schedule a private consultation, contact carrie@inharmonymusicmidtn.com

July 14, 2014