Hey there, Maryrose here, and I'm the owner and founder of Song & Story Creative Therapies. I wanted to take some time to share a bit about my relationship with music and my journey to becoming a music therapist.
Music in My Life
Music has always played a huge role in my life. Both of my parents were musicians by hobby, and grew up singing all sorts of songs, silly and otherwise, in every day of my life. We had songs for bedtime, mornings, toilet training (they took the Ohio State University fight song and turned it into a potty-training song because... well, they were University of Michigan Alums. IYKYK), and just about every other routine. I grew up number 4 in a family of 11 kids and for a portion of my upbringing I was homeschooled. My mom used songs to teach us phonics and the components of reading, geography, and of course, School House Rock taught me history and grammar. So it's no surprise that I took interest in music - for me it was flute because I knew my grandmother had one. We didn't have money for instruments outside of what was already in the family, so I decided to try on a whim. It was a good whim.
Before I get into that, I think it's interesting to note the functional, creative, and improvisatory use of bringing in my childhood. It was all re-creating/writing parodies of songs on the fly, singing about tasks that one is doing, singing as playfulness and humor, singing as learning, and singing as worship (I grew up evangelical). Music was a means of expression, play, relating to others, learning, and processing information. We didn't sit there and critique the silly songs we sang on the go or the Potty training OSU fight song... they were as natural and imbedded in being a human as conversation. I think this functional and relational musicking is a very human phenomenon like language and other forms of communication, but that it is lost over time due to neural pruning, which is the process an infant brain undergoes to pare down neural synapses to prioritize ones that are being exercised (ie an infant who is only exposed to one language will prioritize synapses that process and eventually reproduce that language). I will certainly write a whole blogpost dedicated to that subject, but in the meantime, back to my musical upbringing...
The minute I could get a sound out of the flute I was in love. I was very serious about it, playing in orchestras, auditioning for all sorts of competitions and honors recitals you name it. I thought for a while that I was going to go into performance, eventually play in orchestras and tour the world, etc. etc. But as I started to go that route, I found that for all the time I was spending isolated in a practice room, I wasn't getting the interpersonal human interaction I wanted. I thought about music education, but that didn't seem quite right either... and music therapy was ultimately the right fit. I went to Eastern Michigan University for my bachelors degree in music therapy, took a gap year to train as a birth and postpartum doula (why not start two careers??), and moved to New Jersey for my six month music therapy internship. Because I got certified as an MT weeks before the Covid pandemic shut down the world, my training as a doula paid off and I attended lots of births (babies are still gonna be born!). I've now been a board-certified music therapist for almost three years and a doula for almost four, and (hopefully) this spring I will graduate with my masters in music therapy with a mental health counseling endorsement from Slippery Rock University.
It's been a beautiful (and unconventional!) journey balancing a career where I focus on other-people's music while nurturing my own relationship to music for me. Playing my flute, writing songs, and playing and singing songs from my favorite artists are regular care practices of mine. Sometimes when I'm listening to music I come across a song with lyrics that just absolutely resonate with my experiences. I have learned to lean into these moments - practice what I preach honestly! Sometimes I will pull up the lyrics and listen to a song on repeat. And other times I share a song with someone in my life who knows my experiences and journey well and say listen to these lyrics! It's like they're singing this to me! I've found the more in tune I am with my own relationship to music and my own wellness/mental health journey, the more "in-tune" and equipped I am to be present with clients on their own journeys.
I'm finding that the thing that feeds my soul the absolute most is making music with other people. Whether it's playing duets with an old flute friend, covering songs, jamming, or collaborating on other friends' music projects, I love love love to make music in community. It's all about the process of musicking rather than the product or being the "best".
Anyway! That's a bit about me and music! What is your relationship to music like?
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