This week I'm excited because I finally got round to adding a Thunder Drum to my instrument bag. The thunder drum is another great instrument that can be used alongside the ocean drum to create some great sounds that are very sensory.  The thunder drum is useful for many populations including hearing impaired, autism, sensory disorders to name a few. 

The drum is made up of a long cylinder with a metal coil at the bottom that that when it is shaken produces a thunderous sound with the vibrations from the coil flowing through the cylinder. 

Activity

The activity I'm going to share with you is using a song that my good friend and fellow music therapist Laura Micheli MT-BC shared with me.  A good activity is to sing the song with your client and allow them to play the thunder drum when they hear the words thunder or stormy. If the child is unable to do this you can play the thunder drum gently near them to allow them to feel or hear the vibrations. The song which is chant like along with the thunder drum can often help calm agitation. Depending on the client it is a good activity to include vocal improvisation keeping the chant like structure and matching or mirroring any of the vocal sounds or thunder drum sounds the child uses.  I also like to use this chant singing the melody to la or ba and imporvising around it vocally  and using a rainbow coloured organza material sheet. Sometimes the client likes to hold the material with me and lift it up and down or lie under it  and I wave it up and down and improvise around the melody . 

Labels are something we have to deal with everyday.  Society has them everywhere: chav, fundamentalist, working class, conservative, disabled, weird, quiet.  For those who suffer from mental health issues labels can sometimes be a big part of their life. Their diagnosis can become a negative label or the way that society views those suffering from mental health problems can be damaging to their self esteem. 


While working with a variety of mental health groups I saw that it was hard for group members to break away from their "labels" - from names they had been called, for the negative things that people have said about them. It was really hard for them to think about positive labels for themselves or to identify positive good qualities that they had. For example: creative, kind, friendly, intelligent, helpful, funny.  Labels can take away much of a persons self esteem and self confidence. 


Music Therapy Intervention
I decided to develop a few interventions that dealt with the issue of labels and self esteem and to encourage group members to see the positive qualities in each other as well as themselves with the goal of increasing self confidence, self esteem, and peer relations while allowing creativity and a space for their voice to be heard. The intervention I am going to share today is a song activity called "i am not a Label" and is suitable for adult and adolescent mental health groups, addiction groups and many similar groups where a recovery model may be used. 


Each person is given a copy of the lyrics to the song after we discuss the concept of labels. 


I am not a label , Lyrics


I look in the mirror
I know who I see
It's not who you want me to be
But who I am in me. 


I am not ______________________________
But I am _____________________________
I wish I was _________________________
Maybe I can maybe I will. 


For I am not a label
I am just me
I am not a label
And I know who I can be. 


Each individual is given a moment to think and fill in the blanks with a label they may have been given and who they feel they really are or would like to be. Those who feel comfortable can share this with the group and then we sing the song with their lyrics. What I have discovered is that many find it difficult to fill in the second line with something positive about themselves so if this is the case I encourage others to help them by telling them something they like about that person. Often once we sing the song we can also encourage others to comment on an individuals positive strengths to reinforce self esteem and confidence. 


It is important that a solid therapeutic relationship is established before this intervention is used as there needs to be a great deal of trust in you as the therapist and the other group members before this can work out and also be beneficial. 


If anyone would like an MP3 recording of the song along with lead sheet and chords send me an email at [email protected] and I will get them to you.