I’m a naturally introverted person. With that, comes skills specific to my personality type. For example, I’m a really good listener. I don’t talk a lot, so I’ve gotten good at listening to what other people have to say. I care a lot about people, I think before I speak, and it’s easy for me to adapt to new situations. However, because I’m an introvert, I’m not great at being outgoing and projecting all of my ideas. I’m not really a big “out of the box” thinker either, unless I’m truly inspired.

For music therapy, you have to be able to think on your feet. Sometimes a session with a client will go the complete opposite way that you planned on. You have to be good at improv on the piano, guitar, drums and singing, and you have to be confident in what you produce. This is definitely something I need to work on. I play the saxophone, and I’m not good at improv at all. I don’t like putting myself out there enough for people to hear what I create on the spot. It’s just not something I’m comfortable with… Which is kind of counterintuitive considering the saxophone is mainly a jazz instrument, and improv is an important component of jazz music. You have to do this all the time during a music therapy session, so learning how to be comfortable with improv will be a skill I need to develop over the next four years.

It also wouldn’t hurt to learn how to be more outgoing. I think that taking advantage of different things around campus that are outside of my comfort zone will help me learn some of the skills I need to make it as a music therapist.

Have you ever had one of those days where you’re just in a funk and nothing can get you out of it? Children in hospitals have those days much more often than you and I, which is why I want to reach out to them by using music therapy. Sometimes kids have a hard time dealing with the pain and stress that comes with a hospital atmosphere; that’s where I come in. Music therapy can aid in improving the mood of a child and in reducing their pain, which means that excessive medications that can be harsh on their bodies would not be needed. I can use my passion for music and my deep love for children to hopefully change not only their lives, but their family’s lives as well. Maybe we can sit down and talk more about this over a cup of coffee!

Hmm. What motivates me? Good question. I don’t really know. It varies I guess.

In school and classes and such I’m motivated by grades. Although, seeing how my first Psych test went today… I don’t think grades are a good motivator. I think a lot of college students do what I did this weekend. I waited until about Sunday night (two days away from exam day) to start studying for this test. It was over five chapters, with 40 multiple-choice questions, 15 fill-in-the-blanks, and two short answer essays. Now, as a high school student, I mastered the art of procrastination. I had it to a science. I would wait until the night before, maybe two nights before a big exam, stress myself out beyond belief, cram like a mad woman, and make a decent B or B+ after the test was graded. Obviously I didn’t retain any of the information, let alone care about it; I just wanted the good grade. But shouldn’t that be different in college? Shouldn’t we all be working toward our respective majors with the purpose of learning about what we will be doing for the rest of our lives? Not cramming to get a good grade on an exam? Interesting concept, but definitely not what I did the past couple of days.

I feel like food is a pretty good motivator for me. Sometimes I find myself saying, “Ok Morgan, just finish this blog and then you can have another bite of that delicious peanut butter cookie that you just got from Mac’s Place.”

In all seriousness though, I am motivated by the things I care about. I’m motivated by my mom to be whomever and whatever I set my mind to, I’m motivated by my younger siblings to be a good person and to set an example for them, I’m motivated by music to do things that I would usually have no drive to do, and I’m motivated by my faith. I feel like I have the ability to motivate myself, but I depend more on outside, contributing factors to do it for me. If I set a goal for myself, I can usually achieve it, with a cup of coffee in hand and the people I care about to help me get there. I think I have the ability to motivate myself to reach my own goals, but to be honest I haven’t really had to. Now that I’m “on my own” I guess you could say, I can start reaching deeper and gaining an understanding about myself (and what motivates me) that I can use to reach deeper goals, not the superficial hope of getting an A on an assignment.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a peanut butter cookie to finish eating.

When I think about what I value, I’ve noticed a few things. An obvious one being that I value my involvement with church and my relationship with God. I also value music. It is a source of relief and comfort and just overall happy feelings for me that I don’t get anywhere else. Aside from all that, I feel like I’m always searching for approval. I value people, and people’s opinions of me. That can be both good and bad. It means that I’m conscious of others around me and I’m sensitive to them, but at times I think I hold too much value in them. It can prevent me from progressing in the way that I want to, because I’m too worried about what other people will think or how I’m affecting them.

To be honest, I almost did not enroll here at SMU because of one person. After several months of debate over it, I finally realized that I couldn’t base my decisions off of that one person. I realized that this is a school that will offer me so many opportunities, and is the best place for me to be. My heart was set on SMU, but because of one individual, I almost didn’t come. Granted, this person is a very important part of my life… but I was thinking more about what was best for them and not me. That’s scary to think about. If I place so much value in other people that it inhibits me from doing what I want and what’s best for myself, how can I grow? Do I just grow into what other people want me to be?

No. I’m not going to do that. I think the past few months of getting ready for, and coming to college have taught me that. I’m slowly becoming more comfortable with who I am and what I want and value in life, and I am not going to take my individuality for granted anymore.

On the other side, I think it’s good that I value people, especially those who are close to my heart. I care deeply about people, about my friends, and about my family. Without people, no one would be here to listen to my music, or be here for me to help with music therapy. I value people’s opinions and thoughts of me, because when taken the right way, I can grow from them in a positive way. Not when I’m trying to earn approval, but when I actually take what they say into account and learn from it. I am a more rounded person when I value those around me. I’m not only focused on my needs, but the needs of others as well.

I can grow as a musician in this way as well. If I value my audience, I can make their music-listening experience that much more enjoyable. If I value my client in music therapy, I will be able to help them more than if I just worked in a way that I thought was best. When you’re a musician or a music therapist, you have to value people. If you don’t, no one will want to hear you play or want to hire you as a music therapist.

Aside from that, I’m trying to place my values more in God than anything else. It’s hard because when you start doing it, you realize how much you rely on yourself and other people for validation and for standards to live by. I’m starting to realize that as long as I’m being true to my relationship with the Lord, I don’t have to worry about what other people think or what they are doing. I’m coming to the idea that if my faith is in Him and His plan, He will show me what I should value and how I should live.

I value my music and passions as well as other people’s respective passions, people, my God, and myself. I think that’s enough valuing for one night.

“I can’t stop drinking the coffee. If I stop drinking the coffee, I stop doing the standing and the walking and the words-putting-into-sentence doing!”

-Lorelei Gilmore (Gilmore Girls)

Wise words from a wise woman. Gilmore Girls is one of my favorite T.V. shows. I love the dialogue and the interactions between Rory and her mother, Lorelei. One of the main iconic things about Gilmore Girls is the amount of coffee those two characters drink. I can definitely relate. It seems like I can’t start my day without a cup of coffee, or some sort of caffeine before my classes. Sometimes it’s hard to even study without some caffeine in my system.

Drinking coffee is not for the light hearted. There is an art to it. One has to drink just enough that they are energized enough to do tasks that they don’t want to do, yet not too much that one gets jittery and can’t concentrate. I feel I’ve mastered the art of coffee drinking while studying, or getting ready to practice. It’s become a part of my daily routine, and it’s like if I don’t have coffee or a coke at least once a day, I end up getting a pretty bad headache by late afternoon. It helps me focus and get enough energy to go about my studying or practicing.

Needless to say, coffee is definitely one large part of my work habits.

Work habits…

Now that I have examined mine, I’ve discovered I don’t have very good ones. When faced with tasks like studying or reading, I find myself checking my laundry, looking around my room, and thinking about all the other assignments I need to get done. Not very devoted to what I am doing.

At the same time, I’m one of those personalities that when I start something, I absolutely HAVE to finish it. I’m not good at taking breaks in between the material I’m studying and switching to something completely different, although that’s what the first reading suggested. If I have a reading assignment, I usually just try and get it done all in one sitting, even though I’m thinking of other things during the process.

I’m the same way with my practice habits. Sometimes I will sit down and tell myself:

“Okay Morgan, you are only going to practice for (x) number of minutes, and then you have to switch to something else.”

Thirty minutes over the time that I had originally given myself to practice, I find myself exhausted and unmotivated to do much else.  When I put my mind to something, it can become difficult to stop and come back to it later. Sometimes I feel like I will lose my focus and train of thought if I stop.

However, as the readings suggest, I am good at making goals for myself. If I need to learn a new piece, I tend to divide it up and create checkpoints for myself so that I can learn it more efficiently. Now that I think about it, that habit might be useful when studying material for school. Hmm… never thought of it that way. It’s funny what you learn about yourself when you start putting it into writing.

I should probably use those new techniques to finish the massive amounts of homework I have tonight…

I am who I am today because of my mom. My parents got a divorce when I was very young, and she has been the main source of consistency and stability that I’ve needed to pursue my passions and make it here to SMU. My mom pushed me to further my relationship with God and strive to do His will. She has supported me in everything that I’ve set my mind to, and is the main reason why I’m pursuing my dream to become a music therapist. I’m still working on my relationship with God, but I feel that He’s pushing me to become more than I believe myself capable of. It’s through this that I’ve come to realize that I feel I have too much love and compassion in my heart to not use this to better other people’s lives through music. Music has been a constant source of comfort and relief for me when times get tough, and the fact that I can make that same experience true for other people, through music therapy, is amazing to me.

When I was in middle school, I had my heart set on becoming a music performance major. I loved playing my saxophone and making music. However, when I reached my sophomore year in high school, I realized that instead of performing I wanted to use music to help other people. At that time in my life, I was trying to find myself in the midst of many distractions and difficulties. Music was one reason that I was able to make it through. I felt that when I played my saxophone or the piano, I was expressing a part of myself that I didn’t want to put into words. I was able to find myself again each time I picked up my instrument or sat down at a piano. This inspired me to look into music therapy in depth. If it had this profound effect on me, why can’t I use that to help other people too? I visited my cousin in Virginia who has a music therapy practice of her own, and she took me around to her clients so that I could sit in and see if music therapy was something I was truly interested in. I fell in love immediately.

As most musicians know, music affects us in different ways. You can listen to a song only to realize when it’s over that you’ve been crying the whole time. It’s almost haunting how music can touch places of our hearts like this that we don’t realize are there, let alone want to look for and examine.  On the other hand, you can listen to music that lifts you up from an awful day, whether it is a song with lyrics you can relate to, or a song about hope and perseverance when times are hard. Music has a way of healing us in ways that medicinal practices can’t. I read a case study a while back about a group of Alzheimer’s patients who were studied over a course of a few months. They were exposed to music therapy a specific number of times a week, and the results after those few months were recorded. For one specific man, the course of music therapy treatment allowed him to recognize his wife for the first time in months. That is amazing.

God has blessed me with a passion for music that has drawn me deeper and deeper into music itself, making it hard to imagine a life without it. I can’t imagine a life without using music to help people with disabilities, depression, those in recovery, and so much more. Music affects us in different ways, and the fact that I have the opportunity to use it to help others fills my heart with a joy that I can’t describe in writing.

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