Summer Music Ideas and Resources for Music Therapists
Summer has always been an exciting time - having summer break as a kid, warm weather and the opportunity for outside activities, and for me personally my birthday! Summer can be a time for some extra music festivities, so here’s some ideas to inspire your music therapy sessions. ☀️
Pop Song Recommendations
First, I love giving some recommendations that can be used with teens and young adults! What’s popular can be ever changing and I know many therapists who can find it intimidating to try relating with teens. Here are my recommendations to use this summer for lyric discussions, songwriting, or other music therapy experiences: find an already-created Spotify playlist with these songs here.
“Watermelon Sugar” Songwriting
I’ll start with my tried and true music experience - a songwriting template. I adapted “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles a few years ago - why not use one of this decade’s hottest summer bops to discuss summer? Clients have the opportunity to identify some of their favorite summer activities, sensory experiences from summer, and how they’re feeling about summer. Find a download of the songwriting at the bottom of the blog.
Music Themed Books
Since I was turned onto music-inspired books as a new professional, I’ve created quite the collection of books set to song lyrics. Here are some that are fit for summer!
There Was an Old Mermaid Who Swallowed a Shark & There Was an Old Pirate Who Swallowed a Map (I’ll often sing these books along with a drum)
Christmas in July
For our clients who love the holidays, this is a great chance to break out Christmas music for a week and celebrate 7/25! You can reference our Holiday blog here.
Here Comes the Sun Songwriting
For a quick, on the spot songwriting - “Here Comes the Sun” is a classic song that can be transformed into a summer-y theme. Clients can fill in “here comes _____” as something they’re looking forward to for summer, or use the verses to discuss a variety of seasons. “It’s ______” blank can also be used to share how they’re feeling about the season!
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