This is a way to dive into songwriting QUICKLY in a way you may never have thought of before. 

Tracy Richardson, PhD, MT-BC, is the Dean of Graduate Therapy & Counseling Programs at St. Mary Of The Woods College. This year she released a book “Who Moved My Cape: Letting Go Of Your Superwoman Expectations,” and we sent a copy to everyone on the Music Therapy Ed team! Songwriting is Tracy’s JAM! Everyone close to her says “she has a healing aura about her.” And we were honored to host her as a featured speaker at the Resilient Practice Conference last week.

Use this song-writing intervention in your practice. Specifically for 2020, this song NAILS IT!

With this experience, Tracy demonstrates two important steps to keep in mind when approaching your clients with songwriting.

1. Ask yourself “What’s the goal?” With our Resilient Practice Conference, we wanted to acknowledge the pain felt during 2020 AND offer a glimmer of hope for the future. Since Tracy knew our goals, she was able to write the chorus specifically tailored to our request: “We’ve got hard time, but we’ve got hope. We’ve got mountains to climb, but we’ve got rope. We’ve got our friends to help us cope. We’ve got hard times and we’ve got hope.”Furthermore, because we needed both aspects – hards times & hope – she invited ODD groups to come up 7 words of “hard times,” while the EVEN groups generated 7 words of “hope.”

2. Simplicity and Repetition are your friends! Notice how repetitive the chorus is. And the first line is the same as the last line. Tracy uses a common gospel chord progression, which is familiar and simple enough for everyone to learn quickly.