Halloween is one of my favorite times of year at the studio because of all the different festivities that take place! The week leading up to Halloween, we begin something we call Costume Week. True to its name, Costume Week encourages everyone, clients and staff, to...

I have the privilege of supervising music therapy students from two local colleges as they accrue fieldwork hours. It is such a rewarding thing to help develop the skills needed to be a music therapist, and it always reignites my own personal love for my work! One...

When I was in high school, I was often asked what I wanted to study when I went to college. For a long time, I didn’t have an answer to that question. I knew I wanted to go to college, but I didn’t know where I should go, or what I would choose to study there. Then...

Music therapy is still a pretty “new” profession, which means not a lot of people know much about it. It also means that those of us in the field have a HUGE desire to educate and share about how amazing it is! I have only been a board-certified music therapist for 3...

Music therapy has a multitude of benefits that are often unknown! Each client’s needs are different, so their experience with music therapy will also be individualized to meet those needs. Read on to discover some of the foundational or “basic” benefits of music...

“As a mother of a child with special needs, I found the process of finding help for him and choosing the right help for him to be extremely daunting. With each step through early intervention I felt as though I was left with more questions than questions were...

by Isbah Shahjee   A few weeks ago, I assisted with the Bumps & Beats Summer Camp at Valotta Studios. It was a great learning experience for me as I figured out how to work with younger children. In the mornings, I would help the teacher in charge with...

by Isbah Shahjee   As an orchestra kid in elementary to middle school and now currently a high school junior piano student at Valotta Studios, I do my best to practice as often as I can. When I was younger, It was hard for me to remember to practice when I had so...

“All the world’s a stage...”   This famous quote is from Willy Shakespeare from his comedy “As You Like It.” Now that you no longer need to agonize over where you heard that quote, we can move on! Through a monologue performed by the character Jaques, Shakespeare...

In my last blog I talked about my experiences as a twelve year old and my first year as a percussion student. Percussion was my first entry into the world of instrumental music, but it was not destined to be my last. As my interests in music expanded in high school,...

In years (very) gone by, music was relegated almost exclusively to the home.  The musical “The Music Man” depicts a traveling con-man named Harold Hill who travels from town to town, selling the townsfolk on the advantages of a school instrumental music program to...