In our car ride home from each session, Dr. V and I verbally process that day’s session as well as decide on the following week’s curriculum. At that point, we both take some time to reflect on the next session’s songs, and brainstorm about visual art experiences that might enhance the children’s already rich experience of music making.
As an example, last week we sang a rhythmic Canoe Song, all the while rowing through imaginary water and looking at a bird flying above. The next week, we created a “lake” mural painted on one side of a giant cardboard box and provided the children cutouts to first decorate and then add to the mural. The cutouts were of various plants, fish, birds, shrubs, grass – things that the children would see on a canoe ride. A recorded version of the song played in the background and Dr. Nix-Early continued singing while the children worked on the cutouts in order to reinforce cognitive and emotional connections. 
The art and music serve as educational and therapeutic play as well as provide what BuildaBridge calls “aesthetic nourishment” for these young children who have likely been the victims of abuse and other traumas. They are invited, through the help of the music and the art, to imagine themselves in the scene and to take in their surroundings. What do they hear?…What do they see?...What does it smell like?...etc. They color animals, plants, and people to place in the scene wherever they like. The creative art tasks offer an opportunity for nonverbal self-expression as well as an opportunity for experiencing an increased sense of control over their environment, which might be lacking in especially the lives of young children who have been the victims of abuse. In this sense, the therapists are creating an overall sensory experience within the protection of a safe, nurturing space where children are encouraged to create through dancing, music-making, and art-making.
We delight in seeing the children light up during these Music/Art Therapy groups, although oftentimes requiring redirection or additional encouragement and singing through tantrums. Their dance movements appear healthy, joyful and explorative. Their art-making is not regressed, but developmentally appropriate and full of vibrant color. Their awe at seeing the instruments often swells to exuberance as they play along to a lively jazz rhythm that brings an internal sense of structure and order to an often-chaotic life experience. While language lags mean they struggle through some of the lyrics, they are nevertheless practicing, learning and understanding the meanings. Hello and Goodbye music rituals help create a predictable safety and help build sorely needed social skills. We can’t help but smile as we walk into the Center now, greeted with running hugs as the children shout “Hello, Everybody”, the first words of the welcome song, in recognition that it is time for music – and now visual art too.
This dance between art therapy and music therapy appears to provide a holistic healing and hopeful experience for these young children, and I believe it serves as a true testament to the powerful impact art has on victims of trauma.
-- By Ms. Celeste Wade, Art Therapist & BuildaBridge volunteer (with notes from Dr. Vivian Nix-Early, Ph.D., MT-BC)
The rhythmic canoe song to which Ms. Celeste referred is properly entitled Land of the Silver Birch, a song included in Dr. Vivian Nix-Early's Music Together Curriculum. Simultaneously, without knowing, Magira Ross, BuildaBridge's Community Programs Coordinator presented this same song to teaching artists at the November Teaching Artist Meeting. See the canoe song video below.
