What I Wish I Knew Before Starting Community-Based Music Therapy
For the purposes of this post, I’m using “Community-Based Music Therapy” to describe providing services out in the community rather than working from one dedicated location. This often means traveling to clients’ homes, schools, residential facilities, day programs, senior living communities, or other locations where clients already live, learn, and spend their time.
I’ve worked in a variety of Music Therapy settings, so when I started my first truly community-based position at Keynote this summer, I assumed it wouldn’t feel all that different. And while I absolutely love my job, there were a lot of things I didn’t expect to need to think about.
A lot of what we learn as Music Therapists focuses on clinical and musical skills. But when you start providing in the community, there’s an entirely different layer of practical knowledge that you have to figure out along the way. Suddenly, you’re thinking about things like where the nearest bathroom is along your route, what happens when a guitar string breaks, and what you’re going to eat between sessions. I’m excited to share some of the things I’ve learned during my first few months that I would have found incredibly helpful.
1. Your Car Becomes Part Of Your Therapy Space
I didn’t realize that so much of my workday would revolve around my car. It becomes a combination of instrument storage, office, dressing room, lunchroom, and emergency supply closet, so having an organized and fully stocked vehicle helps make life better on the road. If you’re choosing a new car, I would genuinely consider trunk or cargo space. Good gas mileage is also worth considering, as those miles add up!
Weather also affects more than just what you keep in your car. Rain, snow, and extreme temperatures can change how you get from your car to a client’s door, whether an outdoor session is realistic, and how you transport or store your instruments. You quickly learn that “just a few minutes outside” can feel very different depending on the weather.
Here’s a few essentials that can make a huge difference when your day doesn’t go exactly as planned:
A change of clothes – You never know when something might spill on you.
Snacks that won’t melt or freeze – Especially important if you live somewhere with extreme temperatures like Minnesota.
A portable charger – Ideally one that can charge your phone, iPad, and speaker.
A toiletries bag – Spare deodorant, dry shampoo, hand lotion, hair ties, and breath mints have saved me on busy days.
Basic first aid supplies – Some ibuprofen and Band-Aids have been helpful for me.
Weather-appropriate items – What you need will depend on where you live and the time of year.
Spare guitar strings – Keep them in your guitar bag. Trust me.
There are also some things that aren’t essential but have made my car a much better workspace:
Bag of salt/sand/cat litter or a piece of cardboard – to help give your car traction when you’re stuck on ice
Little decorations – to add some color and personality (like the flowers I have clipped to my air vents)
Picnic blanket – for documenting in the grass on a nice day
Pillow – for an occasional nap between sessions or during a cancellation
Tissue dispenser on the sun visor – because having tissues/napkins ready when you spill while driving is surprisingly useful
Hand sanitizer – I have one with a pump that sits in the car door for quick, one-handed cleaning
Steering wheel tray – makes typing in your car much easier
Phone holder – for displaying your maps, and bonus if it also charges your phone while you drive
Reflective windshield sun shade – for hot days
Windshield snow cover – for snowy days
2. Build Your Own Instrument Collection
When you work in a clinic or facility, you may have access to an established instrument collection that everyone shares. However, when you’re solo traveling between locations you have a much smaller stash and need to think much more carefully about what you’re bringing with you. You definitely don’t need to go out and buy every instrument you can think of right away. In fact, I would recommend doing the opposite. Start with what you know you’ll use and let your collection grow as you learn more about your caseload and therapeutic style. I try to find a new instrument whenever I take a trip and put others on holiday wishlists.
Think about portability, durability, and how easy something is to clean and transport. I’ve had lots of clients who like to put things in their mouths, throw instruments, or play as loud as they can. Keep this risk in mind whenever you bring your own instruments into the treatment space. You may also find that having multiples of certain popular instruments is helpful, especially if you work with groups. You’ll probably also discover that there’s a difference between “instruments I own because they’re cool” and “instruments I actually use.” Your collection will change as you figure out what works for your clients, your settings, and your own therapeutic style.
3. Pack For The Reality Of Community-Based Work
One thing I didn’t expect was how much thought would go into simply getting everything I need from my car to the session. When you’re traveling between locations, you have to think about what you’re carrying, how you’re carrying it, and what happens when something goes wrong.
A rolling cart is fantastic when you’re walking a long distance or carrying heavier equipment. But when you encounter stairs, uneven sidewalks, narrow hallways, or are working in a small bedroom, suddenly that bulky cart isn’t looking quite as convenient. A large tote bag has become one of my favorite options because it’s easy to carry, works well on stairs, and can hold a surprising amount of equipment.
When choosing equipment bags, think about portability, not just storage. The perfectly organized instrument collection isn’t very helpful if you can’t actually get it from your car to the session. It’s also important to keep overpacking in mind. When you're carrying everything from the parking lot to the client's room, every extra instrument starts to feel like a terrible decision. Learn what you actually use so you can bring a couple backups instead of everything in your trunk.
Speaking of backups, if something can break, run out of batteries, get lost, or disappear at exactly the wrong moment, eventually it will. Community-based work means you don’t necessarily have the option of running to the supply closet when something goes wrong. Having a few backups of the things you rely on most can save a session from becoming much more stressful than it needs to be. For me, that means I’ve always got spare guitar strings, picks, and a portable charger. You don’t need to prepare for every possible disaster. Just pay attention to the things that have gone wrong once and make sure you’re prepared if they happen again.
And don’t forget to pack for yourself, too. You’re going to be away from home for most of the day, and you need food, water, bathroom breaks, and the occasional emergency change of clothes just as much as your client needs their instruments.
While I aim to schedule a true lunch break each day, sometimes lunch means, “I have ten minutes, what can I eat right now?” Snacks that can be eaten quickly and foods that can survive sitting in your car are incredibly helpful. Gas station microwaves are surprisingly useful when you need to heat up lunch between sessions, especially if you find a gas station with multiple-stall bathrooms so you never have to wait.
4. Your Session Will Not Always Go According To Plan
Sessions can be unpredictable, but when you’re providing Music Therapy in the community, you also have very little control over the treatment space. You might be working outside, in a small bedroom, in a hallway, or wherever there happens to be enough space. Someone might be talking loudly in another room. There might not be any lights on. Some houses are hot and some are freezing. A group you expected to have six people might suddenly have twelve. And your client might be asleep, upset, or have a visitor when you arrive.
And that's okay. You learn to work with what is happening in front of you rather than forcing the session to become what you originally imagined. You may need to change the intervention, environment, pacing, or sometimes throw the plan out entirely. Some of the best sessions happen spontaneously, and the ability to adapt in the moment is just as important as the ability to plan.
You also have to think about privacy. In a home or shared facility, there may be other people nearby, and you don’t always have control over who can hear what’s happening in a session. Sometimes that means being mindful of where you position yourself, what you discuss, or how you adapt the session to the space you have available.
One thing that helps is having a vault of “emergency repertoire” ready at a moment's notice. These are songs you have memorized and can pull out without having to think too hard when a planned intervention doesn’t work, you have an unexpected few minutes to fill, or a client requests something you happen to know. Literally this week, my sheet music app stopped working during a session, and I had to rely on my emergency repertoire. Having those songs memorized meant I could keep the session going without scrambling to find another solution.
I’ve found it especially helpful to have songs that are familiar, have relatively simple chord structures, and can be adapted for different goals or populations. Here are some song ideas in my current repertoire that have been useful:
“The Wheels on the Bus”
“Old MacDonald Had a Farm”
“You Are My Sunshine”
“Count on Me”
“Firework”
“Shake It Off”
“Here Comes The Sun”
“Walking On Sunshine”
“Take Me Home, Country Roads”
“Take Me Out to the Ball Game”
“Fly Me to the Moon”
“Que Sera, Sera”
5. Making The Most Of Your Time On The Road
Scheduling itself takes some getting used to. You have to account for travel time, traffic, parking, emergency bathroom stops, and the fact that drive time for a specific route varies based on the time of day. A schedule that looks perfectly reasonable on paper can feel very different once you’re actually driving it. Over time, you learn how much buffer you realistically need between clients and which locations make sense to schedule together.
One of the biggest adjustments to community-based music therapy is getting used to how much time you can spend in the car. Depending on my schedule, I can easily spend 1.5–3 hours driving in a day (including to and from home). At first, it can feel like time that doesn't really belong to you, but I've come to think of it as flexible time that I can use however I need.
Some days, that means using the drive for professional development. I might listen to an educational podcast, get familiar with new repertoire, or think through something I want to bring up in supervision. If I have something I need to remember, I'll use voice-to-text to make a note while I'm driving rather than relying on myself to remember it later. I can also use hands-free calling to check in with a client or colleague.
Other days, I don't want to do anything productive at all. I'll listen to music I actually enjoy, put on a fun podcast, call/text someone I love, or just drive in complete silence and enjoy some uninterrupted time alone.
That's probably my favorite part: the time is flexible. It doesn't always have to be productive, and I get to decide what would be most useful to me that day. Of course, anything I do while driving needs to be completely hands-free and safe. But within that limitation, I've found that my time in the car can serve a lot of purposes. Community-based work comes with a lot of driving, so I've found it helpful to stop thinking of those hours as time I'm losing and start thinking of them as time I can use intentionally.
6. You Don’t Have To Have Everything Figured Out
There isn’t one perfect way to do community-based Music Therapy. You will figure out what you actually use, what you unnecessarily carry, which songs become staples, and how much preparation you really need. You’ll also figure out how to work more independently. When you’re moving between locations all day, you won’t have another Music Therapist right down the hall to ask a quick question or grab something from. You learn to make decisions on your own, troubleshoot problems as they come up, and find ways to stay connected with your team even when you’re rarely in the same physical space.
A lot of this job is simply trial and error. Three months into this position, I’m still figuring things out. I’m still changing how I pack my equipment, discovering things I wish I had brought with me, and finding better ways to structure my days. But I’m also much more comfortable than I was when I started. You will build your own system. That might be one of the best parts of starting something new. And who knows what winter will bring, I’m sure I’ll have a whole new list of things to figure out once the snow arrives.
I hope that something in this post helps you build that system a little faster. Whether it saves you some time, makes your car a little more comfortable, gives you an idea to try, or simply reassures you that you’re not the only one still figuring it out.
