Our sessions are tailored to meet the needs of each client We have lesson plans and progress reports to monitor the development of life skills with the exploration of music through percussion, songwriting, piano, movement, guitar, creative improvisation, music technology and the client’s own voice when applicable.

MLSE, Inc.® Group Sessions. Our therapeutic music groups are more structured than individual sessions. The structural element of music is very effective in bringing order to a group of individuals who possess different energy levels, methods of communication and emotions on any given day. MLSE, Inc.® uses terms like Welcome Songs, rhythmic and melodic improvisation, action songs and a Goodbye Song at end of each session.

MLSE, Inc.® Improvisation Sessions. We have developed a fun and less structured program as another conduit for all current emotions. In these sessions, we allow more freedom to choose during each session of creating a melody, rhythm, song or an instrumental piece. This program is popular as it is a pure way of working towards understanding, acceptance and fostering their own identity make-up.

DRUMMING: Drumming is an excellent music tool for inducing light-hearted fun, positive addiction, and unhindered engagement. Drumming also has a positive social connotation and brings people together as part of a group.

VIBRO-ACOUSTIC THERAPY: Vibro-Acoustic Therapy or VAT is a scientific approach of combining low frequency vibrations with the resonations of slow-paced music.

CREATE MUSIC: MLSE, Inc.® utilizes pre-composed songs in re-creative therapeutic music. For example, a group can sing a favorite song or play instruments to a popular tune. We also use Improvising to work with clients to create music and sounds that reflect their feelings. This can involve singing and/or playing instruments.

Composing music focuses on a client’s therapeutic needs. These clients, our audio engineers and music producers, can compose music in the moment, develop compositions from previously improvised ideas, or compose completely on their own. Lastly, MLSE, Inc.® uses “mapping” our families. We use beat making and recording software to create a song that maps out a family. The client can choose a loop or live sound for each family member to reflect who they are.

NOVELTY: This increases motivation. For example, sing in a silly voice, create sound effects, or bring out the balloons! We have found this can be effective, specifically with children and our Alzheimer’s patients if the individual or group appears fatigued or more difficult to engage during instruction.

MUSICAL REWARD: MLSE, Inc.® assists individuals and groups, for example, to identify colors on a colored xylophone/glockenspiel. If we are working on motor skills by piano finger exercise, then we teach the “Old McDonald” as also an example of a reward.

HELLO SINGING CIRLCE:
Although it seems simple, singing songs can help with development and rehabilitation. When one participates in singing songs, they often become calm and develop a greater attention span. A good activity we do with these targeted clients, where we can, is to have a singing circle. We have these clients simply stand in a circle and sing the popular Hello Song. We’ve experienced after a few days of participating in this activity, most tend to memorize the lyrics and begin singing along. Once they feel comfortable and anticipate this activity, you can start adding in simple hand gestures, such as clapping, to get them to practice rhythm.

RHYTHM PATTERNS:
Besides singing songs, rhythm patterns can also increase memory and focus. As our staff and volunteers provide rhythmic songs, we have these groups try to mimic our hand gestures to the rhythm of the music. We create simple rhythm patterns using clapping. An example of this would be clap-pause-clap-clap-pause-clap. We teach this pattern and have them repeat it in a group. This activity causes the clients to have to focus and increase their memory. These children/youth, Veterans and Alzheimer’s patients become more comfortable, clapping patterns become more
complex.

MOTOR IMITATION:
MLSE, Inc.® use a variety of motor imitation song that teaches kids movements that provide sensory and regulatory input such as brushing legs, brushing arms and self-hugs. These three (3) groups who
have sensory sensitivities may avoid being touched by others and this activity allows them to receive sensory input by performing the actions themselves. Each session we bring in something tactile that
is typically a musical instrument. We passionately playing instruments to target following directions, impulse control, bilateral coordination, gross and fine motor skills, crossing midline turn taking, and awareness of others.

SENSORY MOTOR SONGS:
We know that bringing out instruments can be challenging for all as volume increases and passing and sharing instruments can be tough. We follow Instruments with a sensory motor song which is typically a motor imitation song that helps children to regulate and ready their bodies and brains for the end of the group.

TECHNOLOGY AND VIRTUAL REALITY (V/R):
There has been a vast and exponential growth in electronic assistive technologies. This has in part been due to technological developments in computer-based multimedia technology such as mobile devices and motion capture sensors (e.g. Meta, HTC/Vive, Apple). This technology has advanced what was once novel approaches to computer interaction into the public domain, moving far beyond the traditional desktop computer. When applied to therapeutic music, new technologies that provide alternative control that enables users with complex needs the accessibility to play the technology as they would a conventional musical instrument. This plays a significant role in delivering the creative freedom which is often central to the key outcomes of interactive music intervention as digital musical instruments are not new to therapy intervention.

Virtual reality (VR) is a computer-generated, three-dimensional simulation that allows an individual to interact using a head-mounted display (HMD) and various controllers or hand-tracking algorithms. Headtracking and hand-tracking systems allow for one-to-one user movement within a generated virtual environment, creating an illusion of presence. This experience is strengthened by multimodal stimuli including visual, spatial, auditory, and haptic feedback.

VR medium continues to expand beyond the use of pure entertainment. VR programs have beendeveloped for the military, manufacturing, and surgical training. Video games, and more recently VR, have been used to provide alternative modes of education in schools. The malleable nature of virtual development offers extraordinary possibilities in its use and purpose. The following are part of our unique of our technology activities:

CREATE SOUNDTRACK:
MLSE, Inc.® has our clients with the help of audio engineering our learning staff, create customized soundtracks for listening during a VR experience. Over a course of 40 weeks, we have the students create soundtracks using a Meta Quest 2 V/R headgear. The soundtrack app(s) are downloaded onto the VR headset. The video musical content allows our students to be in a natural environment with natural sounds. The soundtrack selections are streamed from Apple Music onto an iPhone, iPad or any iOS device with noise reduction, comfort headphones worn over the VR headset.

LIVE! ON STAGE VIRTUAL REALITY
As many of these can experience interaction anxiety, MLSE, Inc.® has a V/R application that allows the students to sing on stage in front of a virtual audience. The application runs on Meta Quest 3 V/R and has a virtual concert hall designed in containing a state with a microphone. There virtual concert hall has chairs for the virtual audience where the audience enters the hall as well as the V/R screen. The lyrics of the rotating songs to be performed appear on a smaller window of the virtual screen with a countdown of 4 to 0 before students start singing in front of the visual audience. Before we provide a virtual audience, these clients have a virtual microphone on the stage facing the empty chairs to slowly expose the user to the situation, providing time to familiarize themselves with the virtual environment.

Once the client is comfortable with the stage and the concert hall, a non-diegetic voice will announce, “Hello, welcome to the concert hall. Are you ready to make some noise? If you are ready, say come in outload.” Once the clients say come in, the Windows-based keyword recognizer is used
to detect the key phrase “come in” via the Meta Quest 2 microphone. We give a 20 second window for clients to say, “come in” and then the announcer will say, “Please say come in once you are ready so we can start.” Once the user has said “come in” the virtual audience will walk through the gate of the concert hall and find their seats with the sounds of footsteps. There are four different virtual audience animations with a variety of facial expressions and body movements. If the client is not
singing, the audience will sit still. If the client is singing, the virtual audience will clap their hands. As the student sings louder, the virtual audience will stand and clap their hands. At the end, the non-diegetic announcer will say, “Thank you, that was awesome!”

RHYTHM AND MATHEMATICAL APPROACH
With beamz interactive system and beamz interactive Jam V/R utilizing Meta Quest 2 V/R headgear, as an example, we have a variety of music and educational learning games. The beamz interactive applications, content, technology, and platforms enable us to create music, education experiences and therapy activities that enable anyone, at any age or ability, to experience making extraordinary music while simultaneously receiving a wide variety of learning, physical, cognitive, and other
therapeutic benefits. Through this activity, to use some iconic form of math learning to enhance the student’s rhythm and drumming techniques, studying piano, cello, trumpet (and others) and the interaction between mathematical concepts and the learning of music. We use symbolic forms (e.g., addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) by means of musical, iconic forms (e.g., counting beats and dividing into measures. This immersive game environment helps with the facilitation of the process of the correlation of music and math using V/R.

SYNCHRONIZED DANCE MOVEMENT:
To develop gross motor skills, with most clinical studies use a control group with a non-musical movement activity, we took the excitement for our clients step further. We have virtual apps that allow the clients to perform synchronized dance movements. We use iOS apps OH Shape, Just Dance Now, Toca Dance, Hip Hop & Street Dance School, and Go Noodle Kids. These include a variety of soundtracks featuring chart-toppers from the 1960’s to present music through today’s biggest hits.
With different levels and unique routines choreographed for each song, there’s plenty to keep our clients dancing. There are different settings and chats for each app so the students to dance their hearts out.

We have individual-based sessions that last from 25-40 minutes twice a week for 40 weeks depending on age and need. As we assess the goals and needs of each individual and the family, we adjust the length of every session to promote the most comfortable and optimal setting. This
provides our staff to determine a more predictable schedule for these clients.

Our group sessions are 30-60 minutes, twice a week for 40 weeks as well and depends on the group needs, instead of at an individual level. We also adapt these schedules accordingly as we have to be sensitive, as at the individual level, to the group sensory trigger points. MLSE, Inc.® videos to record behavior, protection of clients and to record our metrical success or areas of improvement.