Introduction

About a year ago a friend of mine asked me to teach music for an autistic teenage girl. I readily agreed, not knowing where it will take me at the end. A year since then, and I am working with three children, all with diverse special needs, trying to help them develop using music.

I am not a certified music therapy. Unfortunately, Middle East has only one program - in Jordan, and it is insanely expensive. Nevertheless, I am rather a person, passionate about music, who suddenly discovered that working with special needs kids is extremely rewarding and fun.

Music therapy is a very new subject in the Middle East, with only one program currently running in Jordan, one music therapist in Syria, and a few foreign practitioners in Gulf countries. While one can find a multiple selection of resources on songs, activities and music for English-speaking kids, nothing (and I mean that) exists for music therapy in Arabic.

I am not a native Arabic speaker, and I used English-language songs and resources in my classes previously. However, over the time, I realized that nothing can get through to a child better than study in his own language. I started collecting nursery rhymes, and songs that would be useful for music therapy settings, and that would be in Arabic language. It proved a challenge, as not all children songs from the region are applicable for use in music therapy.

Thus, my idea of the blog came up. Here I will note down my progress, thoughts, emotions, and wonderings on my classes with students. I'd love to hear your feedback and comments. I will also post whatever Arabic-language resources that I could find to be used in music therapy.

Hopefully this blog will serve as a motivation for me to grow and develop, and as a tool for growing and developing music therapy in Middle East.