Ways of Creating Access Points Into Music Making: An Interview With Dr. Carol Ann Blank

Inviting and making people comfortable in music making is the starting point for Dr. Carol Ann Bank when working with young children and their families. In her opinion, children can participate in music making beyond matching a pitch or a rhythm and repeating a phrase. She looks for enjoyment and engagement of clients (e.g., movements and gestures) that can be shaped into a music-making response. In this podcast, Dr. Carol Ann Blank gives tips for how to turn anything that can be tapped or rubbed into an instrument to create endless opportunities for music making. She also shares how to use tap buttons and music apps for songwriting with young children and laminated picture cards for learning about dynamics (e.g., crescendo or forte). For Carol Ann, music happens right in the family’s home and with the materials available in their environment (e.g., a trampoline). Her top advice to listeners is to start the intervention immediately upon handing out instruments and not make children sit still and wait “as every moment counts.” 

Resources & Products

• Adaptive Use Musical Instruments (AUMI): An adaptive music making app that allows making music through facial movement.


• Keezy: A pre-loaded board app that creats songs with a simple tap with the option to record new boards.


• Shake and Move Ribbon Bells: Musical instrument with colorful fabric streamers; available at Lakeshore. 


• Quack Stick: A shaker that makes squeaking sounds; available at West Music. 


• Singable Stories: Children books that come with a song; curated by the Boston Public Library.


• Blank, C. A. (2019). Music-making experiences in the early childhood inclusion classroom [Webinar]. edWebinars. https://home.edweb.net/webinar/music20190125/

About The Interviewee

Carol Ann Blank, Ph.D., MT-BC, owns Music Therapy Services of Central NJ and is the Manager of Special Needs Services at Music Together Worldwide. She created the Music Together Within Therapy program, a trademark license model for clinicians to implement in individual and small group music therapy sessions. Adapting music making to families’ environments and resources is central to her music therapy services. Contact: carol.ann.blank@mtscnj.com

Suggested Citation

Kern, P. (2023, July 15). Ways of creating access points into music making: An interview with Dr. Carol Ann Blank [Audio podcast]. imagine. www.imagine.musictherapy.biz

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