Proceedings, Oxford, UK (2002) - World Federation of Music Therapy

speak very little throughout the group can become very animated during
this activity.
“Catch my eye” is an enjoyable activity for children but also a very
effective way of observing whether children can pick up non-verbal cues.
Players “invite” each another to play by catching their eye. Children are
often quick to understand the concept. However some children, who are
quite concrete in their thinking, become confused and may struggle to
participate or they may say the name or point to the person whom they
want to play. These kinds of observations on how children process verbal
and non-verbal information are clearly useful to feed back to the team.
On other occasions I will suggest that we have a guitar conversation.
Two people sit back to back, one with a big guitar who asks questions,
the other with a smaller guitar who answers them. Children are asked to
think of what they would like to find out about their partner. Questions
are sung. The fact that the guitars are the focus attention can make it
easier for some children to participate. We can observe whether
appropriate questions can be formulated and whether singing them makes
it easier or more difficult. For the child answering the questions we can
observe if they can wait and listen to the question without playing and
whether they can offer appropriate answers
At the end of the group children are offered a “free choice.” Each child
can choose an instrument and perform it to the rest of the group, who
must listen. The “performer” therefore has the opportunity to play freely
and to be briefly in control of the group. Issues of self-confidence can be
observed during this activity. How do they use their special time? Do
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