Coachella Valley

Hello All!

I wanted to use this post to tell you a little bit about myself, and what my plan is for this blog.

My name is Amanda Neira and I was born and raised in Iowa (Go Hawks!). It's that little corn state over in the Midwest where you hear the presidents always visiting for some reason. I grew up in a musical family listening to my mom practice piano every week. I played piano for a couple years as a young child then moved to trumpet in 5th grade. I wanted to play percussion but my mom put her foot down on that one. Well once I got into high school I finally wore her down and was allowed to start percussion lessons. I played in the drum line in high school and trumpet in ensembles. Once I graduated high school I went to Monmouth University for a year to play soccer, march in their drumlin and majored in business management. I quickly found out that Monmouth was not the school for me so I transferred my second year of college to Western Illinois University in Macomb, IL. 

My first se...

Hello fellow Coachella Valley natives! It has been a wonderful couple of weeks getting to know people in the valley area. I thought it would be only fare to allow you to get to know me also! So for my first blog post I thought I would share the story about my business with all of you!

I lived in the Coachella Valley back in May 2011 to December 2011 for my internship at Oasis Rehabilitation center. I fell in love with the valley and wanted to stay. I also noticed the need for Music Therapy in the valley. The only one here at the time was my internship director who soon after moved to San Diego. But due to the lack of work I decided to return to the midwest and pursue my masters degree in St. Louis at Maryville University. For four years I kept pursuing different options on how to return to the desert but nothing had seemed to work out.

In August of 2014 I was approached on Facebook by a Coachella Valley resident wanting Music Therapy services for his mother. After doing some research h...

 I am excited to offer a new Blog for the Coachella Valley residents. It will tell you a little bit about myself so you can get to know me along with the story of how my business got started. It will keep you update to date on new things happening for music therapy in the area along with an introduction of what it is we do as music therapists! So stay tuned a new blog post every Monday!

First Blog: An Introduction: How Coachella Valley Music Therapy Got Its Start!