Innovative Piano: A Tale of Two Music Books
July 24, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
My sister gave Charlie this music book of lullabies and an accompanying CD when he was a baby. As soon as he could sit up (after he was six months old), I would settle Charlie on my lap as I played the piano; I often went through a selection of songs, while pointing out the paintings and sculptures from this major museum. He started to turn and flip the pages to find the songs he liked: “Mozart’s Lullaby,” “Kumbayah,” “Oh Can Ye Sew Cushions, “Golden Slumbers”—as Charlie was not yet two years ago (and could not talk), we realized that he was looking at the pictures of the artwork to find the songs he liked. In the hectic days surrounding Charlie being diagnosed with autism in July of 1999, his ability to find those songs was one bit of light in a haze of days filled with a puzzling new vocabulary, not otherwise specified.
The CD is long lost (though I have the songs on my computer). We still have the book, its pages ripped (intentionally and unintentionally) and taped, creased and rumpled. About a month ago, I found Charlie staring down at the two pages of “Kumbayah,” as he sang the song (with low grunts for the bass clef part) and sort of moving his fingers and wrists. Yesterday, he put the book on the piano’s music stand, opened it to “Kumbayah,” plunked himself on my lap (when did this boy’s legs come to equal mine in length?), and said “Mom! I want Kumbayah!”.
For years, Charlie watched my hands on the white and black keys; for the past year, he has himself been learning to play the piano and to read music, thanks to his piano teacher. The lullaby music book has far too much on its pages for Charlie to process right now. His teacher, Jeff Young, makes each page of Charlie’s music book. Charlie can play “Bingo” and “Clementine” with two hands, and has been getting the F sharp on “Heart and Soul.” He loves to play two-note intervals and, with careful prompting (according to Jeff’s advice to me, to help Charlie practise), he has been learning to play with both hands while reading notes on the bass clef and treble clef. If there is too much on a page—three lines of music with all kinds of musical symbols—Jeff sometimes makes new music sheets with two lines of notes, perhaps, and fewer symbols, the easier for Charlie to read: Charlie is taking piano lessons, but the main point is to teach him to play for fun and for the love of it, of the music that he makes, of the sounds that he creates.
Jeff is putting together a music book that draws on his teaching method (which is based on Applied Behavior Analysis, ABA): You can find more about it on his website, which is called Innovative Piano. (I have already put in my order……..) “Jeff piano” is a highlight of the weekend for Charlie, who seems to thrive on having regular teaching sessions (Charlie practices 5-6 times a week, too).
A deep-running—almost of physical—love of music is something that is the same in Charlie and me. (And so, if autism is the result of a spontaneous genetic mutation as reported in a recently published study in Nature, I have to think that whatever in one’s genetics codes for music, was not part of that mutation.) I often feel that Charlie and I communicate the easiest, and perhaps the most and best, through music. Jeff’s innovations to help Charlie and other autistic kids learn to play the piano have been priceless to us. Yes, Charlie is learning to play the piano—but he is also learning to sharpen his reading skills, and to deepen his love of music, and to study another way to communicate emotion and meaning. It is a lot to learn from one book.
They say a picture is worth of thousand words. How many more is a page of music worth?
Photo courtesy of outofwordsxx via Flickr.
Jeff sounds like a gem. You and Charlie are so lucky to know him! This is not just a random compliment: I have a Bachelor of Music degree in education, and my main instrument was piano.
Thank you for this touching and heart-warming post, Kristina. Wonderful story.
We were too lucky to find him—-I actually just put something like “autism piano lessons new jersey” into Google and InnovativePiano.com came up!
For cool – great story – and congratulations to Charlie!
Ely’s been in a day-camp for three days this week, and has taken on a true love of an old upright piano in her camp room. She’s decided that her plinking on the piano is her way of entertaining her fellow campers. It’s very similar to the old upright piano of my mother’s in my office…except that the camp piano has actual working keys, as opposed to the sticking keys of our piano at home. We need to get a tuner in to tune the piano and put in a dehumidifying bar….
At day-camp today, Ely actually sat through 35 minutes of music therapy, participating in the clapping, patting and lyrics of what the music therapist required of them….yippee!!! We’ll be putting that in the next IEP….
We too were lucky enough to find Jeff and Innovative Piano. Both chidren with different abilities look forward to his weekly lesson,and I am amazed at the beautiful music they are creating.
Mary Jo, really gerat to hear! Piano has made a huge difference in Charlie’s life.