Virtual Learning Happens in All Directions

Retiring from full-time church music at the end of 2016 gave me the opportunity to open a small piano studio for beginning and intermediate students.  During the pandemic I have transitioned to weekly online lessons for one student and occasional lessons for another.  I am in awe of the ways HMTA members have adapted their studios to accommodate and continue to offer excellent instruction.  The HMTA September meeting provided inspiration, hope and a great deal of helpful information.  

The majority of my virtual lessons have been with Ella, a seventeen year old whom I’ve known since birth.  Ironically, the family’s piano is the Kranich & Bach upright (with the mirror) my parents purchased from the former Miles Music here in Harrisonburg when I was a child.  When Ella was younger, our visits would include the two of us sitting on the bench as I played her favorite nursery rhymes and songs.  I did not envision Ella ever playing those keys.  I stand corrected.  

Music has been an important part of Ella’s path to speech. Born with microcephaly, she has significant developmental delays. Her first speech was all in song. As a three -year old she learned to sing “Yes” and “No” through her exposure to songs: “Hide it under a bushel?” “NO;” “YES!” “We have no bananas.” To teach Ella basic communication, such as how to greet someone with “Hello” or respond to the question, “How are you?” with a verbal answer, her mother put scripts for greeting other people into song.   

Nurtured by her parents, grandparents and extended family, friends, and JMU student partners, Ella has been surrounded by books, singing, and musical instruments from her birth.  Her ability to listen attentively, match pitch, distinguish between major and minor tonalities, recognize intervals and remember melodies are the envy of music theory students.

Always an enthusiastic singer, she recognizes and remembers words to songs and hymns and looks forward to when she will be able to share them “in person” again.  Her musical taste runs the gamut from classical to pop, and each lesson ends with her version of “Something Big” by Shawn Mendes. Ella’s ability to read and perform simple rhythmic notation along with her steady beat reflect a strong internalized sense of rhythm.  She participates in the HHS United Sound Band and has performed percussion with the full Marching Band at a Football Game and with the Pep Band at Basketball games. 

When we began lessons in 2017, Ella’s keyboard dexterity was limited to one finger.  Although finger and hand coordination present challenges, she now uses all fingers on one hand while the other plays an open 5th accompaniment.  We are working on adding a minor 6th to the open 5th to incorporate tunes that can be harmonized with I and V chords. Reading staff notation is on our list of future goals.  

 As a singer, Ella uses solfege and Curwen hand signs and is able to sing and play the corresponding notes on the keyboard.  We also sing/play the chromatic scale singing “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Ella sings the  texts of songs, plays the melody in the right or left hand, and is developing the ability to add the open fifth accompaniment. 

Our weekly lesson lasts 40-45 minutes and includes just Ella and me with time divided between vocal and keyboard segments.  The lesson always begins with a greeting followed by breathing exercises,  vocal warm ups, and a song or hymn from either Sing the Journey or Sing the Story [supplements to Hymnal: A Worship Book published by Faith & Life Resources, a division of Mennonite Publishing Network]. 

In addition to including familiar repertoire, these collections include wonderful new-to-Ella-and-me settings. Another bonus is the number of major, minor and pentatonic melodies using a 5-finger position and incorporating I or V chords playable in open position. There are three excellent companion CDs that give voice to much of the repertoire. An extension of the note-ID game, “Play a (insert note name, including accidentals),” has developed Ella’s ability to play the first note, tonic chord and penta-scale of a song. 

Since Ella is an aural learner, she has responded well to Musikgarten Music Makers – Piano 1 that includes the text, Listening and Practice CDs, and learning materials packet.  The use of solfege and Curwen hand signs overlaps with the vocal aspects of her lessons.  These learning tools also reinforce aural recognition/relationships and hand coordination. 

Ella has enjoyed perfecting her version of I Want Some Water,  downloaded from Wendy Stevens’ website, www.ComposeCreate.com.  Although she doesn’t play the entire piece as written, her consistent performances demonstrate a mastery of patterns that span the keyboard as well as a strong sense of steady beat as she moves from one part of the keyboard to the next. I hope to incorporate some of the lessons from Play Piano Chords Like a Pro by HMTA’s Morgan Showalter when we resume in-person lessons.

Ella  loves repetition – sometimes to a fault - but it has served us well.  I strive for a balance that allows learning to “marinate” along with new material.  Time has taught me that through a combination of pacing and repetition, Ella masters motor, aural and intellectual concepts that form  bridges to new music learning.  Most weeks include a brief conversation or an email to her parents with some practice suggestions, and I am grateful for their commitment to Ella’s music lessons.

 Ella loves to move to music, and she looks forward to ending her lessons with several favorites on the Musikgarten Listening CD.  Staying within the screen does limit this exercise a bit, but she has accommodated it well as part of the virtual format. Her vocal performance of  Something Big by Shawn Mendes – complete with text, melody and instrumental effects – ends the session.  Although she doesn’t play the melody, together we have created an introduction that she sings while accompanying herself on the piano.  As we sign off, there’s the addition of an individually wrapped Red Bird mint to a goody bag that gets delivered to Ella’s door when it’s full – a visual reminder of a weekly commitment to practice and lessons.

 Ella’s parents have contributed to this blog via edits, corrections and the following comments that provide insight into the presence of music in her life.   Her father noted that Ella has used music to express abstract ideas and emotional states that she cannot express in words. His observations lead him to believe she is processing and expressing music on multiple levels. Sometimes she sings the lyrics as she has learned them to communicate. Sometimes she revises lyrics to known melodies. She also spontaneously composes her own melodies and lyrics.  One morning on the way to church, she began to sing:  Follow the blue sky to Shalom (also the name of her faith community). 

I want to know the beautiful world we all share. Her father recalls that when Ella was around 8 years old, one of her teachers shared the following exchange: Ella had used a communication device to compose the sentence, “I live to make music.”  The aide working with her attempted to correct her. “Ella, did you mean, I love to make music?”

Ella insisted, "I live to make music."  

Laura Douglass
​HMTA Member