Children with Disabilities Playing Musical Instruments

Abstract

a r e t F i tz g sabilities Playing ents cCord and e ral d 7ach fall, the music teacher held a meeting for fourth-grade students who wanted to learn to play ani:imsrument and their parents. She explained what instrumental music involved: how to obtain an ins-rument, which books would be required, how the ensembles were scheduled, expectations -or participation in concerts, and so on.One year, Stephanie and her grandmother came to the meeting. Stephanie had always wanted to Dlay the violin. She was a shy, quiet girl with fairly good grades. She lagged behind in reading but managed to get by with her grandmother's help. After hearing the music teacher's presentation, her grandmother agreed to rent a student violin and listen to Stephanie practice at home.On the first day of string class, Stephanie easily learned to hold the violin and bow. Her posture was good, and she was rewarded with a rich tone as she played her first open-string exercise. She was the first student to pick up her instrument after school. Stephanie was obviously very excited about playing her violin, and during the first weeks of class, she continued doing wonderfully. She even helped a friend with her bow grip.The musical exercises became more difficult. The students mastered the open strings and were able to relate the pitches to written notation. The music teacher started t n , s, Te s e l , teaching the students to finger notes and recognize the ~. '" '" ' ' ' " ~corresponding written notes. this __blm S ' gr me Weeks went by. Stephanie faithfully practiced each .......pha ~~night with her grandmother, but she couldn't seem to =73~1~not~ Z1~7r7; b improve. The music teacher noticed that Stephanie was making mistakes in class. She called her grandmother, Theaw YIZ-r~-ms who agreed that Stephanie was struggling. The music teacher suggested that her grandmother could drill Stephanie on the notes. Stephanie was able to identify notes, but it didn't help her playing. Stephanie, her grandmother, and her music teacher were all becoming frustrated. In desperation, the teacher shared Stephanie's struggles with a special educator in the school. The special educator looked at Stephanie's file and discovered that she had a mild reading disability. Stephanie had difficulty reading a line of text from left to right without mixing up words that were in the line above or below the line she intended to read. In order to overcome this problem, Stephanie's grandmother made her a card with a window cut out.Stephanie would hold the card over her reading material so that she would not be confused by the lines above or below. Unfortunately, no one had shared this information with the music teacher.The music teacher was still at a loss. Using a card to read music wouldn't work since Stephanie couldn't hold the card and play the violin at the same time. The special education teacher suggested highlighting each space in the staff with a different color. With a little practice, Stephanie was able to correctly identify the notes and translate the notation into action w...

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