Chris Pauline Rachel Alison Sally
Alison
SPECIFICS
- I
was not a little in awe of Alison's musical abilities - so when I was
first asked to work with her I thought a 'proper' piano teacher was what
she needed, as I had been very impressed by what she could already play
on the keyboard, and by the natural accuracy of her ear.. I tried calling
a couple of local conventional piano teachers, but they were not able
to work with Alison, so after a while I agreed to come in for a couple
of sessions with her; it is now 5 years ago that we started !
For the first few sessions I just let Alison play me tunes on the piano
- and she knew lots ! I was trying to look for areas where I thought I
might be able to increase Ali's enjoyment of her playing; all the tunes
she played were played with one finger, and sounded fine, as long as she
started on the right note - ie. if she was playing the tune in the key
of C (all the 'white' notes on a piano) - most of the tunes she was playing
did not modulate or change key, so if she started on the correct note
for the tune to be in C, it was fine, but sometimes she began on a note
that would have put the tune in a key other than C, which would normally
involve using a 'black' note - this would totally throw her, and she would
to stop, and either start another tune, or have to move her finger to
another place until she happened to start on the right note. So I figured
that if she could at least know the name of the 'white' notes, then she
could be told the correct first note for a tune, or it could be written
down (Ali can read well enough to know letters), so she would always hit
the right first note to get a full tune without having to stop. Reading
of music seemed a bit ambitious, tho I did not want to rule it out, but
I thought maybe getting her to use her left hand as well would be a possibility,
and it would give much more body to the tunes she was playing.
At the time of writing, Alison has pretty much achieved these things,
(bar the reading of music, tho I still have not given up on the idea,
and Ali seems happy to give it a little bit of practice most times I visit,
by finding note names from a 'cheat' I have written in her manuscript
book, and writing them down) - she can play a handful of tunes with both
hands now - the left providing a simple accompaniment, with me pointing
to the notes when they need to change, while her right hand plays the
tune with no prompting from me. Ali can now find a C on the keyboard (nine
times out of ten!) and knows the names of the 'white' notes. Again, this
progress has all happened very slowly, at her own pace and over five years
or more, but Ali hasn't for a minute stopped enjoying herself, and like
the other individuals mentioned in these pages her devotion to her music
has given her the patience to keep trying things until they work.
After one of our first sessions, Alison had asked if I could bring in
my guitar to sing some songs, which I did the following week, and quickly
discovered that she has a fine singing voice, so we end each session with
a few songs - Ali loves singing, gives it her all (when she's in the mood)
and often has a good bop too (see bottom photo)!
ALISON'S COMMENTS
- " My music's very nice thank you.."
MD 2003
