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Rachel
BACKGROUND - Rachel is a cheerful, sensitive lady with Down's Syndrome. She lives in a house with 6 or 7 others, where I was working when I was asked to help her learn an instrument. Rachel is quiet, and not in the slightest bit "pushy", so the biggest task has been to encourage her to have the confidence to believe in her own abilities. She had owned a recorder, and a keyboard, for some time, but had had no formal teaching. This had not put her off playing both instruments and she had made up her own fingering for notes on the recorder, with which she could already give recognisable renditions of some of her favourite tunes. She first wanted to learn to play her keyboard, but after a while chose to concentrate on her recorder instead.

SPECIFICS - One of the issues I felt needed to be addressed when Rachel decided to switch to Recorder was the fact that she had already made up her own fingering. I did not want her to lose this spontaneous ability - her renditions of tunes, especially rhythmically, were perfectly acceptable, though not always totally accurate in pitch, but she seemed to want to play tunes from books as well, and after some discussion she said she would like to learn the conventional fingering with me, but still play her 'old' way when she was alone. I hoped the two fingerings would 'fuse' over time as she became more familiar with the conventional ones. This was very hard for her, as it meant having to go backwards before going forwards, in that the tunes she would be able to play whilst learning the notes again would be limited by how fast she could learn the notes. This was made worse by the fact that we could only meet every two weeks - once a week is far better if possible, as there is a difference in how well information is retained if the gaps in between sessions are too long.

Rachel is a perfect example of how the best things take the longest to get. When she blows her recorder she has a beautiful purity of tone, but her timidity meant that every breath had to be coaxed out of her. As with the others referred to in these pages, I have found Rachel's inherent love of music has given her the resolve to keep working through what have been very adverse circumstances. Each new note learnt has been a separate mountain to climb, but she has never faltered or complained. Six years on, and Rachel is playing tunes from notes written out as letters below the music, with conventional fingering. She has not lost the ability to 'busk' on her recorder with her own fingering as well and is understandably proud of being able to play both ways.

MD 2003