Head Trauma and Music

Let's take a break from theory and talk about music and head trauma. It may seem like a strange turn in subject, but I am  very familiar with head trauma and teach people with head/brain trauma.

I want to keep this short and simple, but also be concise on why I do what I do. As a teenager, I played classical music ( piano). At the age of 15 I acquired an acute head injury. When I went home from the hospital the first thing I did was sit down at the piano to play one of my favorite pieces. It was quite a shock when I absolutely could not play. Reading the notes and knowing where they were on the piano was no problem. I just had a disconnect with my  brain sending the information to my hands. My hand/eye coordination just wasn't there. For many weeks, months I kept going back and trying, but my ability to play was gone....or so I thought.

They didn't know a lot about head/brain trauma back then, but I had an older brother that was watching me very closely. One day he asked me why I wasn't playing anymore and I told him I just couldn't make the connection. Months later, maybe a year, he gave me a book on jazz improvisation. It was all about playing lead sheets with Roman numerals. It was all new to me, but made total sense. A few weeks later he got the music director of the college he was attending to give me jazz piano lessons. It all came so easily to me and I began playing again.

Since then, I went to college, majoring in music (keyboard) and began teaching a few years later. I was afraid to share this with my students, thinking they would think I shouldn't be teaching. But then I realized that we all learn differently and that I could help people like me learn to play.

In the next post I will share with you the progress some of my students with head/brain trauma have made and are still making.