Music

One of our older son's first Christmas gifts was given to him the year he wasn't quite six months old. It was a Fisher Price light and sound piano that he had seen another child open at a playgroup Christmas party a few weeks earlier.

When he saw the other child open that piano, he threw his entire body in every direction possible to get to that piano.

At a time when very little seemed to make him happy, I was determined to get that piano for him for his first Christmas. Only, that piano must have been in high demand. It was sold out everywhere we looked.

My husband and I became obsessed with finding that piano. Ok, well, perhaps I was more obsessed, but that quality in me payed off, because we did eventually find that piano in the small town in West Virginia where I grew up and where we had brought our son to celebrate the holiday. He loved that piano.

He played with it every day. He would bang away at the keys, drink in the lights and delight in the sounds. It made him happy--or at least, it made him less unhappy than he spent most of the other time back in those days. I was happy he had something.

The following holiday season, my husband and I were driving with our son in the car. A year older, he still loved that piano, and he carried it with him most of the places he went. He sat there in the back seat of our van, the tiny piano on his lap, pecking away at the piano's six colorful keys.

My husband and I were strung out and exhausted, and the van offered a safe reprieve for us. Our child was safe, and we could zone. In fact, I was zoning that particular day when I first heard it, a little clumsy at first and then more sure as our son practiced.

At eighteen months old, that child was pecking out the first eight notes to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

"Dum, dum, dum, duuum!" I heard. "Dum, dum, dum, DUUUUUMMMM!"

Shocked, I sat up in my seat and looked at my husband only to see the same look of shock coming back to me from his face. He had heard it also. Why, our child was a genius! Oh, sure, lots of people say that; but in our case it was absolutely true! ;)

In the years to come, we would learn of our son's exceptional ability to learn and produce music, a quality not unusual for many children with autism. As he grew, his babbles came in the form of song, such as Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor.

It was not unusual for us to pass away our time at a local Target while singing Mozart's Sonata in C major. Music had infused every area of our lives. (Thank you to the "Baby Einstein" video series for laying a foundation for the classics with our son.)

This child lived his life through a filter of music.

It was in music therapy during the those years that he voiced words with any sort of purpose or regularity. Yet, I was told that language within music was processed on a different side of the brain than speaking language. If this child sings, I was told, don't automatically expect him to talk.

Perhaps that has proven to be true; however, what music and music therapy did provide for him was a reason to connect, something to draw him out of his world, something to share.

And, while music may not have produced spoken language with our son, it did lead to an effective mode of communication; for, when he was looking for a particular toy, he would sing music particular to that toy. And, when he was looking for a certain VHS, he'd sing a distinguishing song from that video.

By the way, he also conveniently learned to sing songs in order to tune out people around him, school work and the world in general. It's an avenue of escape and solace. He did that to me just the other day.

"Don't you think that a little Mozart is going to scare me away, young man!" I informed him in frustration. "I know that you can hear me, so I'm going to just keep on talking!"

I "har-umphed" indignantly but then thought about the ridiculousness of what I had just said. Truly, this child has opened my world to a wealth of gifts that I don't know if the typical life of my dreams would have ever provided.

Our house is busy. Our kids are happy, and our halls are ever-filled with the sound of beautiful music.


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This entry was written in response to the letter prompt "M" in the Blogging A to Z April 2012.