Music gives voice to students with disabilities
By Casey Farrar
Sentinel Staff
The rattle of maracas, thumping of drums and jangle of bells on a tambourine blended with laughs, shouts, claps and the sound of an orchestra pouring from a stereo.
For more than an hour, the music swelled and ebbed, switching from upbeat rhythms to soothing lullabies.
As they played, the students didn’t communicate with words, but a grin, clap or the squeeze of the hand said more than any sentence ever could — they were happy.
These six students, all in their late teens and early 20s, live at Hawthorn Heights, one of 15 residences for students attending Greenfield’s Crotched Mountain School.
The school offers individualized education plans for students who have physical, developmental or emotional disabilities. Students there are encouraged to learn and grow at their own pace and at their own level, according to the school’s Web site.
During the week, their lives are filled with therapy appointments and classes, but taking part in the interactive music program Sunday offered them a way to express themselves and enjoy each other’s company, said Belinda Ryan-Magoon, assistant manager of the residential program.
“Music is comforting and fun and good,” she said. “It’s also a way to engage.”
The group was participating in a hands-on performance adapted from a 10-week program for children from infancy to 5 years old and parents that is called Music Together.
It was led by Nancy Salwen at the Keene Community Music Center, a nonprofit organization that started about three years ago after a private music school in the city closed its doors.
The students and a handful of residential counselors sat in a circle in a large, open room bearing the name of 19th-century Polish composer Frederic Chopin. Some students sat in wheelchairs, while others moved down onto mats on the floor.
After a welcome song, Salwen, who moves with the animated gait of a dancer, launched into the program.
“Ding dong, I’ve got the rhythm in my cla-ap,” Salwen sang, as a chorus of claps echoed through the room.
Jillian Adamushka, sitting on a mat on the floor, smiled and clapped excitedly to the beat. Next to her, a residential counselor played along on a small, hand-held instrument that sounded like a washboard.
Adamushka loves music and listens to everything from rap to the Boston Pops, said Bernard J. Collins, who is a residential counselor in the program and volunteers as development director for the Keene Community Music Center.
“If you watch her for just a few minutes while she’s listening you get the idea that there’s something in her that wants to write a song,” Collins said. “That she would write a song if there was a way for her to communicate it.
“And wouldn’t it be interesting to hear what she’d write?”
Collins said his work with both organizations, and seeing how much the students enjoy listening to music, sparked the idea that the students would like making their own music.
The Keene Community Music Center was happy to work with the group as part of its mission to bring the joy of music to everyone, said Samuel L. Hawkes, president of the organization.
“We want music to be accessible to people who are interested, no matter their age or skill level,” Hawkes said.
Along with sponsoring the Music Together program, the organization allows its music students to borrow donated instruments and provides scholarships for some students to help pay for private lessons offered by about 15 teachers at the center.
Salwen was also excited about working with a new group of students, she said.
“It’s one thing to enjoy music, but when people are empowered to make music themselves that’s really something,” she said. “There are so many times in our culture where you’re just listening.
“Being part of it really taps into their own musicality.”
Throughout the morning’s program, she tried to stay tuned into the students’ reactions and shift the speed and intensity of the music to match their responses, Salwen said.
Toward the end of the program, the group sang “Happy Birthday” to Marcel Raymond, who celebrates his birthday today. Raymond, who danced and swiveled in his wheelchair throughout the program, beamed.
As they closed with a song, Salwen carried her guitar to each student to touch it and feel how the strings worked.
“It’s one thing to see a live music performance,” Salwen said. “But to be in a room where the people they care about are performing together, that’s something else.”
And from the looks on the students’ faces, it was something good.
Casey Farrar Caster 