The problem was that David would become so interested in a certain aspect of music theory that you could not introduce another at all. I did have to adjust my curriculum completely to meet his needs. We played the C scale ( all white keys) and he saw the pattern, and the rest is history. Soon after we started a study of scales, and David soon surprised me by playing all twelve major scales, with no preparation or prompting from me.
#Autism piano prodigy plus
They had musical syntax and logic, plus a bouncing old-time Broadway style! Autistic Kids See Patterns They were not childish nonsense, but fully formed melodies.
It didn’t take long, a matter of weeks, before he was composing songs that actually made musical sense. So we embarked on a study of chords and the patterns within. Apparently that was one thing he could be sure of, in his perhaps uncertain little world. Even more striking was the fact that this child could find the pattern in anything. He was fascinated at the idea of numbers on the piano keys. His response was immediate and 100% approval. We could have started reading music right away, but I wanted to be sure that he had a good first experience. So we immediately embarked on Piano by Number, a choice I made because of his age, not his condition. I found a child who loved the piano, and wanted to play. Let’s call him David (not his real name).ĭavid is five and is the warmest and bubbliest child that age you would ever meet. My most recent student, who has autism, is practically the definition of childhood musical genius. I have found that these children adore both the sound and the musical theory behind the piano. If you have an autistic child, one outlet for their expression may be music at the piano. There is a solid connection between the two. And that sets the pattern for my experience with autism and piano. It was only in a conversation with her Mom that I discovered that this child had Asperger’s, a high functioning type of autism. And she was calm and collected, cooperative and diligent, at least in terms of the piano. I could ask her to do anything, slow it down, change key, play it staccato (short and sharp) play it legato (smooth and connected) and she instinctively knew what I meant. My first experience was with an autistic girl of ten, delightful and giggly but shy, and very gifted at doing what I asked at the piano.
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