The music in the soul...

A mother narrated her challenges raising her daughter who has been diagnosed with autism. She had been attending a special education school. One of main focuses of this mother was her daughter to develop the ability to button a shirt. She was never successful in getting the button through the button hole.

The daughter joining the Different Art Centre took her to another space where art played key role. She enjoyed her painting class, but her ears were glued on the notes from the next door music class.

Untrained in music she began to play the notes by listening to them on the keyboard. With this new interest her mother noticed her daughter’s anger and tantrums were almost forgotten. And yesterday we had an opportunity to watch Christie perform on her keyboard. In few minutes time she was joined by her friend, another student from the centre, on violin, and together the duo performed a medley of popular Bollywood songs. Couldn’t help but hum along with their songs.

They said the young violinist is also challenged. Feel hesitant to describe them with others because how can we say they lack anything when they are able to master the melodies and musical instruments and coordinate with each other? They are able to generate happiness in others through their music. And the other three students have mastered their moves as magicians. While Vishnu, a young magician who has been travelling internationally as a performer has become an earning member. They have been under training for more than four years. The two girls who also perform magic shows have silent conversations even if they choose to speak with each other because they talk in sign language.

Is it not sad that the majority of us have not learnt sign language yet?

I sat watching them not being able to join in their conversation and still they managed to sound out that they were happy to be in Muscat.

Today they are creating waves because professionals in special education are intrigued at the way their lives have been enhanced, evolved and the changes in their development is almost unbelievable.

Within days of her getting involved in music, Christie’s mom saw a huge transformation in her level of self esteem and confidence and saw her buttoning up on her own without any help from her mother. That was the biggest achievement for the mother, today the same mother who felt almost helpless, is a performer’s mother. She stood by the side and watched with pride while her daughter performed on the keyboard.

After the girls finished the medley her mother asked her what were the songs and Christie listed them out.

She was jubilant and was excited to go out for the rehearsal session. In contrast, the violinist is quiet until her violin takes off. She seems to be a quiet girl who let the violin voice her emotions.

Violin is one of the most difficult musical instruments and we all know it can be noisey until we learn to make the strings sing. And she does that with ease maintaining the right scale and pitch. To perform solo maybe still easier but to perform as a duo needs coordination as the two individuals are actually communicating in harmony.

We all have rhythm in us because of our heart beat. The sea waves have a particular rhythm, but we tend to tune from our inner rhythm and surrounding as there is so much noise in our head and so many thoughts. I would not be surprised if these two soul sisters begin to compose music of their own.

There were two other people who were looking at their performance with immense satisfaction - Gopinath Muthukadu a renowned magician who has performed worldwide, whose dream project is the Different Art Project and Dr Mohammed Asheel who is an expert on abilities and disabilities and he explained about the tests on human intelligence.

He explained about the theory that suggests human intelligence can be differentiated into various modalities such as visual-spatial, verbal - linguistic, musical- rhythmic, logical - mathematical, interpersonal, interpersonal, naturalistic and bodily - kinesthetic.

So we are all different just like our unique fingerprints, and art in various forms could have the ability to connect us. But what is most important is to embrace the difference in ability and have the grace to accept others.