by Amelia Lee Sheldon

Amelia Sheldon is a long-term student of the IMH who lives in Arizona. In this article, she provides a moving account of her experience with using music with the our approach, showing how it has transformed not only her ability to make music but also her life.

It is hard to express just how differently music operates in my life today than it ever has before. A voice deep within me has been yearning to have the notes to sing and it has taken me half a lifetime, the gifts of a daughter and a great teacher to find my way to the lifestream of music. Now, I not only sing and play the piano with a joy and unselfconsciousness that I never had before, but I use music to interact meaningfully within my community. I have come to understand that the true importance of music is not the notes that are played or sung perfectly, but realizing that it is the medium with which to connect deeply with the world around me. What a tremendous surprise, relief and delight music now is in my life.

I am 41 and, as is the case with many people, I was exposed to music at a young age. My mother had a lovely voice and sang at weddings and church. I was said to be very gifted when I started taking piano lessons at some point in elementary school. I don’t doubt that fact. However, greater than any talent I had was the detestation that soon grew within me for my teacher and piano lessons. The memories that loom large around studying piano then involve my too-long nails being trimmed before my lesson in Mrs. T’s lavender basement studio, me fudging the hours in my weekly practice log, and the release I felt throwing my music out the car window after my last lesson. The torture of piano lessons with “the best” teacher in the area was over after five years, but music still haunted me.

As years passed, I sang in choirs and even in a county and state Junior Miss Pageant for scholarship funds. One of the biggest fights I ever had with my mother was over my song selection in those pageants. I wanted to sing “The Man that Got Away,” having seen Judy Garland sing it in A STAR IS BORN. My mother insisted that I didn’t have the voice or life experience to pull off that particular song and that I should sing the lighter “Mr. Sandman” next to a big cutout of Fred Astaire, my hero at the moment. Well, Mom won and, to her credit, I did win the title of Onondaga County Junior Miss with that performance. The fact that that fight was so charged was kind of a mystery to me until recently. Now, I suspect that I was tuned into the emotion that Judy Garland filled her singing with and I wanted to use music to connect with the world the same way. My Mom was focused on using the music to help me win. My instincts were on to something, but I didn’t yet have the words or wisdom to express the role I wanted for music in my life.

I waitressed, became a nanny for a short while, went to college and majored in English with a focus on journalism. I went to New York and got an entry-level position in book publishing. I went from assistant to editor. I got married. My husband and I bought a house in a charming town up the Hudson River, renovated it and commuted. We were living the good life. But I still found myself searching for something. Music still whispered to me. I listened to a lot of other people sing and enjoyed watching others perform on stage. But my singing became more and more silent in the world. I sang only at home behind closed doors. I dreamed of singing in blue rooms. I couldn’t figure out how to make music fit into my life in a meaningful way. I wasn’t a musician. I wasn’t going to end up in Carnegie Hall. Yet, I wasn’t happy just listening either.

One day I was in the local health food market and a flyer caught my eye. It was posted by a music teacher. I cannot recall the wording on the sheet of paper with the telephone number flags waving at me, urging me to rip one off and call. I do remember that my reaction to the advertisement was “either this guy is going to be crazy or great.” As it turned out, Peter Muir was the latter. I got an electronic piano and started lessons.

Soon after I became a freelance editor and had more time to devote to music. The lessons were great. They were nothing like those of my childhood. There was a freedom from sheet music, there was a lot of singing, there was improvisation, there was laughter and happiness. I sang in the car all the way to lessons and back. My Wednesday hour with Peter was the highlight of my week. But there were parts of my teacher’s philosophy that I didn’t yet embrace. In his opinion, I needed a piano, not a keyboard. And, I really should be doing some form of outreach with the music. What?! A piano would need tuning and I was NOT going to sing and, God forbid, play in public!

Then, I made a rather sudden move to Arizona to research and write a novel. And divorce my husband. I loved Arizona. I missed my music. But, life went on, after all. Sacrifices had to be made. I couldn’t have it all. Right? Wrong. I met the love of my life running on a sandy desert trail by, of all things, a river. A year later we were married. A year after that we had a daughter. I heard from a friend back east that Peter Muir was teaching music over the telephone. I started lessons with him again. My sister told me about a local community college hosting a used piano sale. I traded the keyboard in for a payment plan on a real live piano. The pieces were coming together.

I was singing to my daughter. “The Rainbow Connection” was my favorite lullaby. As she grew, I found I could sing to her with no hesitation or anxiety. This was a first for me. She burbled and then sang back. We had a great time singing in the house together. Of course, I loved this bond she and I had. I was glad she sang with such abandon. I hoped that she would continue to do so regardless of how much time passed. Or how uncool it might seem to her peers at some point. I wanted her to sing out, regardless of who was around. After all, that’s what I realized I had always wanted to do, but couldn’t. Peter Muir was always there, telling me that that I was finding my way by using singing for its first purpose: to soothe a baby. Raven did fall asleep so nicely when I sang at night to her.

They always say that the best way to teach is by example. Peter agreed. He kept pushing the idea of me starting an outreach program at a local senior center here in Arizona. Alone. “God, how depressing,” I thought. “Scary,” and “never” were two more words that came to mind.

But I continued to listen and follow most of Peter’s suggestions. I made a visit to he and his wife’s upstate New York home for a weekend of intensive study; my husband generously took care of our three-year-old.

It was a great and full weekend. We performed a kind of exorcism on my old music teacher. That felt good. I sang some blues, which I loved. Peter suggested opera. I laughed at the absurdity of it, and my self-consciousness. But, as it turned out, it was great. The sound that came out of me was powerful, strong. I felt like I was singing my way to life. Maybe, just maybe Peter might be right about the outreaches as well. But I didn’t yet embrace them. The thought of them still scared and depressed me. Experiencing them was not much better.

However, the biggest impression of this weekend of study came as I sat in on the class Peter had with a group of autistic children. I hadn’t had any contact before with anyone autistic. However, I had heard that individuals with autism struggled to connect with others. So, I was surprised and touched at the laser-like intensity of the feeling that I felt when the children caught my eye as they were singing. Two older boys with Asperger’s Syndrome regaled my with their knowledge of little known facts. Their looks my way were charged with the same depth of feeling. One child that Peter had said used to sit in the corner and face the wall sang out with obvious abandon. I had a hard time not crying in that class, the children so touched me. Here was an occasion that allowed me to experience how music was a pathway that linked one heart with another deeply. After seeing this class I yearned to feel that sensation again. Things were shifting.

How did I know for sure? When I came home, I started singing with my daughter’s class of three- to six-year-olds. I told one of her teachers, I’d like to do an outreach with the children. She brilliantly suggested that we walk the children down to the local community center and sing to the seniors who had lunch there on Thursdays. It sounded good. All local. Not too scary. The seniors were independent still and the children were, of course, a delight. They loved to sing.

Soon I was singing with the class of first through third graders at my daughter’s school. I had started to sing out in the world not only where my daughter was, but now where she was not. This was progress. I was still shaky and nervous when I first stepped into the classrooms to sing, but I sang nonetheless. By the end of the half-hour or hour, I realized I was just enjoying myself.

My lessons over the phone continued and my piano playing was becoming more comfortable and accomplished as well. Peter said the feeling that was abundant in my singing was starting to make itself felt in my piano playing as well. I could feel what he was saying was true.

Then, in the fall of 2007 the opportunity came to have another intensive weekend study with Peter, his wife Judith, and a visiting teacher from Australia named Susan West who had been doing singing and outreach with thousands of school children. I knew that I had to go. A good friend from back east who had moved to Florida went as well. This was the weekend it all clicked for me. The music. The outreaches. Life. Connection. The time we spent with Susan West focusing on singing as a tool to connect and draw those around us out was invaluable. I learned how I still conveyed my fear to the people around me when I sang. I leaned back, for instance, instead of leaning forward as I sang. These hours with Susan and Peter and the other participants were crucial in laying the foundation for how I would begin to use music to deeply connect with others. But the big moment that acted as the lightening bolt to bring everything to life happened at an outreach. Naturally.

It was our second outreach of the weekend. This one was not at the high-end retirement home, where the grounds were manicured, the meeting rooms lovely, and the staff upbeat and engaged. No, it was at the state assisted living center that was dark, institutional-feeling with aides that were difficult to find. The residents were not well-groomed, coiffed and manicured. All of them seemed a bit unkempt. As was the case in other outreaches, I felt I was faking it until I could make my singing sincere. Then, I sang with one older woman. I can’t even recall the song we shared. But I do remember holding her hands, looking into her eyes and feeling that something deep within each of us had found the pathway to each other in song. Forgotten in this moment were my reservations, fears and hesitancy. Left behind were all signs of her age and the heart-wrenching lack of care she was experiencing. There was just the song and that sensation that we both were spirits sharing a moment: we were both beings in the circle of life who were able to deeply acknowledge the other. As the song ended I was on the verge of tears.

When I told my sister of the experience later, I couldn’t stop the flood of emotion. After all, what more do we really have that is meaningful in this life of mystery, magic, misery and more, than true connection with another being? This is what music was for, I realized. This is what I intuitively sensed was available through music since I was child. This is what I felt when I sang to my baby daughter. This is what my incredible music teacher was trying to relay all along – in every lesson, in every outreach, in every urging he made. I finally grasped it fully. The proof: I began a weekly outreach, alone, at a local senior center. I take school children I sing with up there when I can, but I am happy, yes happy, to sing and play the piano with them all by myself. Looking into their eyes while we sing is one of the greatest pleasures I know.

With this new understanding, my relationship with music and my connection to the community have shifted. Now, I don’t just say to myself, the children, and the seniors I sing with that the notes and the words of the songs don’t have to be perfect, I believe they don’t. I know that music is a language that I may always strive to be fully fluent in, but I am secure in the belief that my intent to use it to connect to others is what makes the magic happen. My hope is that the children I sing with won’t have to wait until middle age to know that magic and to make it happen in their own lives.

Copyright Amelia Sheldon 2008