Meet my students . . .
From 2011 to 2016 I worked with a diverse population of over a hundred adults with developmental disabilities. During this time I was learning from them and developing my method - Sparticles. My goal was to make music accessible and engage people at any level. Seeing each person roughly once a week for ten to twenty minutes I have experienced a lot of success. Here are a few of my wonderful students in action. Each one has a different combination of abilities and uses the method in a different way to hone their skills. In addition to individual lessons we developed groups, formed bands and came up with many different ways of challenging my diverse and wonderful group of students. In addition to learning music as individuals and in small groups with my method we spent a lot of time doing large group Singalongs. Below are just a few examples from my Sparticles by Stephanie Youtube Channel
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Some other results:
- An adult man with Downs Syndrome and no prior musical training is now playing chords from memory, reading sheet music and learning different chord voicings.
- An adult with Autism was able to play the bass notes to his favorite song the first time he tried which lead to further engagement, learning and success.
- A developmentally disabled woman with the use of only one hand has worked once a week for over two years on playing "You Are My Sunshine." In the process she has gone from using one finger to play the piano to using all five.
- A developmentally disabled senior citizen has been working with me every week for two years on playing the Blue Danube Waltz. She's gone from reading the colors and shapes, to reading the actual sheet music. Now she improvises her own ending and is able to remember more and more each week without looking at the chart.
- A woman with severe dementia plays the drums with her classmates. Her engagement and joy come through in her smile.
- A group of three women, all of different ages play in a group and learn together; they work on their favorite songs, each playing at her own level.
