Band Part II

Daniel has decided he is playing the baritone in band. Now what? I thought it may be best to see if I could get him started on lessons during the summer, before school started. Then his "adjustment period" just might be done by the time school starts. So I start asking everyone if they know of anyone who happens to a.) be able to teach the baritone, of all instruments, and b.) has any experience with an autistic boy who is very large for his age and has a tendency to get upset, especially while learning something new!? It sounds like a stretch, I know. Believe it or not I found someone.


Jennifer, God love her, is trained in music therapy and not only had she taught at least 2 boys on the spectrum (who both happened to have chosen the baritone also, how weird is THAT) but has a child with special needs of her own. My gift from God. Maybe this karma thing isn't so bad after all??

The next step is going to a local music store and looking into renting a baritone. $55/month. They will repair, cover damage etc. The thing costs a couple thousand dollars, and eventually you can end up owning it. (after several years of paying $55/month. . . I'm still paying) I signed in all the places and brought home a shiny brand new baritone. Big and bright and HEAVY and full of possibilities and dreams. Although, I know better than to get my hopes up. I believe I have trained myself to not think ahead about the possibilities. Especially at the very beginning of something. But really, how thrilling would it be if he could actually DO this? It could be a group he would be a part of. Something that is his, that he LOVES. I wasn't sure if that would ever happen. That is one of the sad things about raising a child with special needs. You want them to have something, and love it. It's hard to do. I immediately got over the fact that it was band. Never mind the fact that I have never played an instrument. And that usually teaching him something means you have to know how to help him?? hmmmmm


We signed up for lessons with Jennifer. I'll say it again. God bless this woman. I am going to guess that we went through 6 lessons at her house, where the majority of the time Daniel cried and yelled. It was NOT pretty. Not surprising either. It was beginning to remind me of when he was 5 and we tried music therapy. Same thing. Yelling screaming. We quit that. We may be the only people who ever flunked out of music therapy.

I quickly learned that, as usual, he had a vision of his lessons, that I didn't know about. And this was not it. At the first lesson he said, "where are all the other kids?" I reply, "These are private lessons Daniel, once school starts your classmates will be with you." Cry cry, yell yell. Spit. Apparently, I hadn't prepped him enough in what this would look like? Duh. But honestly, I didn't know either. The next week he says, "where is the Veggie Tales song?" Um, what? "Veggie Tales, we need to play the Veggie Tales theme song". Um, ok?! (I seriously need some sort of mind reading devise. . . can I google that?) So Jennifer the good ran around and found, for the next time a Veggie Tales CD and borrowed it from her neighbor. In the mean time, cry cry, yell, yell. Spit. From then on Veggie Tales our warm up at the beginning of every class. He would play along to the Veggie Tales CD and sing at the top of his lungs when he wasn't playing. Which by the way, one of the vegetables in this religious cartoon plays the, you guessed it, THE TUBA. Ahhh. It's all beginning to make sense. If only he could explain this ahead of time. But his language isn't that great and he can't always put into words what he's seeing in his head. So I guess and I bob and I weave like a boxer until I finally land a punch! By the 3rd lesson I realized we needed a visual schedule for the lesson. Why I hadn't thought of this before we started I don't know. We had already got to the point where we could get through about 15 min of a 30 min lesson with him actually doing something, the last 15 min of yelling and crying. (and of course I'm paying for private lessons each of these times) It is very very tough to watch. I didn't know what else to do. I try to get him through it each lesson. I would leave her house exhausted and beaten down (emotionally) I'm thinking, are we doing the wrong thing? Should we stop or press on? Maybe he's not ready?

I sit through the next 3 lessons. During this 6th lesson he was crying and yelling and I clearly remember sitting on Jennifer's couch and thinking. "I'm never coming back here again. I can't do this anymore. I'm about to have a break down. Each time he gets so worked up and upset and then we go home and he's still upset. I can't do this anymore. If Todd wants him to continue, he'll have to take him." But I know Todd won't be able to watch this. It's a nightmare. But once I thought all of that. I relaxed and was at peace and I was happy because I was sure that I would never ever do this again. I was elated thinking this was it. I'm done!!! I could bring back the damn baritone and write it off as, been there done that. So we left the lesson that day. Daniel and I got in the car and I said, "Daniel, I will not bring you to the lessons to listen to you cry and yell. We aren't coming back again. We are done with this. No more." He said, "no no no no, please please please, I want to come back". I finally gave in and said, "ok one more time, if it's like this again, we are done." He knows me. If I say one more time. I mean it. And as Daniel's usual process goes, he waits until I am one step from losing it and he pulls it together. He went to the next lesson, did his visual chart, no crying, no yelling. Just playing the baritone. Amazing.

So it's August, we have a few weeks before school starts and we are actually making progress. We color code all of his music. I go through the music and write what note it is above the note, C, B flat, D etc. Then we have a color. D's are red, C's are green, B flats are orange. I have this memorized. As of this day, I have color coded a LOT of music. He knows the notes, but I think it helps him process it faster while he's playing.

School is about to start. Jennifer says he is progressing faster than anyone she's ever taught on the autistic spectrum. This actually might work out after all. It takes me being on the verge of a break down and telling him I'm done for him to pull it together. But he wants it. He wants it bad. He will dig deep and find a way to make it happen. He's an amazing kid. Who is making his own dreams come true while dragging me along kicking and screaming with him!

I'm going to be in band PART 1

I know, not another series right?!? I'm sorry! I promise, it won't go as long as the last one!

I'll admit it. I was always one of the people who made fun of the marching band. If you were a band geek, I mean member, I'm sorry in advance. They seemed to be a very tight knit group, sort of on their own. I never understood marching band. I never had any interest in playing an instrument, my parents never brought it up. They never really ever suggested I do anything, except stay out of trouble and I didn't do a very good job at that! Band was bad enough, but marching band? Why? Just to really sound like a negative grumpy person. . . marching bands march in parades. I don't like parades either. Almost as soon as they start, I'm looking at my watch or trying to figure out where the nearest coffee house is. Let's just say, none of it is my cup of tea, or coffee as the case may be. In college we would make fun of the band geeks on the field. I should have known it would all come back to haunt me. Karma baby.

Music was always a love hate thing with Daniel. He could barely stay in choir for most of K - 4. I have always known how much he LOVES music. When he was 3 we had a keyboard. You could hit one of the keys and make it sound like another instrument, he could tell you the instrument every single time. It was amazing. I knew he had a tremendous ear. So when he was in school and he was screaming in choir and they would take him out. I would usually push for him to go right back in. I always felt like it would click at some point. His choir teacher eventually said, "I think he has perfect pitch and he gets mad in class because everyone's off pitch, or almost everyone." Made sense to me. We had taught him to tolerate things before, I felt we could again. We kept trying. Recorders came. He could not even be in the room for that! I don't blame him. It was horrendous. It was a constant push/pull. We kept at it. Again, this seems to be a theme. For YEARS. Then at the end of 4th grade, about a year and a half ago, we were talking about Daniel's classes for 5th grade. In our school system for 5th and 6th grade you have a choice between, 1. Strings 2. band and 3. Choir. You choose one of them. Daniel announces to me, "I'm going to be in band and I'm going to play the tuba" What? Where did that come from? I always know I'm in trouble when he announces something with such conviction. . . .it was very similar to the bike thing. He was going to do it. That was the end in his mind.

We had one of our "team Daniel" monthly meetings. Here I bring up the fact that he wants to be in band. Most people laughed. OK, don't get mad at them for laughing. Because you have to understand the group. We were all very close and most I consider my friends, and I still do even though he isn't in that school anymore. They had all been there through the ups and downs of choir. Knowing how hard music has been. I said, "no really, he wants to be in band and I'm going to make it happen". Cricket, cricket. I said, "you know what, Daniel asks us for almost nothing. He rarely asks for anything from us. This he is asking for and I'm going to give it to him." I left that meeting knowing that somehow, I had to make it happen. It was a dream of his. He could see himself marching with that damned instrument.

The first problem was that the tuba was not offered. So I found out what the closest instrument to that was. The baritone. I showed Daniel a picture of a baritone online. . . "that's it," he said. It's a done deal. Well, at least in his mind!?!