Music and stroke recovery: a first-hand account (part 2 of 2)

Yesterday, we featured the first of a two-part series authored by Peggy Ward, professional violist and stroke victor. In this second and final installment, Peggy shares her struggles and triumphs and explains how her musical training and dedication enabled her recovery.

Peggy has done so much to inspire me personally, and I trust that you have been encouraged as well. If you’d like, please feel free to leave her a comment by clicking “Comments” at the end of the article; I’m sure she would love to hear from you. And on behalf of all PTMs, thank you so much for sharing your story, Peggy. We truly appreciate it.

Keep playing,

Mark

The Road to Recovery

After a week of bed rest and gradually increased strength I convince my care-giver sister to let me try the violin. I lovingly removed it from its 60 year-old alligator-skin case (it had been my late mother’s violin) and tried to put it under my chin. I couldn’t hold it! Tears sprang to my eyes, but my sister consoled me by saying, “Let’s try again tomorrow with a different shoulder rest.” The next day, we filled the space between shoulder and jaw bone with sponges and let my head hold the instrument for ten seconds. “This is exactly the first step I take with 3-year-old Suzuki violin students,” said I. At that point, I realized I needed to follow the same “steps to Twinkle” that the famous Japanese teacher, Shinichi Suzuki, had followed when he realized the “Mother Tongue” approach to learning could apply to learning to play the violin.

From that day until I had memorized and polished ever piece in the first four books of Suzuki’s well-sequenced repertoire, I followed the teacher training I had studied, and re-taught myself to play the violin and viola.
For a couple of months I held out hope that I would be fully recovered in a short time, because the brochure announcing my appearance as a viola soloist with an orchestra 7 months later had been distributed. At first I wondered if I could rebuild my playing to concert level, but eventually dealt with the reality of needing more than 7 months to relearn skills that had originally taken a life-time to develop.

Many days, I could only spend 15 or 20 minutes with the instrument, but the importance of getting to it every single day was quickly evident.

I learned a lot about making new neural connections and pathways from my brain to my fingers. I learned that the new pathways must be used over and over until deeply embedded in the complex system of neural transmitters in our bodies. The so-called dirty word of “practice” needs to be replaced with the word “repetition” before other information pushes the desired information out of our brains.

A new motto evolved that I use in my teaching to this day: “Show your body what you want it to do, and then repeat, repeat, repeat.”

Margaret Motter “Peggy” Ward has her degree in viola performance from the Eastman School of Music. She shared the principal viola chair in the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra for fifteen years and played in the Baltimore Symphony and many chamber ensembles. She is currently directing a non-profit community music school in north-central Maryland.

Related article:

Music and stroke recovery: a first-hand account (part 1 of 2)

Related Articles:

• Music and stroke recovery: a first-hand account (part 1 of 2)
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• Being a musician is good for your hearing
• Learning a new instrument…as an adult
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