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)
• Modern classical music and the brain
• Being a musician is good for your hearing
• Learning a new instrument…as an adult
• Playing Music Sharpens Your Brain

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

In response to a recent article about music and its healing effects on the brain, I was contacted by Peggy Ward, a professional musician and stroke victim/victor. Her struggles and triumph were so touching, so inspirational, that I asked her to share her experiences with other PTM readers. She graciously agreed, and this segment is the first of two articles about her journey to recovery using music. I hope that you find it as encouraging as I did.

Keep playing,

Mark

October 10, 2002 –the Day That Changed My Life

The nice thing about strokes is the complete absence of pain. In fact, you don’t realize you’re having one until you try to use the part of your body normally directed by the brain’s cells affected by the cutoff of blood.

I had just finished giving my college student her viola lesson and was trying to explain to her how she should set up her beginning student’s hand position when I felt a wave of faintness and decided I should sit down. I was having a TIA (transient ischemic attack) but only knew that I could hardly speak and had to lift my log-heavy left arm with my right hand. After 10 minutes the feelings passed and I felt normal again. Another 20 minute TIA 3 hours later convinced the colleague in my company that I needed emergency attention, and I was admitted to the local hospital. The next morning, I talked the resident physician into releasing me so I could attend the dress rehearsal for that weekend’s chamber music concert.

My family panicked when told about the TIAs and took turns staying with me around the clock. My daughter looked at me when I woke up the second morning, said the left side of my face was sagging, guessed I had had another TIA during the night, and whisked me right back to the hospital. The doctor ordered a multitude of tests, found my right carotid artery blocked 60% and then asked me what I could move. All large muscles were fully functional, the left side of my face and throat were unresponsive, and the fingers on my left hand WOULD NOT MOVE. After devoting the fifty adult years of my life to being a professional violist, you can imagine the emotional impact this news had on me. I lay inert in my hospital bed completely demoralized. The weekend’s concert was canceled.

Two little students brought their violins into the hospital room and played Suzuki’s Perpetual Motion for me; I was then able to give them some suggestions for further polishing. They insisted I should let them have their regular lessons as soon as I got home from the hospital. I called my friend John Kendall, Suzuki’s American liaison, and asked him if it was ethical for me to teach if I couldn’t play. John, now in his 80’s and watching his own ability to play be destroyed by Parkinson’s disease, assured me I had much value as a teacher in spite of a paralyzed left hand. My morale improved considerably.

The occupational therapist visited me at home until I had enough strength to get out of bed. She taught me a progression of movements for the left hand to practice and assured me I could regain functional use of my hand if I religiously followed her instructions for six months. If not, the implication was that I’d never get it back. I asked her to let me try the violin, since it was smaller and lighter than the viola and needed very specific small muscle development, but she completely dismissed the idea as having no practical value – she didn’t know!

Continue to The Road to Recovery

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 Articles:

• Music and stroke recovery: a first-hand account (part 2 of 2)
• Modern classical music and the brain
• Being a musician is good for your hearing
• Learning a new instrument…as an adult
• Playing Music Sharpens Your Brain