The Boy Who Was A Cat

The following is an excerpt from “Lessons Learned From the Autism Spectrum and Other Neurodiversities.”

I had a four year old student who was intrigued by the piano but unable to allow himself to speak to me directly.  At first, he talked softly into his Beanie-Baby bunny’s ear, asking things like, “Do you like the piano?” or “Can you see the black notes?” The bunny in turn, mostly squealed and either nodded or shook his/her head from side to vigorously. A definite “No”

A few weeks later, though he still brought his bunny to oversee the lesson, Max transitioned into a kitten coming to the piano on all fours and mewing. He’d spring up on the piano bench and paw at the keyboard.  Then the bunny would talk to the cat, just a few words like, “try again.” Eventually the bunny became quite articulate and started talking directly to me. “He has no fingers,”  he told me, explaining why the cat could not play notes individually.

“Perhaps kitty could use the side of his paw,” I suggested.  Bunny said, “Maybe.”  Then he asked the kitten, “Can you do that?”

“Mew,” replied the kitty and he started picking out notes with the side of his hand. The bunny approved. 

This was good but kitten insisted on playing with both paws at the same time and the results were not always very musical.  It got to the point where Bunny’s ears could no longer handle the discord. “Not pretty,” he declared. Then kitty hissed, knocked  bunny to the floor,  pounced on him and swatted bunny across the room. Finally kitty  jumped up into his mother’s lap, leaving his beany baby behind.

 “Okay Max,” said his mom. “Let’s go home.”

Lessons continued much in the same way for the next weeks, during which time our line of communication was refined.  I could talk to the bunny, “Do you think kitty can turn his paw this way?”  Kitty would then answer me directly, one mew for “yes” and  several  emphatic mews for “no.”  I could not talk to the kitten and  Bunny was not allowed to talk at all.  (New rules.)

The kitten made great progress. He learned if he turned his paw one way, a pinky would appear; turn it the other way, he had a thumb. Things got even better when he learned if he played the same note in different registers at the same time, it pleased bunny’s musical sensibilities.

I would call out “C&C together,” or “F&F together!”  Kitten would mew and play them happily.  Then came the day to introduce two different notes harmoniously.

“C & E Together” These two notes I played one third apart, very clumsy for the limitations of our cat paw techniques and our kitten was clearly frustrated.

“Too bad, you don’t have index fingers,” I said casually. “It makes it easier.” I demonstrated.

Then miraculously, before my eyes, kitty morphed into a small boy who not only had index fingers but could now speak for himself.  “Like this?” he asked.  

Going forward, Even though Max gained pretty good control over individual fingers, neither the cat in him nor the bunny were ever satisfied with less than two notes at a time.

“I like harmony,” Max declared and he became very proficient at playing thirds.

 “You can do even more with three notes at a time,” I said one day, “These are chords.”  Then Max really took off.

I could barely keep up with his appetite, all things triad (3 note chords). You can build six different triads for every note on the keyboard: major, minor, augmented, diminished, suspended 2 and suspended 4 and each of those in turn can be played in three different positions, root, 1st and 2nd inversions. Max was captivated by the possibilities. 

The boy who (once )was a cat then commissioned me to write a book with all the triads (every inversion  in every key) “to help me remember.”  Three months later he started kindergarten.

Max’s chord book went on to become “My First Book of Chords”