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Mark M., New York

Totally appreciate your wanting to accommodate this student. While on one hand I feel strongly about being fairly rigorous with the program, I personally value supporting students in keeping music in their lives more than I value getting particular prescribed results, and it sounds like that’s the kind of situation you’re in here. You can always make whatever accommodations you feel you need to — doing so as a genuine accommodation is a totally different situation compared to claiming territory. Will you get the same results as if the accommodations hadn’t been made? Who knows. Will it be better to help keep music in a student’s life, and keep your supportive connection with the student where you continue to be able to contribute to them in whatever ways both including and beyond anything about musical performance itself, as opposed to losing that all? Almost certainly yes.

Unmani M., Australia

Hello I totally endorse Mark’s response and admire you for embarking on this challenge. I also can’t help feeling that you just never know where and what sort of musician your current ‘tough’ times might lead you to. Go well Jessica H.

Robin T., Australia

Just like the school system, no program is ideal for every student. Put the needs of the student first and accommodate as required.

Ian B., California

Try a visualization exercise…

what will her musical progress (and life in general) will look like in 6 months to a year from now if you “accommodate” her needs, skipping certain steps or filtering elements of the program? What do you think would realistically happen? What would be the worst possible outcome?

Then, do the visualization again and try to realistically imagine what the worst outcome could be if you insist on compliance and conformity with the program in the designed sequence?

My prediction is that even a more extreme variance from the program will not hinder your student in any way. There are few (if any) components in the SM program that completely break down if taught out of order, or in suboptimal conditions. There’s a lot of grace for both teacher and student misapplication and variation. Obviously, you are doing your best to keep her “on track”, but if she goes “off track” the important thing is for you to go WITH her. You are her guide and can bring her back to the main path when she’s ready. Meantime, feel free to explore a bit and engage her curiosity.😉🔦🧭

Pat M., Canada

I have a student with severe ADHD and anxiety whom I’ve had to make many accommodations for. The one thing I want to do for him is to bring him some joy through music. He has been bullied and made fun of at school and when he comes to me, I want him to feel validated for who he is and to make a positive difference in his life. His Mom tells me that this is the only activity he won’t give up on. Keep going with your student. You are making a difference.

Michelle H., Australia

Can I offer a different perspective on maybe why she doesn’t like Masters of the Rhythm. If she’s a highly functional girl with autism – which it sounds possibly she is – you’ll find things that are difficult or hard to comprehend or challenging, she won’t like. What I find is that if you can model for her the rhythm in a few different ways like walking, hopping, moving the body about, closing the eyes and verbalizing L R etc, slapping the legs while walking. You might find it will help her with body integration that can then come through into the hands and help her understand why doing challenging things is important and making slip ups are perfectly okay as it helps the brain learn build new neural pathways which will allow her to access more parts of her brain.
I know myself when I don’t want to do something new it’s because I can’t process the how and the what, and that can create overwhelm due to too many thought processes going on at the same time. It needs gentle layering of info and short bursts. Then it will just drop in one day.

For me to learn those rhythms I had to play them really fast and hear them and to use my body to “feel” it yet once I did it helped me to move ahead. Maybe this is how you could explain it. Neuro divergent brains are amazing and challenging at the same time. As a female on the spectrum I’d not let her cherry pick the easy stuff but continue to work with her to make those deeper connections. It’s sure worth the effort.