THE MUSIC DOCTOR!
Dr Denise White’s note-per fect new musical system is helping to unlock people’s potential
Inspirational Uncle Dessie
My Uncle Dessie had Down’s Syndrome,” says Denise. “He had limited abilities but when we sat together at the piano and I played and we sang, I could see and feel his emotional response to the music, his joy. I was just 15 but I knew then that my life would be about finding ways of using music to unlock the creativity of people with learning disabilities and open up oppor tunities for them that they might never have thought possible.”
That determined teenager is now 50-year-old Dr Denise
White PhD and despite many challenges over the years, she has never swer ved from that ambition.
Indeed when we met up recently she was just about to launch a world first. A method of music making that allows people, anywhere in the world no matter what learning disability, background or culture, to be par t of creating high quality music. It’s happening because Denise, along with some of her learning disabled students and fellow musicians gradually developed a “gestural language” system which she has called Conductology.
Think sign language – but instead the hand and arm actions give specific instructions to the musicians, be they people with disabilities using new music technology, percussion or voice for example, or able bodied per formers on conventional instruments.
Following the conductor’s gestural instructions, all 18 of which they have learned, the gestures tell them when to play different sounds, what tempo and volume and what instruments are to be included in the mix. Together the ensemble is being led into improvising and composing the most awesome original music. I can say that because I’ve heard it being done.
The conductor I watched then was Shaun Healy, a young lad whose severe learning disabilities might have led to a bleak, limited life. Instead, he has thrived through music.
As Shaun says, “Music is so great for someone who has special needs. It gives them freedom to achieve a lot and get themselves heard.”
My spell-check doesn’t recognise that word Conductology yet but as people discover this innovative form of music making, it won’t be long before it trips of f the tongue.
Denise and Shaun – he’s now a par tner in her new company – are the world’s first Master Conductologists. Back in September they held
“I used to hide myself away. Now
I have found a life, I can shine”
a concer t in Athlone in Ireland of the first ever orchestra of disabled and mainstream per formers. They have now established The Irish Conductology Inclusive Orchestra.
But let me go back a bit to Januar y, 2016, when I first met Denise and Shaun. He and many other young adults with a broad range of intellectual disabilities were students at Denise’s small Ar ts and Music Academy, a former primar y school in the hills above the village of Eglinton, County Londonderr y.
I planned to make a BBC Radio Ulster documentar y as they worked towards the per formance in the City of