Violinist plucks heartstrings
Dressed for the occasion in a red dress and a white, glittery beret topped with plastic flowers, 10-year-old Isabella Nicola picked up her violin.
But this was no recital. And Isabella is no ordinary violin player. The fifth-grader from Alexandria, Va., was born without a left hand and part of her forearm.
That hasn’t stopped her. Her mother, Andrea Cabrera, always instructed her not to say “I can’t,” but to say “I can’t yet.”
Now, thanks to a group of George Mason University (GMU) bioengineering seniors who used 3D printing technology to create a prosthetic bow arm for her, she’s begun training on an instrument that beguiles even the most astute musicians. They call it the VioArm.
Recently, Isabella donned her fancy clothes for the presentation and subsequent fitting of the latest — and, its creators hope, final — version of the customdesigned, 340-gram prosthetic limb made of plastic. The arm holds her bow, and she uses muscles in her shortened forearm and shoulder to manipulate it.
A smile spread across her face as the team began fitting her with the hot pink VioArm with her name etched in script on the side. “Oh my gosh,” she gasped, then took charge, asking the team to tighten a screw, loosen a bolt. Time wasn’t wasted as Elizabeth Adams, a violin/viola professor in the GMU School of Music, began her lesson, while Cabrera sat in the corner, eyes and cheeks wet with emotion. It was the culmination of a journey merely to begin learning an instrument, a journey most don’t have to take. The project started last year when Isabella, then in Grade 4, decided she wanted to play a string instrument.
“I’ve never had to tell her ‘you can’t do something,’ ” Cabrera said, but she thought that time had finally come. Still, she heeded her own advice of adding “yet” to the phrase “I can’t.” A devout Catholic, she believed God would help them find a way.
Suddenly, a string of well-wishers came out of the woodwork. Technicians at a local shop reversed the strings on her instrument, so she could finger with her right hand. Her first music teacher, Amber Hicks, plucked the strings while Isabella practised fingering.
“She learned to play all the notes fourth-graders are required to learn without ever making a sound on her own,” said Matthew Baldwin, strings director at Isabella’s school, Island Creek Elementary. Baldwin then changed everything. Motivated by his Christian faith and Isabella’s dedication, the GMU alum purchased supplies at the hardware store and began tinkering in hopes of creating a bow arm for his young student. “As soon as I got it on her, and we were able to put the bow on the strings, she played a D-major scale,” Baldwin said. “She was able to hear it for the first time playing herself, and her face just lit up.”
Exciting as the prosthetic was, it wasn’t ideal, so Baldwin contacted his alma mater in October. As luck would have it, a group of engineering students needed a senior project.
The team went through a few different models, working with Isabella along the way to make adjustments. Perhaps the most important change to Isabella, though, was the colour. The last version was a chalky white. That just wouldn’t do. So she chose a pink glitter.