The Sun (Malaysia)

Gifted with ‘eye for music’

Despite being blind, Pua learnt to play the piano and now inspires others to follow suit

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IT’S Monday morning and Nicole Pua is teaching a student to play the piano. But it’s no regular music school. Instead, lessons are conducted at the Malaysian Associatio­n for the Blind.

Pua, 39, who was born with glaucoma sarcoma, found solace in music as a teenager.

She felt she started late and that it was a friend who encouraged her to play the piano, she told theSun recently.

Later, her parents bought her a second-hand Kawai piano.

“I remember when the piano arrived ... I could not wait to play it. I was also curious. I opened the lid on top of the piano and ran my fingers along the insides – the hammers, the strings, the nuts and bolts, and wondered how they worked,” she related.

“Thinking about it now, if I could see and have the opportunit­y, I would love to be involved in the engineerin­g of it (the piano) or maybe the technology. It just fascinates me.”

Back then as a teen, she recalled there were not many teachers who were trained to teach vision-impaired students but her parents were undaunted.

The daughter of her father’s friend decided to take Pua as her student.

“She taught me the basics and I memorised some songs,” Pua said.

Later, she learned the theory of music from another teacher. Pua also found books on Braille music notation at the National Library for the blind in the UK.

“I didn’t know how to write music, so my teacher taught me the concept and I learned the notation in Braille on my own,” Pua shared.

She recalled another music teacher. “She was very creative. She’d make a tactile diagram of a music stave from cutout round-shaped paper to teach us the name of the notes and its position–middle C,D,E (which notes were on the lines and which were in between).

“She also used thick thread, aluminium foil, rubber mats and different types of material so we could feel the notes,” Pua explained.

Years later, an opportunit­y arose for Pua to teach blind students to play the piano at a centre.

She remembered having some eight to 10 students, blind but no less eager to learn how to play. After their classes at the centre, they would have piano lessons under the tutelage of Pua.

Pua now conducts lessons at the Malaysian Associatio­n for the Blind. She currently has two students.

With unwavering passion to inspire more blind individual­s to take up the piano, Pua said: “Regardless of age, as long as the blind have an interest to learn to play (the piano), I will share my knowledge with them.”

 ??  ?? Pua sharing the joy of playing the piano with a student. – ADIB RAWI YAHYA/THESUN
Pua sharing the joy of playing the piano with a student. – ADIB RAWI YAHYA/THESUN

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