San Diego

As I mentioned in my “One Man 2 Instruments” blog post my brother had a great time attending the American Music Therapy Conference in San Diego back in November 2009.  So much so that, when everyone left to attend learning sessions he played alone.  The  video attached to THIS blog shows you why he had so much fun.  You can see Al Bumanis, Director of Communications (www.musictherapy.org), improvising with Nathaniel.           Al knew exactly how to play with Nathaniel who would just go on for hours if you didn’t know how to wrap it up and he would get a little angry, if you just stopped him abruptly.   Nathaniel feels more relaxed creating music as he goes along rather reading music, plus we think he needs glasses and he has not accepted that.  He is NOT the musician he once was, however he has more love and passion for music than most.  It is so deep and music does change him, it is therapy.  I feel safe in saying that his health took him off track of living his dream to become a principal bassist in a large major orchestra, it never happened.  In this video you can see how the audience/attendees  showed him so much love and I witnessed my dear sweet brother having FUN and LAUGHING!

Then came Christine Stevens (www.ubdrumcircles.com, author of Music Medicine, The Healing Drum Kit)  from the back of the room, singing out “SAN DIEGO!” Which helped my brother get even more into the moment, you could see it and hear it. Everyone in attendance reached out to Nathaniel and offered him acceptance.  Something he had not seen before, until that year, he didn’t care why.  He just embraced it in his sometimes shy  and modest behavior.

Christine and Al still contact me to ask about Nathaniel!