Jonathan had twin 7 year old boys. They had both expressed an interest in learning the violin. Jonathans father was turning 90 and his children desperately wanted to play a short duet on the violin for him at his birthday party. One of the twins had been diagnosed with Autism and so Jonathan was very concerned that he wouldn’t be able to find a tutor suitable for both children.

Jonathan approached Key Lessons wanting a tutor who had experience teaching autistic and non-autistic children. He also wanted an honest report on what a tutor could achieve with each child with only a year before his fathers 90th. . In the case of the violin, it can take students up to a year to fully get to grips with how to play it properly and so time was not on their side.

Key Lessons has a specialsed learning and physical disability sector and provided Jonathan with a tutor who was friendly, fun and engaging and had the skills required for lessons with both children.

The Key Lessons tutor assessed the students and it was agreed that a boot camp style of learning needed to be set up. They had two lessons a week, every week The teacher focused very much on the different learning styles and abilities of the two children and gave lots of homework! The progress was undeniable. The tutor asked the children what song they had listened to with their grand father that they thought he liked and they remembered a friends sister played a song on the piano for them all that he seemed to like. The song was Christina Perri’s ‘A Thousand Years’. The tutor knew that the boys had very different capabilities and so broke the piece down into sections .The tutor arranged the song in a way that had the two of them playing the melody at different points and making the backing player play what they were capable of playing. The boys said they were very anxious in the weeks before the performance and the tutor, who was also a performer, showed them some breathing techniques he used just before going on stage to calm his nerves.

On the day of the performance the boys were raring to go and performed with a few minor mistakes but to the joy of their family and their grandfather who cried from start to finish.