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[F-Litz]

hi -- saw your post about the drumming...

Maia plays classical piano and electronic keyboards, too. With the classical pieces she is quickly coming to the end of her possibilities because when you get to a certain level it requires too much from the fingers and lefty can't handle it - AND it requires her to posture her arm for way too long and it's hurting her
so she's been playing electronic keyboards that she can do one armed and uses different layers to add in sounds, etc.
you can hear her on this video... it gets louder a bit into it at about 1:48 into the timing
http://www.youtube.com/franlitz#p/c/74E ... ToO-Ym_8yo

About the drumming -- if you look at the other videos you will see how little lefty can do...I taped this one from behind - you can clearly see her biceps contracture - her ulnar deviation - and how little lift she gets
http://www.youtube.com/franlitz#p/c/685 ... vvoe10Ui_g
if she continues to want to drum, we will eventually add electronics to her drum kit and she'll have additional stuff added to the legs (like rick allens set - def leppard drummer) because there are definite limitations to this as well -- but thank God for electronics -- it can make a huge difference in the possibilites!

she also plays cello - but since she is lefty injured - she plays it backwards -- lefty holds the bow and she does have horizontal movement and the arm stays low so she is working with gravity rather than against it. If a day comes that she cannot hold the bow -- we can always attach a velcro band to it

have you tried other instruments?

-francine

[jmar]

i just play the keyboard for my own amusement. i have never played in front of anyone. but it is a good excercise for the fingers as long as it is tolerated. that is how i got a lot of my function back. at first i could not even push the keys down with my injured fingers. now i can almost do a scale with my left hand. i forced myself to play entire songs with my left hand. never considered playing any other instruments. but i think maia is very good. wonder how good she could be with 2 good fully functional hands?

[F-Litz]

who knows if she would have even chosen music?
who knows if I would have been so serious about baby music early on -- I got involved by doing range of motion to music because it was SO BORING and I wanted to make it fun....
can't imagine this journey any other way

[jmar]

your just an awsome mom thats it. i am happy for her that she is loved and taken care of as much as she is.