MUSICAL NOTES

By Kathy Fox

Let us introduce you to Harrison Prichard, a rising 4th grader who attends Lipscomb Elementary School in Brentwood, Tennessee. As a budding musician, he literally started banging on the piano when he was 12 months old. As his mother Deena recalled, “Harrison would play on the piano because he would watch his brother Ellis, who was taking piano lessons, practice. I remember having to say, ‘Harrison please stop!’ because he would interrupt Ellis while he was practicing but that was the start of it all for Harrison.” Even at his young age, Harrison proved to have musical prowess as he would dance to music and move his body around having fun. Anyone who met the little guy knew he had music in his veins.

During his toddler years, Harrison had several ear infections and the doctors decided to put a tube in his left ear when he was three years old to help alleviate recurrent ear infections. When the ear infections continued the doctors went to remove the tube and found cholesteatoma, an abnormal skin growth or skin cyst trapped behind the eardrum. Harrison’s growth had woven its way around his eardrum and was growing toward the brain and brain stem. Surgery was scheduled and the specialist deconstructed the eardrum to remove the abnormal growth and then did a reconstruction to complete the procedure. One of the main concerns post-operative of course was a potential loss of hearing due to the reconstruction of the eardrum, but that was closely monitored as Harrison developed.

Fast forward a few years and in 2020, Harrison’s parents enrolled him at Roots Academy, a music lesson and dance studio, in Brentwood as a creative outlet and a chance for him to develop his musical talents. At that time, the six-year-old thought he wanted to pursue dance and started boys hip hop. However, due to Covid, everything was taught online and was very challenging because of this. After that year, Harrison decided he wanted to move to piano lessons and that was when he officially started the piano.

Around that same time Harrison moved to piano lessons, the audiologist recommended a hearing aid to assist with his hearing due to an imbalance in his hearing and all the background noise in the classroom at school. For one who has a passion for music a hearing imbalance or loss can impact musical ability as hearing is crucial for perceiving and interpreting sound, whether it is with pitch perception, tone and timbre recognition, rhythm perception, or harmony and chord recognition. As Harrison continued to develop musically, his hearing aid helped mitigate any hearing imbalance. Other than the shiny blue piece in his ear, one would never suspect any hearing concerns as he has thrived musically.

This past year, with his mentor Mike at Roots, Harrison has flourished on the piano. As his mentor said, “We are two goofballs that they put together and when you put us in the same room together, you never know what's going to happen during a music lesson or a music showcase for that matter.” While the two worked on the spring showcase this past April, they showed this goofy side during the introduction of Harrison’s song at the showcase. “We made the introduction a bit longer than permitted as we had a mini skit that showed our goofiness when I introduced his song “First Place” and presented Harrison with a lot of first place medals,” Mike chuckled. “We asked for forgiveness later.” In addition to the piano, Harrison plays the guitar and ukulele. Last year he learned how to play them both on his own without one lesson impressive!

Harrison has several songs under his belt now at the age of nine such as “Rule the World,” “A Thousand Years Ago,” “All Free,” and “For The Rest of My Life.” In 2021, he wrote “Look Away,” which is an electronic song that is an instrumental. “It was a fun song to make and I used GarageBand [a music composing app],” he said. “It took me about two months to do and I put different types of instruments and different melodies all together.” With one of his newer singles from this year, “But I Love You,” Harrison wrote and sang the lyrics, composed all the music, and posted it to Spotify.

Harrison loves to perform and one of his first shows was at the Commodore Grille in 2022. He was the youngest person to ever play there at the age of eight and played three songs on the ukulele for the crowd. In January 2023, Harrison went back to Commodore Grille and played the first song on guitar and his next two were played on the ukulele. For only playing these string instruments for about a year now, he shows real talent and passion for his craft. When asked where he got his talent from, Harrison smiled and said, “Definitely my dad!”

Like any other boy his age, when Harrison is not creating music he loves to play video games of course, and spend time with his family traveling. One of his most memorable trips was an Alaskan cruise they took last year. He also likes doing math and enjoys reading and right now he is reading the first of the Lord of the Rings books, The Fellowship of the Ring.

Be on the lookout for this rising singer-songwriter superstar in years to come. Harrison is a bubbly and adorable nine-year-old with a smile that will melt your heart. His music is pretty amazing too, and we look forward to seeing him at the Opry someday!

Follow him on Instagram @this_kid_harrison and on Spotify, username ElectroDub.