South Jordan Journal | November 2021

Page 1

November 2021 | Vol. 8 Iss. 11

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WHEN WORDS FAIL, MUSIC SPEAKS: HOW ONE STUDENT SHARES HIS PASSION FOR MUSIC WITH OTHERS

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By Julie Slama | j.slama@mycityjournals.com

M

one Ngata is a typical teenager is many ways. He likes to hang out and play video games with his cousins, read Harry Potter books and watch his favorite sports teams — the Utah Utes and LA Lakers. On his bedroom wall, Mone has an autographed Super Bowl poster and owns a jersey from the days when his uncle, Haloti Ngata, played defensive tackle for the Baltimore Ravens. The 14-year-old likes to be challenged and meet those challenges, said his mother, Anchalee Ngata Mone has about 15 different kinds of cube puzzles that he’s able to solve. Mone uses drumsticks as part of Elk Ridge’s percussion, and along with 15 other beginning percussionists in the class, he tries to tap out the beat. When it comes to other percussion parts, this ninth-grader’s instrument looks a little different. Mone plays the Skoog 2.0, a squishy rubber cube with colored buttons that can be programmed to play any note, in any octave, in any scale. The device, which can be connected to Garage Band via Bluetooth, makes playing music accessible for Mone, who has little mobility and is mostly non-verbal. His band teacher, Chris Lyon, spends

about 25 minutes to translate each page of the beginning percussion book to “Skoog music,” a series of colored boxes that match the buttons, with long rectangles representing whole notes or shorter ones symbolizing quarter notes. Mone, with the help of an aide or his special education teacher, Amanda Mair, who points to the note and counts the beat, will play the music holding the buttons with his fingertips on one hand and usually, the palm of his other hand. “His hands are pretty much in the same position, almost like a fist or cupped. He can open his hands, but it’s really slow to open and close,” Lyon said. In October, Mone was still mastering reading the music and playing the instrument. But by Dec. 16 when the group takes to the stage to play its holiday concert, he will be playing right alongside his peers. “Mone is going to perform at the concert and have his own music to play with the band. I can make his instrument sound like whatever instrument his peers are playing. So, if Elk Ridge ninth-grader Mone Ngata plays alongside others in the beginning percussion class, using a they are playing the bells, I’ll make it sound Skoog, a soft cube device that can be programmed to play notes to assist special education students to participate in music classes. (Julie Slama/City Journals) Continued page 10

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