Musicians with MS

I used to have a very nice mezzo voice, and I took lessons from several professional singing teachers so that I could sing without getting tired, a good skill for a PLwMS! My favorite singing story was that our choir was in the National Cathedral to sing Carmina Burana (AKA Gopher Tuna) and I found that I suddenly could not see my score mid-performance. Gasp! What to do! Fortunately , I had largely memorized the score, and I could also see the score of the woman standing in front of me on the choral risers. I made it through the concert without embarrassing anybody. When I went to see the doctror when we returned home, he informed me that fortunately, my loss of sight was not due to an MS flare. It was due to the presbyopic shift that occurs for most people around the age of 40. Simply put, aging impacts your ability to focus your eyes. I needed a new prescription for my glasses, and then I was more or less fine until the rest of the damage to my eyes caught up with me.

I wrote this in another thread, but I’ll summarize my background here too for anyone joining the convo.
I’ve played piano since I was 5 years old, but I’m a conservatory dropout. I’ve never been much for excessive theory or technique, I’ve always been more concerned with the soul. You’d think I’d like jazz more, but that’s one that mostly evades me (there’s quite a few exceptions, but I’m happy to do away with 90% of it). Ironically, my vocal teacher specialized in jazz vocals and that influence is heard in my own voice, but it will be a cold day in hell before you hear me scatting.
I picked up some guitar, bass, and ukulele along the way, and even delved into some violin (very poorly, I might add, since MS was fully underway at this point but I’m a glutton for punishment). I’ve played in multiple bands since I was a teenager, always preferring alternative sounds like punk, industrial, and avant garde tinged ambient folk.
Music is the biggest thing I grieve with the MS damage. I do my best with the tools I still have, but the grief is still there because it feels like I can’t fully express the contents of my soul anymore, and that is a very sad thing for me. I always think about the beautiful Jacqueline du Pré who succumbed to MS and had to stop playing her cello in her peak. I often listen to her and cry at how unfair it must have felt for her. Of course I am also shedding tears for myself and everyone else who loses such precious things from this disease. But once I’m done shedding those tears, I do what can to keep my song alive, whether it be singing while playing a single note on my keyboard or taking pleasure in listening to my son play our guitar. The torch has been passed on!

Thank goodness for this forum. Yes, I enjoy music immensely and have both listened and performed it. My musical journey began in High School with being on different choirs and it is here where I got introduced to classical music. I have performed parts of the Messiah by Handel at that time and was part of a choir in college that performed classical choral music by Vivaldi and other baroque composers. A memorable performance was by this same college choir director who took on the monumental task of preparing the choir I was in at the time of a massive choral classical piece called the Missa Solemnis by Beethoven. For all you classical music buffs out there, this piece is very similar in structure to the vocal passage in the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony. The choral director hired a full orchestra and professional soloists and I will never forget this once in a lifetime choral performance experience. All I know about classical music, I learned on my own since my college days.
Years later I started embarking on the venture of studying piano in the classical technique. Both of my piano teachers I had at that time appreciated my love for classical music and recognized the talent I had for piano. Keep in mind; I did not take any piano lessons as a child and started as an adult and my teachers were amazed at the progress, I made in such a short amount of time (reached level 5 in about three years).
This all occurred long before I developed MS and it is my desire to restart learning the piano with a different method in the improvisational style. Despite having MS, I believe I can achieve this with recollecting the skills I learned years ago.

I actually am trying to teach myself to play songs on the piano as a way to relax. Music is a way I connect to the world. I love to listen to music and to sounds in nature. I don't read sheet music, but I learn by ear and by sight. I enjoy watching piano tutorial videos to learn songs. I find it a fun way to just escape and forget about the realities of life for a while. I can go at my own pace, as slow as I need to. My piano belonged to my grandmother, who I was extremely close to, and it makes me feel peace and happiness to sit at the bench where we sat together once. It truly brings a peace and relaxation like nothing else can.