Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1922-08-05
BLIND and DEAF, !
SHE PLAYS PIANO
Kansas Wonder Girl Is in Class
With Helen Keller and VIII
letta Higgins.
FEELS" MUSIC WITH FEET
Baking Angel Food and Writing on
Typewriter Among Her Other Ac-
plishments-Masters Diff
cult Classical Music.

Olathe, Kan.-After 25 years In the
dim world of those who are sightless,
deaf and dumb, Miss Helen May Mar
tin is finding her way out. She has
chosen the least reasonable" method
of expression imaginable for one so af-
fiicted. 1t is music.
Before large audience In the Meth
odist church here, Miss Martin played
what Is probably the first piano re-
cital in the history of the world to
have been given by person with
neither sight nor hearing. 1t cannot
now be said that she Is without speech,
for she articulates even unfamiliar
names accurately and Understandings.
The intricacy of the, method by
which a person whose sensations are
practically limited to those of heat and
cold, pain and taste enters whole
new world Is not comprehensive to
the normal person. Miss Martin might
possibly have been taught to place her
fingers on certain of the piano keys
and press them down by note, but that
would not explain her ability to grasp
rhythm. nor whatever the sense Is that
tells her when she is about to make
mistake in time to avert it. She never
has heard, and has never been able to
recognize objects. For few years
after birth she was able to distinguish
between light and darkness, but never
more. For 20 years there has not even
been that travesty on sight.
"Feels" Her Music.
Miss Martin is able to feel" her
music best by placing the ball of her
foot against the bottom of her upright
piano, her mother, Mrs Helen May
Martin, says.
At the church, however, she did not
want to risk soaring the instrument
she was using, so she got approximate
ly the same result by holding her left
foot under the soft" pedal.
GOunod's March Pontifical," the
Don Giovanni" minuet of Mozart,
MOrrisons familiar Meditation"
Lang's equally familiar Flower Song"
the first two movements of Re"thO-
ven's Moonlight" sonata, and Carrie
Jacobs Eond's "A Perfect Day" were
the numbers used. The precision with
which the young woman picked her
notes out of completely blank space,
struck them, ami managed ritards
dynamics. ana pedal We're marvellous
All the pieces we're taken deliberately
of course but the distortions that
would have been evident had SHE
learned entirely by rote were absent.
In the second movement Of the
sonata the rhythm is not simple. But
neither vas it roo much for Miss Mar
tin. AT the end of her program, she
repeated the Flower Song" for an
encore.
Experiments with the piano were be-
gun good many years ago by the
young woman's mother but only in the
last few years have they been pressed.
Never has there been available a
teacher who understood both the
methods used for the Sightless and
those for the deaf, Miss Audrea
Granger, who sat on the platform with
Miss Martin, is by a coincidence her
first and latest teacher When Miss
Martin was small girl. Miss Granger
was with her for a short period, and
now she is completing the work begun
then.
Has Other Accomplishments.
In addition to repertoire of 30
piano pieces, Miss Martin has many of
the accomplishments of the average
girl. She reads Braille, and now learns
her piano music by reading the notes
in point" for each hand separately,
afterward fitting the parts together
She does weaving, and more remark
able yet, she makes "tatting" that Is
even more perfect than that of the
average person with sight and hear
ing. The other day she wrote story
for an Olathe newspaper on the type
writer And she writes her own bank
checks.
While Miss Martin was completing
in five years a course at the Kansas
State School for the Deaf, in Olathe
that usually takes deaf but sighted
persons eight or nine years to finish,
she found time to learn to cook and
do much homework. She bakes angel
food cakes and pastries as well as
cooks all the staples. The last five
years she has had teacher for only
one hour a day, since there is no state
institution in Kansas for persons with
neither sight nor hearing
While on visit in Lincoln, Neb.,
her birthplace recently, she talked for
an hour with Helen Keller with q
IA nf YNlan