This startling video of a young woman with severe autism and a visual impairment was a reminder to me that we should never make assumptions about those who are generally assessed as "less able" because of their neurodivergent presentation or communication manner but who might possess other aptitudes, understandings and means of expressing themselves we can be unaware of unless we make an open-minded effort of empathy and offer meaningful opportunities for these to manifest themselves.
I came across this on the recent Channel 4 series The Piano, quite an interesting twist on the formula of uncovering hidden talent. Various members of the public are invited to play a piano located within a train station, a sizeable yet informal and largely transient audience. The resulting performances have in many cases the unexpected charm of the amateur player improvising their own untutored compositions, a form of outsider art probably very prevalent in the same way that many people write poems or paint landscapes in their own time without necessarily thinking of garnering acclaim for it.
That desire to engage with music, move our fingers on the keys and link sounds together in a resonant way (within the ambient bustling soundscape of a train station) seemed to say something important about the innate connectivity of music and how you don't have to be a "unique talent" like Lang Lang (one of the judges) in order to use this marvellous instrument to externalise a small part of your inner truth to the world, as Lucy in particular was so remarkably able to do in her sequence.
