The Sound of My Ability: A Music Teacher’s Dance with Chronic Pain, Acceptance and Inclusion

The sound of my ability: A music teacher’s dance with chronic pain, acceptance and inclusion [working title] uses collaborative autoethnography to explore Marlies Mujizers’s story as a cellist, teacher, and her journey from Dalcroze student to Dalcroze teacher while experiencing chronic pain and using a wheelchair. In this account, new restrictions due to Small Fiber Neuropathy are intimately bound up with the acceptance of increasing impairment, the development of her music teaching practice to include Dalcroze, and the discovery of new insights, possibilities and abilities. The book also integrates John Habron-James’s experiences of Dalcroze practice and research, music therapy, wheelchair dance, and being coached by a Paralympic swimmer. An extended dialogue between the two authors—with additional commentary from their colleagues and peers—asks fundamental questions about the participation of disabled people in music teaching and music teacher education.

Through investigating experiences of music and movement and contemporary dance as resources for learning, artistic expression and wellbeing, The sound of my ability reflects on how the insights of disabled musicians can help transform cultures of music pedagogy. The narrative—richly illuminated with drawings, photos, poetry and film—shines a light on society’s shared role in creating a socially just, anti-ableist and inclusive music education, using Dalcroze practice as a case study.