Artists

Kerry  started  thinking about  the idea of using  music as a means of   making people happy, while  also helping them with certain  essential tasks or goals, i.e. getting  to school in the morning, etc. He thought  of other ideas and lessons, too, that were commonly  practiced, and he began to think of songs as concepts  – employing phrases and language that were part of the everyday  vernacular of this world.

As  he researched  other musical expressions  available for the Special  Needs community, it appeared  they were mainly patronizing and   not quite mature enough, as if only  intended for very young people, or worse,  as if the age of this particular audience was  irrelevant or not even acknowledged. This caused  Kerry to focus on music that was more appropriate for  all ages, as he saw that people with disabilities also enjoyed  rock, rap, pop, folk, reggae and indeed all other genres.

His  vision  and goal  was to create  music to entertain,  to enrich and to assist,  in any way possible, in the  lives of those with or without   developmental disabilities. Kerry also  hoped the songs would make the listener  sing and dance, and with this model he planned  to make an album whose theme would fit this niche,  as he determined there wasn’t anything else in the market  quite like that.

After  a few years,  he’d finally written  a couple of songs, made  a demo and started playing  them with his students. He was  overjoyed at the response – they loved  it! Kerry felt he had finally made a musical   connection with this audience, and an artistic breakthrough.  

The  best part  was that the  music itself was  more age appropriate   for these young adults  than most music aimed at  people with Special Needs.  Music made specifically for an  individual of any age with a developmental  disability tended to be characteristically juvenile.  That is, it was usually inappropriate for a twenty-­‐year-­‐old  to listen to patronizing tunes about counting to three, for example,  even if this twenty-­‐year-­‐old is developmentally much younger than his/her  age.