Hello! Welcome to Dhyana’s Demos. My name is Dhyana Mishra and I am currently a sophomore in high school from West Melbourne, Florida.
During my freshman year, I began teaching piano lessons to special needs residents at Promise in Brevard, a local non-profit organization that provides housing to adults with cognitive and physical disabilities.
At first, I tried teaching my students using my own old piano books, which use traditional music notation. After a couple of weeks, I noticed that some students were struggling to learn this way. I thought that perhaps an easier and more effective method to teach them existed. That led me to do some research online, and that’s when I came across Occupational Octaves Piano™.
The results after I began implementing Occupational Octaves Piano™ were promising and astounding. The progress I saw in each of my students was so remarkable that I reached out to Mr. Lee Stockner, who was very kind and supportive as I grew as a teacher and an advocate of Occupational Octaves Piano™.
After a couple of months, I was truly able to understand the impact that learning music through Occupational Octaves Piano™ had on the residents and their families. I wanted to bring this experience to a larger audience so several others could share in this joy of discovering the world of music.
That’s why, under Mr. Stockner’s mentorship, I started creating video demonstrations of his curriculum. Below, you’ll find links to YouTube videos which are demonstrations of popular selections from the Occupational Octaves Piano™ curriculum. My hope is that these videos help not only special needs piano learners but also anyone who is interested in learning music in a simple, fun way.
Thank you for visiting Dhyana’s Demos. Enjoy!
Music Education Empowerment Specialists