Beauty from Broken: a piano solo I never wanted to compose
I’d rather not be sharing this piano solo for left hand with you.
Yet, an accident on Thanksgiving 2019 leaves me no choice.
On that morning, our son 25-year-old Carter was snorkeling and was struck by a boat.
Carter lost his right arm and almost both legs. His left arm was spared but his hand, his dominant hand, took a severe blow from the blade of a motor. The gash missed a main nerve by a millimeter. With the expertise of surgeons and some plates and rods, Carter’s hand is back to full use.
After months of recuperation, his left hand eventually found it’s way back to the piano but, without his right.
It was a difficult reunion with his digital piano purchased just weeks before the accident. All the repertoire that Carter had worked on before by Beethoven, Liszt, and Chopin and was written for two hands. In his ongoing process of reconciliation with the piano, he challenges himself to redistribute some of these beloved pieces for one hand. He’s also open to single-hand literature and has played an arrangement by Daniel Light and played Bach’s Prelude for Cello in G. Currently he is working on Scriabin’s Nocturne for Left Hand.
Like Carter, I share in the magnetic pull of making music at the piano. The piano has been a sanctuary of therapy for me. It’s given my grief a voice. The first piece I wrote after the accident was Angel 94 that recounts the events of that tragic day. A number of arrangements of hymns followed but for quite some time, I avoided composing a piece for left hand only. The thought of resorting to just one hand to play piano was incomprehensible to me. Knowing that our son had no choice but to deal with a single hand was devastating and yet, I couldn’t ignore it. And thus, Beauty from Broken came to be. Carter preferred one ending and I liked the other so the ending is your choice!
Carter plays Beauty from Broken in the video below.
It is my hope that you enjoy playing Beauty from Broken. Feel free, as Carter does in his performance, to explore expressive options throughout. Take note of how challenging it is to play musically when limited to one hand.
It is my hope that you and your studio find inspiration in Carter’s remarkable recovery. When a student breaks an arm and needs one-handed repertoire or when a student complains about practicing or groans when something gets hard, feel free to use Carter as an example of what “hard” looks like. Show them what perseverance and resilience promises despite losing an arm—music making wins!
Music calls both Carter and me to the keys again and again because it holds a transformative power to restore and heal the broken and the broken hearted. As Carter comes to terms with his minority body, it’s not acceptance (one of the stages of grief) that will bring me peace; it’s finding meaning.
Days after the ventilator was removed, Carter said two things that I will never forget:
I swam as fast as I could
I can make more impact now than I did before the accident.
Carter wants to be more than a feel-good story. That’s not why he swam as fast as he could!
He hopes that you will share his story with others and help him make an impact. He is deeply committed to developing initiatives to change dive flags and encourage divers and boaters to work together. Through his loss, Carter, along with the captain of the boat that struck him, aim to make permanent changes in how humans behave in our oceans.
Along with playing the piano, Carter is a fish fanatic just like his friend Andy who was snorkeling with him that day and who saved his life. They set up an Instagram account called FloridaFishboys where they share their knowledge of native and non-native fish that they catch and release.
One of Carter’s drawings now available on stickers.
Carter has also taken to drawing fish. His pencil color drawings have been crafted into stickers and now note cards. You can find them at the store Floridafishboyz store. All proceeds are donated to Sea Turtle Adventures in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Read more about Carter’s recovery here.
Read an award-winning article of Carter and Andy’s experience here.
Thank you for sticking with our family through this devastating ordeal and your continued support of Carter’s pursuit to make an impact!
