A choir for those who find talking difficult

COLCHESTER - When Jay O’Neill introduced the Aphasia Choir’s next song, “Just the Way You Are,” he spoke haltingly as he noted that Billy Joel’s hit came out in 1977 on the album “The Stranger” and won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

O’Neill tried to say more about the song, but he couldn’t. His post-stroke condition – expressive aphasia, or difficulty using language – wouldn’t let him continue.

“That’s OK, we can practice that more,” choir director Karen McFeeters Leary told O’Neill at last week’s rehearsal.

When the choir began singing, though, O’Neill and his fellow stroke survivors sounded fluid and free. O’Neill sat in front of his sheet music, arms folded, singing softly and flawlessly as Joel’s lyrics sang the praises of loving another as-is, without condition. Following the rehearsal O’Neill referred to the act of singing as liberating, a release from the frustration caused by the trouble he has speaking.

“Singing is no problem at all. I did it well from the start” following his stroke 13 years ago, O’Neill said with his deliberate speaking cadence. “It’s an outlet.”

O’Neill is part of a chorus of stroke survivors with varying degrees of aphasia who experience that same sense of freedom when they sing. They will perform Sunday in a concert at St. Michael’s College that’s meant to entertain but also to inform concert-goers about the effects of aphasia.

“I know the talking challenges faced by these people, especially the three who can’t talk at all. Watching those mouths moving, it’s incredible,” said Leary, a singer-songwriter who works for the University of Vermont Medical Center as a speech-language pathologist. “Of everything I have done personally and professionally, this tops the cake.”

According to Leary, those with aphasia have trouble talking, yet because the hemisphere of the brain that mediates music is undamaged, stroke survivors can often sing more easily than they can speak. She began the Aphasia Choir three years ago, and its membership has grown from 11 to 17.

Leary said the choir empowers the singers to educate the public about their condition while boosting the self-esteem of the members. “When you can’t communicate you lose friendships and connections,” she said. That changes, according to Leary, when stroke survivors interact with each other in the choir. “You get a sense of belonging. It’s amazing to see the joy.”

Last week’s rehearsal in the chapel of the UVM Medical Center’s Fanny Allen campus showed the choir’s range. They and the supporters who joined them rehearsed the sprightly standard “Side by Side.” “That’s one of those songs that can move a little fast,” Leary told the choir.

They moved on to the melancholy “Can’t Help Falling in Love” made famous by Elvis Presley. “Beautiful,” Leary told the choir members as they transitioned smoothly to the song’s bridge.

The singers cheered at the conclusion of the songs. They saved their biggest cheers for Chris Colt, who because of a stroke can no longer strum a guitar with his right hand. He joined pianist Paul Webb and percussionist David Allerton in leading the choir through Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line.” Colt operated an adapted guitar that uses a pedal-operated arm to strum as he played the chords with his left hand.

Not every song went so smoothly. The choir struggled through the tongue-twisting phrase “When the winds of changes shift” in Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young.”

“This is not about perfection,” Leary reminded the group. “This is about joy and sharing your amazing courage and skill.” She said after the rehearsal that having the choir members speak as they introduce each song helps show what those with aphasia deal with on a daily basis.

“The audience needs to hear the challenge,” Leary said.

O’Neill, 59, of Winooski, faces that challenge every day. “The first two years were really hard work. Karen was my speech therapist and I built up to now” and being able to talk with difficulty, O’Neill said. “It took a year or more, maybe a year and a half to do it.” He said he mixes up pronouns and has trouble spelling, as he did with his own last name after last week’s rehearsal.

“I had, like, two letters,” O’Neill said, “and then it was like free-for-all.”

Singing is different. He’s been singing his whole life, starting with the songs of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young while growing up in Philadelphia and continuing after moving to Vermont 22 years ago, where he worked in food and wine sales before his stroke. (He now works 20 hours a week bagging groceries at City Market in Burlington.) He said he often sings while doing daily chores or going out for a walk.

“Singing is so normal and speaking is not normal. It’s really hard,” he said. “I think it (the word he wants) but I can’t say it.”

Many of the songs the choir members sing carry themes familiar to stroke survivors as they work to recover their physical and linguistic abilities and find their places in a post-stroke world. “Lean On Me” is exactly what the singers do as they become one in song. The lyrics to “Bridge Over Troubled Water” bring solace and encouragement (“When you’re weary/Feeling small/When tears are in your eyes/I will dry them all/I’m on your side/When times get rough”).

When the choir covered The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” they did indeed take a sad song and make it better. The chorus of “na na na na na-na-na-na” soared with joy.

Leary told the group to expect Sunday’s crowd to sing along with “Hey Jude,” and then stand and applaud the choir. “I’m going to get out of the way and let them cheer you,” Leary said, “and then I’m going to cry.”

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck.

If you go

WHAT: Aphasia Choir concert

WHEN: 2 p.m. Sunday

WHERE: McCarthy Arts Center, St. Michael’s College, Colchester

ADMISSION: Free. 847-3639