By Mara Rose Williams
The Kansas City Star 

Kansas students create device for disabled teen musician

 

August 31, 2018



SHAWNEE, Kan. (AP) — The sweet sound of piano music engulfed the Burke family's Shawnee home.

In their family room one recent afternoon, Heidi Burke sat atop a blue velvet ottoman pulled up to the upright piano.

Heidi, 14, was born without the lower part of her arms or legs — a "congenital quadrilateral amputee." Without hands, except for a tiny fleshy digit she calls her thumb, she learned to play piano at age 8.

Her parents and her piano teacher were amazed.

"She would take runs and chord progressions right up the piano with both hands and she didn't have fingers, and it sounded good...



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