A MASTER’S degree in jazz performance was conferred yesterday on a tailor from Cork city who has dyslexia and left school at 16 having “never passed an exam”.
Tom Mulcahy, who tutors students at the department of music in University College Cork, said he was “over the moon” at receiving his MA at Cork Institute of Technology.
It has been a long road for Mr Mulcahy, who suffered from low self-esteem in his youth and was diagnosed with dyslexia 10 years ago, only after he had married and reared a family.
Originally from Tipperary, he has been living in Cork city since the mid-1980s. He said the one happier memory from school was when he discovered he could play the tin whistle better than his classmates.
“It was a wonderful feeling. One that I had never experienced in a school setting. I think I knew I could learn things and accomplish things, but just differently.”
In his 20s, he began playing guitar, mandolin and banjo in pubs and traditional Irish music sessions. He followed in his grandfather’s footsteps as a self-employed tailor based on Washington Street, Cork, but music has always been his first love.
As a young man, he also went to see jazz legend Chuck Mangione play and from that night he was hooked on jazz music.
For people with dyslexia, difficulties with short-term memory and processing information makes learning a challenge. Reading music is especially difficult for dyslexics.
Mr Mulcahy uses slow-speed transcribers, digital Dictaphones, computers and iPods in his studies. To help with his reading, he uses Interactive Metronome (IM) – a neurological assessment and treatment tool.
It uses neurosensory and neuro-motor exercises aimed at improving the brain’s inherent ability to repair or remodel itself through a process called neuroplasticity.
As a part-time tutor, Mr Mulcahy provides IM treatment for a variety of users including people diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, Asperger’s syndrome, ADD/ADHD, cerebral palsy and limb amputees.
Some 33 other students received qualifications at the annual CIT Cork School of Music conferrings yesterday.
They included Conor Palliser from Enniskeane in west Cork, the 2009 student of the year.
He has been selected to perform with the European Youth Orchestra.