GLENWOOD SPRINGS - The 5-year-old autistic boy was having trouble with his family. So his mother wanted to see if he could connect to people through music.

Shanti Gruber was going to be his teacher.

"I said, 'Let him come in. Don't come in with him. Let him sit with us,'" said Gruber, 25, recalling the mother's apprehension when the two came for a lesson.

Right as the music began, the boy joined in.

"He just tuned in to what we were doing," said Gruber, a Glenwood Springs native who lives in Carbondale. "Soon we got him to beat on a drum to rhythm. He was connecting with the rest of the kids."

As the mother watched her son bang on the drum with the other kids during a series of lessons, she wept.

"Each time, he would start to make eye contact and do all these things that were so unexpected," Gruber said. "His mother was just in tears. She was so thankful that he could make a connection like that."

The young child and his mother didn't come again after those poignant lessons with Gruber. But those moments made her love teaching music to children, adults, or anyone who wants to find the music in their lives, she said.

"I think music is an amazing way to connect with anyone, let alone students," Gruber said. "I think just giving the kids the chance to learn something other than your regular reading, writing and arithmetic is a good way to bring everything all together. To get kids to sing and connect, that is so neat."

Gruber's passion for music led her to give her first music lesson when she was just 16. It then spurred her to go to the University of Northern Colorado to study music education.

Teaching music is now the focus of her young life.

Twenty-five people from across the area go to her for piano, guitar and voice lessons - some students ask for lessons in all three disciplines - at Glenwood Music, 715 Cooper Ave. Besides the lessons, Gruber is the Waldorf School on the Roaring Fork's official piano accompanist, works as a music teacher at Yampah Mountain High School and is a part of the "Pays to Play" program with Jazz Aspen Snowmass.

Although she makes a living as a music teacher, Gruber has musical aspirations of her own. She writes and performs her own music with roommate Meagan Goodwin. The duo make up the band called the Tippetts - whose sound Goodwin describes as folksy, with a blues and acoustic rock element. Gruber's sister, Sheena Gruber, joins them whenever she can.

And if not for a decision Gruber made last June, she wouldn't be helping local children and adults enjoy the pleasure of playing their own music at all. She had an offer for a music teaching job in California in hand and was at a crossroads in her life.

"I decided I didn't want to go," Gruber said. "It was a great job offer. Everything just turned to the 'No' sign. Everything is at my fingertips here. I have family and friends."

Isaac Burt's small, 5-year-old fingers peck at the black piano keys as Gruber plays a steady rhythm next to him. Both are in tune and in beat. But they are improvising, playing whatever comes to them in the moment.

"That was awesome. You like that one?" Gruber asks the young boy, who stares up at his teacher after they struck the last key of their sudden improvisation. "We can name this one. What do you think?"

Isaac whispers "Snowy Time." Outside of the small room in Glenwood Music where Gruber and Isaac are practicing is Burt's mother, Natalie Burt.

"We just happened upon Shanti," said Burt, who learned about her young son's teacher while inside Glenwood Music. "His lessons have been going really well. She is really creative."

Gruber continues the lesson, spurring a reticent Isaac to think of what they can add to their "Snowy Time" tune.

"It's up to you, maestro," she says.

Gruber, who began playing the piano when she was 5, has known she wanted to teach music since she was young. Growing up hanging around at Glenwood Music, the local store her father, Larry Gruber, owns and operates, did that to her, she said.

"I was really interested in teaching," Gruber said. "So my dad said, 'Why don't you try private lessons at the store and see if you are any good at it and if you like it."'

Gruber did. Nine years later, she is still doing it.

Isaac's lesson ends and Gruber gives him a sticker from a stash she has hidden underneath her piano chair. Isaac walks out to his mother, while Wade Passey, 9, comes into Gruber's lesson room with his guitar.

"Get a little closer and we'll get you tuned up," Gruber says to Wade, who has been taking lessons from Gruber for about a month. "Let's test it. How is the low E? Is it perfect?"

Wade strums his guitar, looking to Gruber for her approval. She smiles and helps the boy tune his guitar.

Contact Phillip Yates: 384-9117pyates@postindependent.com



Post Independent, Glenwood Springs, Colorado CO