We were lucky to catch up with Lee Stockner recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lee, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later

When your passion project is also your means of living, challenging choices are made. No matter what, even if I went completely broke, there would be nothing holding me back from working with students with special needs on the piano. I believed completely in myself and in my program. I also believed in myself to run my business, however, the purposes of my programs kept evolving and as I could offer more programs and products, my business began to lose its identity. In the way, perhaps I was not imaginative enough with what obstacles may lie ahead and that made me naive.

For the reason that Music Lee Inclined Guy, Inc. began to lose its identity, I had to choose between fostering a specific identity or to keep building programs till it was done, no matter what. I chose the latter, partially because of my attitude that no matter what, even if the sacrifice came at personal cost, this job would be completed. While I do not regret the grind of completing the job, I certainly wish I had kept a regular job for longer before fully engaging in an entrepreneurial path. It made everything harder in the short term but in the long term, I came out ready to offer some sort of engaging pathway to everyone, from an individual learner to a full scale corporate enterprise.

Lee, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

This story is unique. My 25-year-old self was a lost soul who was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder who never completed college. I was doing what I had done best since I was 15 years old: teaching piano lessons at the local music store on Long Island. When a mother came to the store with her 11-year old son who was diagnosed with Autism, she asked if any staff members taught adaptive music lessons. My boss then, who is my business partner now, said ‘no one here has specific training but I think Lee would be the right person to try.’ Our lessons were immediately successful because I had a natural sense of how Chase was perceiving my words. When there was confusion, I could naturally decode the miscommunication and move forward. The best example is during the first lesson while I was teaching him about a “key” on the piano, he looked at my pockets because that’s where most people keep their keys. I explained to him the difference between a house key and a piano key so we could move along. Since that day, Chase has been my student and my career has been laser focused on empowering people with disabilities to play the piano. Today, I am the President of Adaptive Learning for the World Piano Teachers Association!

After gaining years of experience working in schools for students with Autism and continuing to teach lessons, I began to meld the two together based on my experience with Chase, however, I learned just how different each student was. Chase was able to read and succeed with traditional music notes but many other students, unfortunately, could not. When I was in one of the schools, I was asked to help a student learn to type and upon success, watched his fingers move in a pattern-based format. I realized that these were similar to the movements on the piano that my “neuro-typical” students were learning in our traditional classical lessons. Then, I brainstormed further and invented an entirely new language of music based on colored letters in rhythmically designed boxes, and it worked! It was a matter of time until I developed this small idea into the full adaptive classical curriculum named Occupational Octaves Piano™.

While this summation skips over dozens of steps, accomplishments, joys, and relationships, I will fast forward to today. For over a decade, my method has been sold worldwide to music teachers, music therapists, occupational therapists, special educators, recreation therapists, and other related professionals. Chase is still my student and plays wonderfully. Me, my teaching staff, and various users of Occupational Octaves Piano™ have empowered thousands of people who would struggle to read and succeed with traditional music notes to play for a lifetime. Like the world of traditional notes, the world of Occupational Octaves Piano™ features an ever-expanding catalog of music, including the great classical works of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin and many others!

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

As a music teacher, I knew about how the final product landed in the customer’s hand when it came to music books. When I wanted to write my own music book series, I had no manufacturing connections and I was a complete unknown in the music education world. So, I had to do things on my own and for me, it was as simple as learning how to do it. If you want to complete a large task and journey into the unknown, the only so many reasonable steps to take next. For me, I looked into my contacts for graphic designers who could help me put the book together and printers. Then, I researched the cost of accessories I’d need to include, found out optimal pricing based on available funds, and purchased what was needed. We found the printer, tested some copies, and went to work!

The only truly easy part for me is related to orders and shipping, as I have a business partner who is responsible for that portion.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My passion to help people with special needs comes from a deeply personal place. As a teenager, I was diagnosed with an attention deficit and it had a large impact on my life, mainly providing a persistently strong excuse to fail. I did poorly in high school and took six years to complete a two-year associate’s degree because I just didn’t care. Fast-forward a few years from those days and I became an inventor, publisher, author, business owner, employer, presenter, and many other titles that fell under the umbrella of entrepreneur. As I continued to grow my program, it became clear that it could have a profoundly positive impact on the mind and the body to such a degree that it could be considered as a medical pathway. The only way to prove notions like this is through the world of published medical research, which I had no experience with, nor connections in. Plus, I was attention deficit, not a strong reader/writer, and would not have bet on myself to reach this goal.

I put pen to paper a full six years before my paper, “Classical Piano as a Pathway to Flow States for Learners with Disabilities” was published in the April 2020 edition of Traditional Medicine Research. It was a special journal dedicated to brain science and although it happened exclusively due to my own persistent efforts, I still cannot believe this particular accomplishment is attached to my name! It was a grueling grind that I actually had to give up on half way through until fate came knocking (through LinkedIn) and the editor-in-chief of the journal reached out with his invitation. I was ready that day and became a published author just a few months later.

Contact Info:

• Website: OccupationalOctaves.com
• Instagram: @OccOctavesPiano
• Facebook: Occupational Octaves Piano
• Linkedin: Occupational Octaves Piano
• Twitter: @OccOctavesPiano
• Youtube: Occupational Octaves Piano

Image Credits
Lee Stockner