By Katy Savage, Standard Staff
There’s an echo at the entrance of buildings. If you listen closely, there’s the hustle and bustle of people coming and going.
Brent Buswell has that sound memorized.
Buswell is blind. He picks up the sounds others miss, like the jingling of someone rummaging their pockets, the beeps in video games and the sound effects in movies. He memorizes their meanings.
“He hears everything,” said Stefan Schernthaner, which is perhaps what makes Buswell so good at music.
Buswell, 35, plays accordion. He’s toured the country with the Stratton Mountain Boys, an Austrian music group.
Buswell graduated from the Berklee College of Music in 2003. He was named the 2008 Finlandia Foundation “Performer of the Year.”
“That guy is a musical genius,” said Schernthaner, the leader of the Stratton Mountain Boys who has known Buswell for 11 years.
Buswell memorizes the music.
“To me playing music is like a game,” Buswell said. “The real reason I love it is I love how it affects other people.”
![Buswell's daughter Hannah, 8, and wife Crista play Christmas music at the senior center. All three were born blind. (Katy Savage Photo)]()
Buswell’s daughter Hannah, 8, and wife Crista play Christmas music at the senior center. All three were born blind. (Katy Savage Photo)
Buswell lives in Pennsylvania with his wife Crista, 37, and their 8-year-old daughter Hannah. All three are musically gifted. All three are also blind. They live completely independently, memorizing the layout of their home like they do music.
They listen to music on YouTube, CDs and tapes and memorize the songs after three or four listens.
They memorize the hand movements—the 41 keys on his accordion and the 88 on the piano.
“If you’re looking for a ‘C’ it’s always after a group of three and right before two black keys,” said Crista.
They have thousands of songs in their repertoire.
The Buswells recently performed a Christmas concert at the Thompson Senior Center.
Buswell’s wife Crista was on piano, Buswell was on the accordion and Hannah was in a chair beside her mother.
The Buswells made up melodies, combining “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” with “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” “Jolly Old Saint Nick” and “Up on The Rooftop,” for example.
Hannah stood, stomped her feet and sang along to “Jingle Bells” as her parents played the instruments.
Crista cued Hannah in for singing “Oh Holy Night.”
“Here we go,” said Hannah.
And she hit all the high notes.
The family threw their heads back and laughed when they made a mistake.
The Buswells insist there’s nothing unique about them.
“I don’t have superpowers,” Buswell said.
Buswell’s blindness doesn’t make his hearing better, Buswell said.
“If you close your eyes you become aware of more things with your ears,” said Crista in agreement.
The Buswells were all born blind but their parents can see and their siblings can see.
To Crista, being blind is just an annoyance.
“It’s like having feet that are too big,” she said.
Buswell grew up skiing and he rode a bike up and down the streets of Ludlow and trying to keep up with his two other brothers. He said he was the first blind graduate of the Ludlow public schools.
Buswell grew up thinking he could be a boxer. He was never taught to believe otherwise.
“We treated him just like our other two boys — no different. If he wanted to do something, he did it,” his mother, Sylvia said.
It was clear early on that Buswell was musically gifted.
“We knew he had perfect pitch when he was about 4 years old,” said Sylvia.
Buswell starting playing the piano at age three and grew up sitting beside his parents’ old record player, which is how he memorized to play his first song — which he performed for the Vermont Legislature when he was 5.
By the time he was a senior in high school, Buswell appeared on the Sally Jessy Raphael show with his accordion. He played in New York City that day, he remembers, and made it back home in time for his high school concert in Ludlow that same night.
Schernthaner was blown away when he first heard Buswell perform.
“He has a memory like unbelievable,” Schernthaner said.
The Buswells insist their memory is no better than others. But they have to rely on it more.
The Buswells like all kinds of sounds. They like sci-fi movies, like “The Matrix” and “Star Wars” for the robotic noises, machines and blasts.
Buswell and Crista are giddy when they talk about the new Transformers movie out this summer and can’t stop talking about “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.” They’ve read the book.
One of their favorite pastimes is video games. Crista Hannah like to listen as Buswell plays from memory.
“I memorize the sound effects and what they mean,” he said.
Buswell likes the “classics,” like Super Mario, Pac-Man and Astroburn.
He learns the game by hearing someone else play on YouTube or he times his finger movements on the remote to the sound of the music in the game.
“Normally it works,” he said. “But sometimes the sound overshadows the music.”
Buswell ferociously stroked his computer keys while he played Astrobrun, a battleship game, one recent afternoon.
He knew when he was being attacked in Astroburn, when to move to get out of the way and when to launch a missile by the beep, beep, beeps.
Hannah stood from the couch and swayed back and forth to the noises in her father’s game.
The Buswells have a positive outlook.
“There’s so much to do and so much to explore, why sit and do nothing?” Crista said.
This article first appeared in the December 29, 2016 edition of the Vermont Standard.
Niquette Bay State Park: Guide Jessica Savage from Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation. Meet: Noon at trailhead in Niquette Bay State Park. Hike: 1.5 miles, two hours, moderate terrain.
Color is central to her perception as an artist and to her work, she noted.
