Considered a spitfire by one of her closest friends at BYU–Hawaii, Keala Tamoama, a freshman music major from Florida, is proficient in four instruments and has chronic carpal tunnel. She has a love for Chopin and conducting. She loves her cousin, her first music teacher, who she said inspired her to pursue her passion. Tamoama said music is essential for a person’s development and a world without it would be boring and “b-flat.”
“She’s incredible. I love listening to her talk about different composers. I love being able to listen to her play,” said Cambree Oliver, Tamoama’s best friend and a sophomore from Arizona majoring in graphic design. “Occasionally she’ll send me videos of her practicing and usually I forward those to my mom. I find Keala talented and she’s overcome a lot of struggles to get to where she is.”
Dealing with carpal tunnel
When she was young, Tamoama said she was diagnosed with chronic carpal tunnel. “It started in my pinkie finger. It felt sore and like it was burning. I felt tingling. I got my carpal tunnel from playing lots of piano growing up, and I didn’t take very good care of my hands.”
She said carpal tunnel can make it hard to practice her pieces. “If it’s bad, I can feel numbness up to my elbow, but now it’s to where I’ll feel it in my fingers. That means I need to stop, stretch, and then I can go back to playing."
Jennifer Duerden, a special instructor at BYUH and Tamoama’s piano teacher, said, “It’s a struggle she dealt with a bit more before coming here, but with anybody that has a performance injury, we have to be careful how we treat it because we don’t want it to get worse. “We [want to teach] students things that will help them have a lifelong career in music, not just a temporary career, so… we go carefully and make sure we’re not aggravating something… and there are things we can do to improve it too. It’s almost like cross-training. We develop all the other muscles so that they’re not relying just on the ones they use for piano.”
Tamoama said she plays piano, organ, flute, and clarinet despite dealing with carpal tunnel issues. “I’m really comfortable with woodwind instruments. I’ve been playing them since elementary and middle school.” She said she also has a basic understanding of string instruments.
Duerden described her as versatile. “She’s passionate about what she does. She wants to do lots of musical things. She has an interest in piano, but she also plays an instrument in the wind orchestra. She has an interest in steel drums, which she hasn’t started, but at some point, she’ll probably do that as well.
“To me, it shows she has an interest in a variety of music. She’s a good student in class. She’s diligent about coming every day and she understands what’s going on. I think she has a lot of potential as a music major here.”
A love for music
Tamoama said, “My mom told me when I was 3 years old I couldn’t stand pitches at all. She said anytime I would hear an organ at church, I would start screaming for it to stop.
“By the time I was 5, my parents started to notice I had an interest in the piano. At age 7, I started taking lessons from my cousin.”
Describing her relationship with her cousin, Sam Fleming, Tamoama said they’re close and he’s an inspiration to her. She said they ask each other for advice, but she will often remind him she is just an undergrad. She said her cousin, Sam, does almost everything in the music industry and credits him for helping guide her throughout her journey.
Tamoama said another thing that got her started were her music classes in elementary and middle school when there was still funding for them. “I had some great teachers in elementary school who encouraged me to take up an instrument. Piano became my thing and I’ve been playing it ever since.”
When asked about her thoughts on school budget cuts for music classes, Tamoama said, “This is something I really advocate for. I strongly agree music is essential to development. Even in English classes I’ve used songs to help me memorize things.
“Another thing is mental health. I’ll come [into the music rooms] and take my issues and feelings to the piano. It has kept me mellow. I can pound my emotions out without breaking anything. I can find a piece somebody else has written and it’s exactly how I feel. I can play it and feel better by the end of it. It’s like this for anybody. Music is an emotion.
“It’s also taught me social skills. You wouldn’t think, locked up in a music room all day, I’d have many social interactions, but it actually pushes me to collaborate with people.
"I would never be able to play in a college wind band if I didn’t collaborate with others. You learn social skills with music. I feel cutting the budget for music programs [prevents students from] developing the way they should.”
Her favorite conductor
Tamoama said Leonard Bernstein, who wrote the music for “West Side Story,” is a pianist and conductor she admires. “He was one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century. I saw a video where he could conduct with only his eyebrows and facial expressions.
“I’m watching and thinking, ‘This is an orchestra of about 500. How does he do this?’ But it was his own piece so he knew what he wanted and the musicians knew what he expected. It just showed his control over a massive concert orchestra when he conducted it with just his eyebrows.”
She laughed and shared another example of a conductor who directed his musicians using nothing but a toothpick.
“Every conductor’s different. You learn your conductor. You learn their style. It’s muscle memory at that point. In practice, you’ve drilled over and over. Once it’s time for the performance, you don’t have to worry about it. And a good conductor never actually has to conduct their orchestra. There’s already a sense of trust there.”
Tamoama said she conducted concert band in high school and it was fun. “I would love to do it professionally. But you need connections, money, and the patience to get there.”
One of her idols
Tamoama said her favorite composer is Frédéric Chopin. “He had a depressing life and died young. He was driven out of Poland because of war and moved to Paris to study music. You can tell his music is reminiscent of Poland. It's just sad and mellow. It’s interesting to see he needed to vent out his emotions.
“The notes are simple but the meaning behind it is what we’re trying to bring out, and it’s so artistic, even though the notes are very bland. He just had this way of writing music where you really got to know him, and that’s what I love. I never get sick of his music. I feel like every single time I listen to his pieces I learn something new.”
Tamoama said she’s learned what music can do and what it’s meant for thanks to Chopin. “He could never return home [to Poland] and it was hard. I learned that music that is moved by the heart is what attracts listeners. When you play or listen to Chopin’s works, you are playing or hearing raw emotions.
“I personally think that playing his works here and being far away from home [myself] has given me a glimpse into how he must have felt.”
Feeling the keys
Tamoama said, “Sister Duerden’s awesome. She’s worked with me because she understands having hand injuries. When we’re doing technique together, we do certain exercises to strengthen my fingers and wrist like scale exercises. Her technique is difficult, but it’s fun. It’s literally meant to strengthen your fingers.”
Tamoama said they call these strength exercises “feeling the keys.” While her classmates are playing scales at full speed, Tamoama said she slows things down to get all the way into the keys so she can take them one at a time.
When Tamoama is stressed out and nervous on stage during a performance, she said she likes to look at her reflection in what she calls the black shiny finish of the piano. “It’s like feeling the keys in a different way.”
She continued, “There’s a really isolating feeling when you walk onto the stage and it’s just you and the piano. But there’s something so comforting about seeing the reflection of the keys and your fingers while you’re playing.”
One of her favorite friends
Oliver said Tamoama is an incredible friend. “I met her at student orientation [Fall] Semester, and we became really good friends about a month later. I was waiting for a friend [one morning] and she was headed to class and we just ended up stopping and talking.
“She’s a little spitfire, but that makes it’s fun when we hang out. We refer to each other as our partner in crime. If one of us gets into trouble, the other is there. I’m glad she’s my friend.”
Writer: Emi Wainwright