Listening was a 17-year-old who used to goof off in class because he wasn't really into piano.

"Keith has been my special project for the last three years," Dr. Honnie ("honey") Spencer likes to say.

When he started lessons, Keith Moore Jr. poked at the keys with one finger.

But it's much more than just learning notes and music. Spencer teaches lifelong lessons, from developing confidence to being patient with the piano and yourself.

Moore is one of dozens of students Spencer has taught for free over seven years. A family physician, Spencer founded the Logan Community Music School in Concord, wanting to breathe music into the lives of children and adults who otherwise couldn't afford lessons.

She pays for the piano books, exam fees and even music camp. Most of the younger students don't have pianos at home.

Opening a window

On weekdays, Spencer is better known as the medical director for the Logan and McGill clinics operated by Cabarrus Community Health Centers.

She satisfies her other love -- music -- on weekends. She teaches piano and music theory on Friday evenings and nearly all day on Saturdays at Grace Lutheran Church in Concord's Logan neighborhood.

The front room of the church's education center brims with chattering children, parents and adult students. Sometimes they'll sit for a hour or more, waiting for their lessons. Lacy curtains flutter at the open windows, welcoming in sounds of the street.

Parents say every child leaves with something, such as how to carry themselves and be confident, how to perform for an audience and bow gracefully, how to be patient and disciplined, how to get along with all ages and, yes, how to be a musician.

Music "opens up a window, and maturity starts to emerge," said Moore's father, Keith Moore Sr.

Spencer knows each student, and even delivered some of them, including Stephanie Aguilar. Spencer, fluent in Spanish and French, can talk with the Spanish-speaking parents about how their children are doing.

Moore, a senior from Concord, has developed a close bond with his teacher.

She was his mentor for the graduation project that is required before he can receive a diploma next month from Robinson High School.

That's fitting. Spencer started her school because she saw children, mostly from African-American and Latino families, who needed mentors as much as they needed Mozart.

"I saw lots of beautiful children who, if they only had the chance, and the financial capability for formal lessons, would do very well," she said.

With a foundation in music, she thought, they could do anything.

Early examples

Growing up in Antigua in the Caribbean, Spencer learned from her mother, Emerald, who often took in children who needed a home, and her father, Keithley Spencer, a mechanic, who would give money to the needy.

Honnie Spencer has followed the example of her childhood piano teacher, Elizabeth Keoghan, who would teach children in the neighborhood even if families couldn't pay.

"If you have a talent, you have to share it," Spencer said.

Her teacher discovered she had talent. Spencer graduated cum laude from Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa., with bachelor's degrees in biology and classical piano performance.

She went on to graduate from Case Western Reserve School of Medicine, study piano at the Cleveland Institute of Music and earn certification in classical piano performance from the Trinity College of Music in London.

Spencer, 41, now a single mother, is an inexhaustible energy cell packed into a 5-foot, 2-inch, 100-pound frame. She showed up one Saturday in slim turquoise pants, a white top with cut-out shoulders, strappy slide pumps and a ring with a turquoise the size of a generous grape.

Yet she drives a Ford Escort with nearly 461,500 miles and a side-view mirror that once was strapped on with duct tape. She hasn't found a car she likes better.

Weekdays, the trusty car carries Spencer and her 15-year-old son, Norm, from their Mooresville home to Huntersville, where Norm boards the bus for Charlotte Catholic High School. Then she heads to the Logan medical clinic in Concord.

Her piano students -- beginners to advanced, ages 3 to 67 -- look up to her as musical mentor and role model.

"You put your hand on my hand, and feel. It's very relaxed," Spencer told Barbara Lostutter, 66, who was learning the old hymn "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross." Lostutter rested her left hand on her teacher's. Together they glided as one hand, touching G, A, B-flat.

"Her giving back to the community and being patient makes me feel I'm just as important as a 6-year-old or a 14-year-old," Lostutter said.

Learning never ends

The night before their fall recital, Spencer took her students to the Cabarrus Country Club, so they wouldn't feel anxious about playing in a grand room with two fancy pianos.

Keith Moore played perfectly during practice. But during his first recital, which counted toward his critical graduation project, he forgot some notes and quickly looked up. A few feet away was Spencer, standing on the other side of the baby grand. She tells her students not to announce mistakes.

"He said something like, 'Oh, wow.' He knew I told him not to do that," Spencer said later.

But Moore continued playing. When he was done, Spencer told the audience the beauty of performing is that when you make some blunder, you keep going.

And students care what she thinks, even when their playing isn't pretty. When Moore hadn't practiced enough, she once told him, "This is not good."

"In the real world, no one is going to sugar-coat it for you," Moore said.

Now he's finished with lessons and is going out into that world. Moore passed all four parts of his graduation project on the piano and hopes to study communication at Wingate University.

As he backed away from the piano bench after his last lesson, another eager student stepped up, ready to learn.

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