Music for Shay

This campaign is a fund for the musical studies of Shay Morgan, a 13-year-old with progressive vision loss, who has been playing Bluegrass music since finding out about her future without sight. Shay, based in central Florida, loves to learn and to do so at a quick pace in order to take advantage of her current visual abilities. The funds raised will be used to acquire the training and skills necessary to develop her talents and love of playing multiple instruments. This will carry her through her life as her vision loss progresses.

Shay was diagnosed in August of 2021 with a degenerative retinal disorder called Retinitis Pigmentosa which leads to blindness through the loss of low light vision and then the eventual loss of the entire field of vision. As means to establish skills that extend beyond the use of sight, Shay began ukulele lessons at the age of 11 and within months, started learning banjo after watching an online rendition of Foggy Mountain Breakdown.

Just months later she took up learning guitar in the spring of 2022 and by fall attended the Suwannee Roots Revival music festival, where she was invited on stage at the banjo workshop and performed in the kid’s talent show. When she returned home, she was inspired to take up the fiddle and by spring of 2023 was at the Suwannee Spring Reunion music festival, and once again performed in the same events. In the early summer Shay got to take her first road trip to Nashville and found a deep love for vintage instruments by spending time at Carter Vintage and Gruhn Guitars. It was on this trip that she got to meet and play with Wyatt Ellis and added a mandolin to her musical repertoire.

At times over the past couple years, she needed a cane to walk as her vision loss caused mobility issues, but never gave up her steadfast spirit for learning Bluegrass music. Shay has been largely influenced by watching and listening to artists Billy Strings, Molly Tuttle, and Doc Watson.

This GoFundMe campaign will help secure a musical future for Shay by providing music lessons for all her instruments (guitar, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, and soon upright bass), acquisition of more instruments and upgrades, pickups and amps, music camps, and travel expenses to music events. It is also a goal of hers to sit in on an artist’s recording session and perhaps one day be able to record on her own. Shay is so blessed to have budding musical talent and she would like to share those talents with the world.

@TheShayMorgan on Instagram

All contributions to this fund are greatly appreciated by Shay and her family.