audiohope.org - Music Pedagogy for the Blind

By David Goldstein
(this article was published in the International Journal of Music Education, No. 35, May 2000. Copyright of the article is vested in the International Society for Music Education.)

I am sure you are aware of people in the music world who are blind. You may even know someone with a visual problem involved in music. I run a summer Institute which brings together blind high school students from around the United States for the purpose of preparing for the serious study of music in college. As I tell you about the program and the teaching techniques we use, I hope it will start you thinking about how you might include a blind student of any age in music activities, if one should enroll in your class.

Our school is The Music and arts Center for the Handicapped, a nonprofit organization headquartered at the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut, about an hour from New York City. Originally started for people with vision problems, it has expanded to work with children and adults with a variety of disabilities, and is increasingly involved with community agencies to develop programs for youth at risk and sponsor city-wide cultural events. As director of its National Resource Center for Blind Musicians, I not only develop programs in Connecticut, but answer inquiries that come from around the world regarding braille music, accessible music technology, and teaching techniques. Gradually we have gotten to know musicians and teachers around the country whom we can call on for advice in any particular area. Sometimes they live close enough to a student to help out personally or serve as mentors.

The summer Institute came about because of calls for help from students, parents and teachers. A first-year music major entering college with several successful piano performances under his belt was overwhelmed to find that he couldn't keep up in sight-singing classes, was unable to submit assignments, and had no idea what his peers were talking about when using terms like bar lines and hair-pins. Moreover, he did not know what to suggest to his professors when they asked how they could make life easier. A piano teacher called looking for a place where his young student from Mexico could learn enough braille music to enter a Texas high school for the performing arts. A mother said she was sure her son had the academic background, but felt he needed more experience being on his own in a supervised setting, to practice cane travel and such college survival skills as getting through the cafeteria line and doing laundry. At one time, students learned many of these skills at schools for the blind. Now that most college-bound students go to local schools with sighted children, there isn't enough time in the day or staff with the background to teach skills beyond what is actually needed for school. The braille music code is generally near the bottom of the list. Another thing which all the students unfortunately seemed to have in common was a lack of friends at home. As hard as one tries, there seem to be certain stages in life where "difference" doesn't go unnoticed. Participation in a music group may help to bring about acceptance, but one needs to know how to get in. Our goal became to develop a program where students could get a start learning the special skills, practice and perform with others on an equal footing, gain confidence in their independence by being in a realistic situation with help available, find friends, and have fun.

We have run the program four years now. It takes place for three weeks each July. A maximum of ten students come to live at Sacred Heart University, a rural campus ideally suited for cane travel between buildings. Each morning, after walking to the dining room for breakfast, students travel by van to the University of Bridgeport for classes in braille music, computer, theory, keyboard, ensemble, and coaching in their particular instrument. Afterwards, students enjoy swimming, cookouts, trips to cultural events, tandem bicycle riding, and workshops by guest artists. We try as much as possible to bring in blind people already employed in the music field to talk about how they got into their careers and give advice. The students give two concerts of both ensemble and solo pieces. They go home much more confident about how they will handle the challenges ahead. Problems are not over, of course. Students call me often for ideas in locating a piece in braille, solving a technology glitch, or ways they can work with a teacher on dealing with an assignment which requires vision. The friendships they have made during the summer pay off, as they compare notes with fellow graduates. It has certainly made my life richer to be a part of the exciting happenings of these special young people.

Braille Music. We give this top priority, as it is the area in which students usually have least experience. It can make a tremendous difference for the serious student. Braille music provides all the information a sighted person sees on a page of print music -- notes and their values, dynamic and expression marks, and fingering. Of course, it looks much different, because all the information must be given on one line that the finger can read. The music staff is discarded completely. Braille is made up of "cells" of up to six dots, of which sixty- three combinations are possible. In music, the top four dots show the pitch of the note while the presence or absence of dots on the bottom show the rhythmic value. Special signs are placed before the note to show the octave or an accidental. A measure is ended with a space. A voice student can read braille and sing at the same time. A piano student reads a few measures of one hand part while playing with the other hand, then reversing hands to do the other hand part. The segments are put together until the whole piece is memorized. There are a number of books used to teach braille music. While the most ideal situation is for the teacher to be familiar with braille, one does not have to be. The teaching books are available in both braille and print, so that any music teacher can follow along with the student. It would be best for someone working with a beginner to have some training, or at least do some reading ahead of time to understand potential challenges. We have found that the learning of the braille itself is not as much a problem as the resistance a student who has always learned by ear may put up to reading music. It takes motivation to be able to put all the information together and to avoid confusing symbols that have different meanings in the literary braille code. Many of our students, even those who have played for years, have little understanding of the meaning of rhythmic concepts and have extreme difficulty counting. The best thing you can do as a teacher is to drill students on counting. Ear training in intervals is extremely important, as braille music uses interval signs any time notes of the same value are played together. I will not mention specific books and resources for braille learning here, as they will differ from country to country. In the U.S. the biggest source is the Library of Congress. There are good libraries in Australia, England, France, Germany, Holland, and New Zealand. Gradually, databases are being built so libraries can share their holdings. Soon braille music itself will be available on the Web. I will be happy to direct you to a local resource.

Technology. These days, computers are becoming a part of all music curricula. They are more important for blind people, as they can enable a student to produce assignments independently, which previously needed to be dictated to a copyist. Scoring programs are highly visual, and we are still looking for the ideal notation editor. Some blind composers are using such programs as Note Processor and Score, which allow notes to be entered as letters and numbers from the keyboard. Currently we mostly teach Cakewalk Pro Audio, a MIDI sequencer with a printing option good enough to handle first-year theory assignments. Blind students and studio musicians can use Cakewalk to produce high-quality musical recordings and arrangements. Access is provided by a Windows screen reader which converts the output into speech or braille. Information about third-party script files for Cakewalk access is available from Dancing Dots Braille Music Technology, 1754 Quarry Lane, P.O. Box 927, Valley Forge, PA 19482-0927 http://www.dancingdots.com Dancing Dots' flagship product is the GOODFEEL(R) Braille Music Translator, which will convert music stored in a computer, in MIDI or files produced by the notation program Lime, into braille. It is possible to scan music for braille conversion, but it requires a great deal of editing that cannot be done by a blind person. Many schools and studios use the Macintosh. Avoid it. The student should have his own PC set up for his needs. If necessary, files can be imported to different platforms.

Theory and Musicianship. Your rule as a teacher should be to make sure the blind student has everything it takes to function with other musicians, whether it be understanding musical concepts, knowing how to perform with others in an ensemble, and having good technique and deportment. It may not be necessary for the blind student to know what all the print notes and squiggles look like, but he should know enough to be able to think in terms of the staff when working on a piece with others. Here we show students the staff using a metal board with raised lines and notes made of magnetized rubber. Don't be afraid to comment on technique and posture. You know how important they are, and you will do a disservice not to work on them. The same holds true for appearance on and off the stage. It's what people see first that makes the biggest impression.