[Menvi-discuss] Suggestions for expediting assignments.

Thu Feb 16 13:50:14 EST 2012

Reading a theory book in braille or getting one recorded would be a huge help.  Even reading slowly is better than wasting time in class not understanding anything.

On Feb 16, 2012, at 12:42 PM, Brandon Keith Biggs wrote:

> Hello,
> Thanks, the 8 key does it! I wondered what that was for...
> My theory class is horrible! I'm sitting in the first lecture part emailing this and napping because my teacher is up pointing at the board... He has written some notes on the board and he's explaining what he is doing by shifting chords around. I think half of it is he's beating a dead horse to death in explaining a concept but I wish I could be learning.
> Today I learned 2 things, there was two things that I was able to understand that wasn't all on the board. I'm wondering if there is anything I can suggest to my teacher that will let me learn? This class is 3 hours long and 2 concepts is a very small amount of information for me to take home.
> I'm wondering if I should just get a theory book and learn from reading even though I only read 40 words a minute in Braille and I learn about half as effective reading as I do listening. At the rate this class is going I'm afraid it would be a better use of time.
> The problem is that I need this class to graduate. Perhaps I can challenge the class, but honestly I want to learn face to face.
> This is first year theory and we just finished cantus firmus. I have one more quarter and I'm not sure what I should do. I'm itching for composing and I can count the amount of octaves I've composed for this class on one hand.
> please any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I hate this!
> Thank you,
> 
> Brandon Keith Biggs
> -----Original Message----- From: Kaiti Shelton
> Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 1:40 PM
> To: This is for discussing music and braille literacy
> Subject: Re: [Menvi-discuss] Suggestions for expediting assignments.
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I had some of these keyboard issues earlier in the year... What you
> have to do in order to make certain inverted chords on the keyboard is
> play some of the notes and then use the octave keys to adjust the
> keyboard.  Then you have to press 8 and that will allow you to add an
> additional note to the chord.  So in the inverted B chord for example,
> You could get away with playing the D sharp on the right side of the
> keyboard, and then make the keyboard an octave higher and add in the F
> sharp and B.  This same trick can be applied to other chords too.
> Like if you want to make a C major chord with 6 or 7 notes as you said
> you sometimes are asked to do, you could just add in the extra notes.
> 
> I could be wrong about this because I've never really seen a ton of
> people using lime to compare myself to, but I don't necessarily think
> that I'm slow at it.  I also don't think that using Lime is all that
> tedious; rather, I think that there is a discrepancy between what we
> have to do verses what the sighted students have to do.  Granted, a
> lot of this has been resolved quite nicely.  We can now prepare
> assignments and write our own scores just like the other students in
> our classes, but the main difference I see is that the other students
> don't have to transfer musical text to their own staff paper.  I think
> the time issues would be a lot less problematic if there were, for
> example, pre-edited music xml files on a disk that could be downloaded
> to a thumb drive or something.  Then we could just import the file and
> go right into the analysis like our classmates.  I'm not necessarily
> complaining; I want the skills and the degree along with it so I'm
> willing to take those extra steps if that's what needs to be done, but
> I'm surprised that especially for some of the more popular theory
> textbook collections like Tonal Harmony that a CD of electronic music
> files hasn't been produced either as an alternative to the physical
> textbook or as a teaching aid, especially with the advent of
> SmartBoards.  In theory, Teachers and professors could pop the CD into
> a computer and project the musical example they want on the board
> without even writing it, therefore making more use of class time.
> Such a CD would be extremely beneficial to us as well.
> 
> 
> 
> On 2/13/12, Brandon Keith Biggs <brandonboy13 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Hello,
>> I have this same problem kind of.
>> What my teacher does is place a piece of music under the overhead and he
>> talks about the intervals, chord formations and plays some pieces. Then he
>> has us sight sing them.
>> He does around 3 or 4 major pieces a day, so it is almost out of the
>> question to get them transcribed. Does anyone have any suggestions?
>> Also, I find myself being very slow at composing in class... It is probably
>> because I'm horrible at the qwerty keyboard piano, but any ideas on creating
>> compositions in class would be awesome. I'm thinking that I should just
>> write the music out in Braille and wait till I'm at home to create the Lim
>> file... (Is there a way to put Braille files into lime)?
>> Most of the compositions we are to compose are 6 or 7 key chords which
>> doesn't work on the qwerty piano. Any suggestions on how to do this in
>> class? I suppose making extra voices would work, but that is a really big
>> pain to have to switch through octaves and not make duplicates of the same
>> pitches... Also if there is a B inversion chord I'm up a crick. Is it
>> possible to do a B chord, or first inversion chord on the qwerty Keyboard?
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Brandon Keith Biggs
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Kaiti Shelton
>> Sent: Monday, February 13, 2012 3:48 PM
>> To: This is for discussing music and braille literacy
>> Subject: [Menvi-discuss] Suggestions for expediting assignments.
>> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I was just wondering if anyone had some suggestions about how to
>> complete theory assignments more efficiently than the way I am
>> completing them now.
>> 
>> If I use lime directly when my teacher assigns an analysis in class I
>> often find that when the class starts to go over it I'm only halfway
>> done at best.  This is of course because I have the added step of
>> copying whatever passage we're working on into lime before I analyze
>> the piece.  To save some time I've started to use my BrailleNote and
>> braille music in combination with my own musical shorthand in kwb
>> files.  This works out fairly well for participating in the class, but
>> it leaves the extra leg work of copying everything into lime.  This
>> method also makes me nervous because then I run the risk of copying
>> something wrong or missing something I wrote down.
>> 
>> If anyone has any suggestions or a better way to do this I'd love to
>> hear them.  My teacher has been pretty understanding and allows me to
>> turn in assignments before the start of the next class if I need time
>> to finish them, but I'd like to be able to keep up a little more with
>> my classmates if at all possible.  Also I'll be starting college
>> theory next year, so it would be really awesome if I could get this
>> down before I go away to school.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> --
>> Kaiti
>> 
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Kaiti
> 
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