[Menvi-discuss] Special New Link for MENVI Members

[Toby Rush]

Brunhilde, thank you for your message! I am actually a theory professor at
the University of Dayton and have been working very closely with the
student to which you are referring. The class in question is taught by my
colleague, and I wanted to point out that he has been taking Richard's
approach exactly: having students create a narrative for the Schenkerian
analysis which is traditionally done through the unique graphical language
associated with the analysis. While he does have sighted students create
the traditional Schenkerian graphs, he has always treated the notation as
being secondary to the narrative analysis of what is going on in the piece
or excerpt, and of course this carries over particularly well to working
with students who are visually impaired.

Schenkerian analysis seems like a pretty unique challenge for braille
readers, and I do know that there is at least one system of braille
encoding for it out there. In our discussions with our student, we came to
the conclusion that taking the extra time to learn the braille Schenkerian
code would be needlessly time- and work-intensive for a music therapy
student, who is extremely unlikely to have any need or opportunity to use
it after this particular class. (If she decides later to become a Schenker
scholar, that will obviously be a different story!) Schenkerian analysis
lends itself so well to an analytical narrative that one might even
question the need for a braille encoding for it for any other reason than
to save a bit of extra paper.

Of course, I am not at liberty to discuss anything specific regarding our
student's specific experiences, and I neither intend for this message to
come across as a defense nor do I want it to portray your statement as an
accusation. Though I have been wholly converted to the pursuit of better
music education for visually impaired students, my experience is in its
infancy and I welcome any and all suggestions from you or other members of
the list on how to make our program more effective and efficient!

Thank you so much for all you do for our future music professionals!


On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 12:12 AM, Richard Taesch <richardtaesch at menvi.org>
wrote:

> Brunhilde,
>
> I've copied the list here for you. I'm sure that someone there will have
> suggestions. There are PHD graduates, students, and educators who will
> know what you need, and we are now asking them to respond.
>
> As to the "visual" and Shenkerian Analysis, at times professors forget to
> simply ask the students to describe back to them that which they have
> asked them to provide; or that which the student has written in music
> code.
>
> Post these things to the list, and watch the fun.
>
> Yours,
> Richard Taesch
> MENVI HQ - www.menvi.org
>
>
> On Tue, June 3, 2014 12:46 pm, Brunhilde Merk-Adam wrote:
> > This is great news.  Thank you.
> >
> >
> > I have a problem you may be able to help with.  We have a student who
> > has been attending the Braille Beats Fine Arts Program Summer Residential
> > Intensive for a number of years.  She is currently a music
> > therapy student at University of Dayton in Ohio.  She is having problems
> > with accommodations in the music theory class, particularly with the
> > Shenkerian Analysis that is taught.  Do you have any suggestions to
> > assist with this dilemma where she is getting a poor grade because she
> > can't create a visual construct. How do you handle this in your music
> > classes?  I've contacted a number of blind musicians up to the PhD level
> > and most have never had anything to do with Shenkerian and those that did
> > were somehow exempted.  So one issue is to have an understanding of this
> > type of analysis and the other is to demonstrate that understanding by
> > producing a written analysis.  Can we provide the music department there
> > with some resources  for addressing the needs of their blind students?
> >
> > Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated.
> > Thank you.
> >
> >
> > Brunhilde Merk-Adam
> > Braille Beats Fine Arts Program
> > 248 790 8065
> >
> >
> > P.S.  Your part III book is Great!
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 6/3/14 3:32 PM, Richard Taesch wrote:
> >
> >> Dear list members:
> >>
> >>
> >> A very special new feature will soon be formally announced to all
> >> members; for now, know that our MENVI interests will soon become a
> >> regular portion of my column, "Music in Education," in the regular
> >> journal for California Transcribers and Educators for the Visually
> >> Impaired - CTEBVI (formerly
> >> CTEVH).
> >>
> >>
> >> A special link directly to the journal archives section follows:
> >>
> >>
> >> www.ctebvi.org/journal.html
> >>
> >> Links to the newest edition are:
> >>
> >>
> >> www.ctebvi.org/journals/Spring2014.pdf
> >> www.ctebvi.org/journals/Spring2014.docx
> >>
> >> Look for the column "Music in Education" within the CTE journal.
> >>
> >>
> >> Richard Taesch
> >> MENVI HQ - www.menvi.org
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Please visit www.menvi.org/donate.html  to make a voluntary
> >> contribution to MENVIs work. -
> >> ---------
> >>
> >>
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> >>
> >
> >
>
>
>
> Please visit www.menvi.org/donate.html  to make a voluntary contribution
> to MENVIs work.
> -
> ---------
>
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-- 
**************************************************
Dr. Toby W. Rush - trush1 at udayton.edu <trush1 at notes.udayton.edu>
Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Technology
University of Dayton
"Omnia voluntaria est."
**************************************************
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