[Menvi-discuss] New member with a few questions

[David Goldstein]

Hello Shannon,
Kudos for the way you’re pursuing this. As the correspondence on the list is showing, there are lots of wonderfully helpful people and a great number of resources that approach the challenge in almost as many ways. What I would like to say about resources is that it’s often hard to tell on one’s own which tailors best to your method of learning and will give you the tools you need for meeting your personal goals.
Before you spend time and money on things that might or might not help, you might consider trying to find someone who could work with you online. There are several ways for approaching learning braille music, and immediate input can help a great deal. Also, there are spoken and even automated ways to create spoken scores set up for memorizing, and a couple of organizations that can help you make custom audio files. I’ll do some homework to find out the latest on those, but in the meantime, I would suggest you start thinking about the kind of mentor you would like to have. Someone on the list might well be the perfect fit.

David

<menvi-discuss-bounces at menvi.org> On Behalf Of Kathleen Cantrell via Menvi-discuss
Sent: Tuesday, December 19, 2023 10:16 AM
To: This is for discussing music and braille literacy <menvi-discuss at menvi.org>
Cc: Kathleen Cantrell <kathleen at spellboundbraille.com>
Subject: Re: [Menvi-discuss] New member with a few questions

Hi Shannon!

There are a couple of resources you can check out that might be of interest.

Feel the Beat published by APH.
https://www.aph.org/product/feel-the-beat-2/

How to Read Braille Music
https://www.nbp.org/ic/nbp/MUSIC.html?from_search=1

Intro to Braille Music for the Blind Student
https://www.dancingdots.com/prodesc/publications.htm

Another option is to find some instrument method books – piano, violin, trumpet – and read the braille to see how the concepts are introduced to the student. These beginning methods assume that the student has no prior musical knowledge so takes things from the very beginning.

https://louis.aph.org/product/Alfreds-Group-Piano-for-Adults-Book-1,166076.aspx?FormatFilter=1


I hope these are some help!



On Dec 19, 2023, at 7:47 AM, Shannon Williams via Menvi-discuss <menvi-discuss at menvi.org<mailto:menvi-discuss at menvi.org>> wrote:

Hi,
I’m fairly new to this list and am really enjoying the messages and topics so far. When I was young I was able to read large print music and use a CCTV to magnify what I needed to play. Recently I have started playing again (I play the flute) and due to more vision loss have had to use audio recordings to learn my parts. My parts are recorded on a piano by someone and she gives all details of the music including notes, time and key signatures, and all other important tempo markings and anything else I’ll need and then I memorize the pice of music. I also used to have someone put it into MuseScore for me but she is no longer able to help me. I am looking at learning music braille but it is hard to find training so I’d like to just teach myself. I think learning music braille will be helpful for me. If anyone can point me in the direction of resources for that I’d appreciate it. I have access to an old Braille Sense U2. I also wanted to know if there’s a difference between MuseScore and the Good Feel software from Dancing Dots? I know MuseScore is free and that Dancing Dots software also has a braille translator and scanning software and a higher price tag. I’ve been offered funding for anything I need that would help me to have an easier time learning the music. So I’d like to poll the list to see what works well for everyone-MuseScore or Dancing Dots? BrailleSense notetaker or something multi-line? Would an embosser be a good investment to make hard copies? If there are any flute players on the list I’d love to get in touch with you. I live in Ontario Canada so using any resources from NLS is not possible. I’m looking at software because the woman who currently records my music is extremely busy and I’d like to be able to learn my pieces with more independence instead of waiting for the recordings.

Thanks for any help you can give. I really appreciate any suggestions you can offer.

Shannon
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