[blindkid] Music Classes

Moses Whitaker Jr mwhitakerj at hotmail.com
Thu Aug 26 17:51:37 UTC 2010


 To Kathy B,
 
I'm not sure where you are located but I live in NJ and our son Matthew attends and has been attending since he was 5 1/2 years old The Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School at Lighthouse International in NY city.  Matthew has perfect pitch which sounds like what your daughter might have.  The school offers a comprehensive music program and also offers private lessons.  Matthew participates in both programs which also includes a braille music class depending on how much braille your child knows.  He loves it, all of the children get along well together and the instruction is fantastic.  Every Saturday we make the trip to NY.   
 
Here is the link to their web page.    http://www.lighthouse.org/services-and-assistance/music-school/  click on the left side for specific information.  
 
At the time when we registered Matthew at age 5 1/2 (he's 9 now), they were only accepting children starting at age 7.  We spoke with Dalia Sakas -- Coordinator of the Comprehensive Music Program for Young People who is also Matthew's piano teacher, and she had us come over for an interview. Matthew had no formal instruction at the time.   They are willing to make exceptions if they believe the child can benefit and is ready for instruction.  Matthew now takes, piano, drum, percussion, bass guitar, braille music, general music appreciation, music composition and dance.  Yes dance!  The music school partnered with  NDI (National Dance Institute) for the last 2 years to offer dance classes to the students.. the love it!
 
Needless to say my wife and I love the school!  There will be/is an article coming out in the NFB future reflections about the school written by Dalia.  Here is the link.   
 
 http://www.nfb.org/images/nfb/Publications/fr/fr29/3/fr290308.htm
 
If you or anyone else has questions that I might be able to answer from a parents point of view please feel free to contact me.
 
Blessings,
Moses Whitaker
 
  
> From: blindkid-request at nfbnet.org
> Subject: blindkid Digest, Vol 76, Issue 24
> To: blindkid at nfbnet.org
> Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:00:11 -0500
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> Today's Topics:
> 
> 1. Re: Music Sight Reading for Competition (Bonnie Lucas)
> 2. Re: Music Sight Reading for Competition (Barbara.Mathews at sce.com)
> 3. Re: Music Sight Reading for Competition (Debby B)
> 4. Re: no appreciation for praise (Kathy B)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 15:11:15 -0400
> From: "Bonnie Lucas" <lucas.bonnie at gmail.com>
> To: "'NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, \(for parents of blind
> children\)'" <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [blindkid] Music Sight Reading for Competition
> Message-ID: <4c756ada.07c1640a.2660.64b8 at mx.google.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> Aubrie has participated in the All State competition for the past two years.
> She has been given the pieces that she needs to learn close to the beginning
> of the year and she begins to learn them. She works very hard to get it as
> sounding as good as possible. As far as the sight reading goes, she is given
> the piece in Braille and allowed to look at it for a few minutes. Then, she
> sings the notes as she reads them. This way, the her playing skills are
> evaluated when she plays the piece she has memorized. Her sight reading
> skills are evaluated when she "sight sings," after looking at the Braille
> music. If they would like to do a little more evaluating, the judges could
> actually have her read the notes to them before or after she sings them as
> well. I can share some emails that I wrote in trying to work out all these
> details if you like. Just contact me off line. 
> Bonnie
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sally Thomas [mailto:seacknit at gmail.com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2010 12:05 PM
> To: NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)
> Subject: [blindkid] Music Sight Reading for Competition
> 
> Would someone care to share their blind kid's experience with state band
> competitions that involved sight reading? How did the student prepare for
> the competition and how did the competition organizers handle having a blind
> student in the competition? 
> 
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Sally Thomas
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:45:23 -0700
> From: Barbara.Mathews at sce.com
> To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, \(for parents of blind children\)"
> <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [blindkid] Music Sight Reading for Competition
> Message-ID:
> <OFD7ECC42C.2161A774-ON8825778A.00713229-8825778A.007204E5 at sce.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <http://www.nfbnet.org/pipermail/blindkid_nfbnet.org/attachments/20100825/720e7688/attachment-0001.html>
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:48:46 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Debby B <bwbddl at yahoo.com>
> To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, \(for parents of blind children\)"
> <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [blindkid] Music Sight Reading for Competition
> Message-ID: <491095.50802.qm at web112513.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> Sally, when the entire band is sight reading, Winona has been exempt and the 
> band not penalized for her not doing so. For All-State competition last year 
> they had her play various things in addition to the scales and prepared music. 
> THEY were not prepared for her (even though we told them a year ago). It was 
> okay, because we still hadn't gotten any training on Braille music. Our band 
> director has a meeting this weekend, and then we should know how they will 
> handle it this year.
> 
> Last year she was the only student from our district to make the All-State honor 
> band.
> 
> Debby
> bwbddl at yahoo.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Sally Thomas <seacknit at gmail.com>
> To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)" 
> <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wed, August 25, 2010 12:05:08 PM
> Subject: [blindkid] Music Sight Reading for Competition
> 
> Would someone care to share their blind kid's experience with state band 
> competitions that involved sight reading? How did the student prepare for the 
> competition and how did the competition organizers handle having a blind student 
> in the competition? 
> 
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Sally Thomas
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 4
> Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2010 18:07:05 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Kathy B <burgawicki at yahoo.com>
> To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, \(for parents of blind children\)"
> <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [blindkid] no appreciation for praise
> Message-ID: <71682.24907.qm at web45805.mail.sp1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> Richard,
> 
> Addie(4) also has a great ear for music with the ability to recongnize pitch all 
> those sorts of things. (I'm not muscially blessed, can you tell?) :) Anyway, I 
> was wondering if you started Kendra in any music lessons? I'd like to start 
> Addie with piano, but don't know how to go about finding a teacher comfortable 
> teaching braille music or a blind child.
> 
> Kathy
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Richard Holloway <rholloway at gopbc.org>
> To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children)" 
> <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Sat, August 21, 2010 11:21:08 PM
> Subject: Re: [blindkid] no appreciation for praise
> 
> Barbara, I generally go ahead and offer her a small amount of praise (and often 
> make her mad too), but I try to keep it as minimal as I can manage. I think that 
> at least small amounts of acknowledgment and positive reinforcement are a good 
> thing, in nearly every case. There must be something to the notion that she'll 
> grow into better acceptance of complementary things over time as well. That's 
> what I read when I look for answers on the topic.
> 
> As I just mentioned in a reply to Bonnie, it appears that (despite her claim to 
> the contrary) Kendra is actually progressing at least a bit with her ability on 
> a conventional keyboard, but she denies having been the one typing what I found, 
> which no doubt from her standpoint would avert the likelihood that she'd have to 
> deal with any praise. (Why would I tell her she did a good job if she tells me 
> up front that she didn't do the work I found.) Sort of clever and irritating all 
> at once, right?
> 
> Kendra also has a keen musical ability with outstanding pitch recognition and 
> memory. When she was younger (3 or 4) she'd share that ability openly. Now she 
> claims not to know what notes things are or what keys pieces are in, etc. 
> Again, no need to worry about praise if she can't do the thing. The problem is, 
> she "slips up" every now and then, by complaining that something is in the wrong 
> key for example, or asking what some particular song she just heard was. I might 
> say "which one?" and instead of saying, "the one about the boat", she'll say 
> "the one in G Major", etc., (And when I check, she's invariably right.) In that 
> case, I just go forward with the discussion and skip the praise beyond maybe 
> saying "Oh, the on in G Major was..."
> 
> This is not a great answer to your question I realize, but I'm still trying to 
> figure out the whole cause of the problem in our case. My best guess is it may 
> have something to do with having too many people over-praise her when she was 
> really young. As some on this list have observed in the past, it really is not 
> so terribly amazing that our kids can walk across a classroom or flip on a light 
> switch and when people "go over the top" telling our kids what a great job they 
> did, I think it at least perpetuates the problem.
> 
> I'm seeing the same thing a little bit with my (sighted) son right now a bit. 
> He's 4 years old and just started riding the school bus. The sweet lady who 
> drives the bus keeps telling him what a good job he's doing when he steps up 
> onto the bus. Well yes, he's doing fine, but he's been walking up steps for a 
> while. I think he's pretty much over being praised for that. It happens to a lot 
> of kids, but I think some sighted adults tend to really over-do it with blind 
> kids. They don't know how THEY would do that if THEY could not see, so it seems 
> amazing to them...
> 
> For now, all I know to do is to keep continue to offer modest amounts of praise, 
> at lest for "praise-worthy" things. The other thing I try to do is to make 
> certain she hears others being given (and ACCEPTING) appropriate positive 
> feedback around the house.
> 
> If you find something that helps, please share it with me as I'd love to see 
> this ongoing challenge vanish!
> 
> Richard
> 
> 
> 
> On Aug 21, 2010, at 9:42 PM, Barbara Hammel wrote:
> 
> > Richard, we've one who hates to be praised also so am wondering what you do to 
> >let Kendra know she's done well. We have to say good job doing ... or just 
> >thank him for doing it.
> > Barbara
> > 
> > ...
> > Yesterday is
> > A path well-trod,
> > A familiar lane
> > Through sacred sod,
> > A road we travel
> > Too often, I fear,
> > For there are the good times
> > When things are hard here,
> > ...
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> 
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> End of blindkid Digest, Vol 76, Issue 24
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