[musictlk] can a blind person play guitar

[Cameron Strife]

Hi. I've been playing guitar for nineteen years and teaching for
thirteen years now to both blind and sighted students...

Yes, you can indeed learn how to play guitar!

Spacial awareness is very important for both your fretting hand and
your picking hand. What I do for all beginner students is start with
chords and scales etc that only use the first four frets. In that
position, finger one plays fret one, finger two plays fret two etc as
far as scales and exercises go and for chords, only the first three
frets would be used for all those basic chords which can range from
simple triads up to chords with all six strings.

The scales in particular are useful in that position as you're not
required to shift positions like you would while playing a c sharp
minor scale from the fifth string for example...

When you're fretting notes, it's important to keep in mind that you
want to point your finger down onto the fret and make contact with the
string in questions using the tip of your finger;not approaching at an
angle and not using the pad of your finger unless you're purposely
barring two or more notes, like you do while playing an f major chord
for example.

I teach over skype and mp3 etc. Feel free to shoot me an e mail off
list if you're interested in lessons. I format all of my notes for my
students in an easy to read format whether someone is using a screen
reader or a braille display.

Thanks,

Cameron.




On 12/19/14, Kelsey Nicolay via musictlk <musictlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Hello,
> I've been considering learning guitar for quite a while.  I have
> a good ear and have solid skills on the piano, so that shouldn't
> be an issue.  However, I tried taking a guitar class at college
> and the one thing I really struggled with was locating the frets
> on each string.  For example, playing a chromatic scale on guitar
> was really hard for me since I found it difficult to move from
> string to string and locate the frets.  This is why I'm
> hesitating a bit on signing up for lessons.  Is it possible for a
> blind person to learn to play guitar? If so, any tips on how to
> make locating the frets easier? I really don't want to put
> Braille labels on my guitar if I don't have to.
> Thank you,
> Kelsey Nicolay
>
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