[musictlk] New Member Introduction

[Wissel, Jeff]

Hello,

Nlsbard.loc.gov is a website where you can download free music lessons. Bill Brown is a gentleman that teaches piano by ear for the blind and visually impaired. He teaches how to play piano without reading sheet music. There are a few hundred songs available including introduction to the piano and scales and chords etc. If you have an Iphone or Ipad you can download a song in a matter of seconds and begin listening and planning in a few moments.

Hope this helps.

-----Original Message-----
From: musictlk [mailto:musictlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Mike Jolls via musictlk
Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2016 8:12 PM
To: musictlk at nfbnet.org
Cc: Mike Jolls
Subject: [musictlk] New Member Introduction

Hi, My name is Mike Jolls.  I’m new to the list

I’m not a professional musician, but I have a music related question that I hope someone can answer … relating to the piano.
I’m a visually impaired person taking piano lessons, and the teacher has said to sight read the music (I do have vision to sight read print music).  And of course,  I need to do so without looking at my hands.  Some pieces I’m learning have large jumps.  Without looking at my hands, I don’t know how far to jump to hit the target keys accurately and I make a lot of mistakes if I just try to jump by trying to guess the distance or do it by muscle memory.

What I’d like to know is what techniques do totally blind people use to know where to go when they have to make jumps of say two octaves on the keyboard accurately?  The teacher I have has not taught blind people and his answer is … “you just figure it out”.  But I’d like .. if possible .. and answer that tells me HOW to do this.  I’ve figured out that if I feel the black keys as they pass under my fingers, I can (it seems like most cases) accurately know where I’m at and where I need to stop.  This is especially true if I’m at one note and have to move a 5th up or down, or a 4th, etc… I use the feel of the black keys to know when I’m where I need to be.  This seems to be working.

The question, however, is whether this is a good strategy?  Do you eventually, with repetition, develop the ability to quickly and accurately feel the black keys to know where you are and thus make the large jumps required?  Or, is this method too slow and I need to abandon it and select a different method?  And if so, what is the method and where do I go to find out about it.

One final thing.  How do I locate a teacher that teaches blind piano students?  Call the state school for the blind for contacts?  Other ways?

Any help in this matter would be appreciated.  I’ve wanted to take piano for quite a few years and am making progress, but my teacher (at least in this issue) doesn’t know how to advise me.  Perhaps getting a different teacher would be in order.

Thanks in advance.

Mike Jolls

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