[MusicTlk] Looking to Connect with Blind Musicians who Sing or Play in Large Ensembles

Tue Sep 5 19:58:42 UTC 2023

Hi Ella and all,

This is really helpful!  I can definitely see the value of dusting off
my braille music work and trying to get back into that.  I'm pretty
good at learning rhythms by ear, but braille would help a lot in
having an overall understanding of how my rhythms fit into the larger
context of the piece.  Also clearly I need to brush up on my
serialism!  I was not a music major in college so didn't get the
opportunity to study this.  I work full-time so not sure when I'll get
the opportunity to take on this additional study, but I love the idea!
Catherine

On 9/5/23, Ella Yu via MusicTlk <musictlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> Hi Catherine, Thank you for describing your situation in detail.
>
> Re: memorizing 20th and 21st century stuff with odd harmonies, I don't have
> enough personal experience to be able to give a definitive answer, as I
> have not played much contemporary music before, but honestly, this kind of
> stuff is usually by far the hardest to memorize. It's probably just a
> situation where you're going to spend lots of time memorizing in little
> bits and pieces trying to identify some patterns to help you, which doesn't
> really exist as much in modern music, where everything is very
> unpredictable. Sometimes, listening to your part over and over during
> downtime may be needed. I do happen to be a proficient braille music
> reader, and I'm glad it's something I can read because being able to see
> the rhythms laid out on paper exactly as printed is very valuable, and I
> think this is especially true for modern music, where the rhythm is often
> hard to pinpoint just by listening. I am also good at learning by ear, and
> I do learn some solo stuff by ear, mainly violin/viola solo repertoire, as
> it's pretty easy to learn from recordings. This isn't the case for piano
> repertoire because of the two hands.
>
> Re: music OCR software. The unfortunate reality is, musical OCR is never
> going to be 100% accurate. This is because the OCR has to guess a lot of
> stuff when interpreting the score, and a lot can go wrong in the process.
> Music OCR software, such as SharpEye, is useful, but only if there is a
> sighted person to fix the errors in the resulting file for you. Also, it is
> important to note that there are two types of PDFs: traditional scanned
> PDFs and vector based PDFs generated via export in notation software. It is
> possible to differentiate between a scanned PDF file and a vector PDF file.
> If you are downloading scores from IMSLP, each score page will list whether
> a particular file is a scanned PDF or a typeset (vector) PDF. If an
> appropriate typeset PDF is available, choose that option for significantly
> improved recognition accuracy. You can also check if a PDF is a scan or
> vector by opening it. A scanned PDF will either come out as completely
> blank or just a bunch of unknown graphics by the screen reader, while a
> vector PDF should contain readable text at the top for the title and
> composer, followed by a bunch of gibberish.
> Hope this helps,
> Ellacharacters and possibly a few images.
>
> On Tue, Sep 5, 2023 at 4:38 AM Catherine Getchell via MusicTlk <
> musictlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Thanks for the posts and ideas.  I realized that before asking for
>> suggestions, I probably should have described how I currently memorize
>> music
>> and follow the conductor, and if anyone does something different or has an
>> idea for a better way, I'd love to hear about it.
>>
>> For memorization, I do make extensive use of YouTube.  I use these
>> recordings to understand how the trumpet parts fit into the larger fabric
>> of
>> the piece, and so that I always know when to come in correctly based on
>> what
>> others are playing.  Of course I can get thrown off if a really key part
>> I'm
>> listening for doesn't come in at the right place, but if I know a piece
>> well
>> enough, my brain sort of does a correction and I try to mentally put their
>> entrance where it was supposed to be, rather than where they played it.
>>
>> For getting recordings of my part, I have musician friends who will either
>> record it for me or generate a midi file.  I'd love to know if there are
>> any
>> programs out there that now do a relatively error-free job of OCR of
>> music.
>> I know about SharpEye, but I found it to be too error-prone to be
>> reliable,
>> but that was several years ago.
>>
>> Once I have the recording of my individual part and the full ensemble, I
>> spend anywhere from ten minutes to two weeks working on memorizing a
>> piece,
>> depending on whether it's a five-minute Sousa march or a full-length
>> symphony with modern harmonies, or somewhere in between.  I've always
>> learned fastest by ear, and while I'm a good braille reader, I never
>> developed proficiency with braille music.  Of course this means I have to
>> get the music pretty early in order to have it learned in time for the
>> first
>> rehearsal.  For orchestra and brass quintet where I'm the only one on my
>> part, I don't have the option of learning the piece during rehearsal.  So
>> it
>> had better be ready before that.  Unfortunately this means no
>> sight-reading,
>> and I'm pretty out of luck if the conductor makes a last minute rep
>> change.
>> Once I've memorized a piece, it's pretty solid in the memory banks.
>> Though
>> I find it difficult to memorize some 20th and 21st century stuff that is
>> more atonal or has odd harmonies.  I'd love to hear suggestions on better
>> memorization strategies for this type of literature.
>>
>> For following the conductor, I mostly just listen to the band or orchestra
>> and guess/interpret what the conductor's doing based on how the group
>> plays.
>> If I have to come in right at the beginning of a piece, my section mates
>> try
>> to give breath cues, and this works somewhat well, though I'm still
>> guessing
>> at what the tempo is unless the conductor is very consistent on this
>> rehearsal over rehearsal.
>>
>> Sorry for the long post.  But I wanted to lay it all out there.  Any
>> suggestions/improvements?  Thanks!
>> Catherine
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: MusicTlk <musictlk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Jennifer Bose
>> via
>> MusicTlk
>> Sent: Tuesday, September 5, 2023 2:42 AM
>> To: Music Talk Mailing List for Blind Musicians <musictlk at nfbnet.org>
>> Cc: Jennifer Bose <jen10514 at gmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [MusicTlk] Looking to Connect with Blind Musicians who Sing
>> or
>> Play in Large Ensembles
>>
>> This is a great conversation! I'm Jen, and I sing in a choir and am
>> working
>> on getting back into playing piano regularly. Playing piano as part of an
>> ensemble is a dream I have for the future, but I've sung in choirs since I
>> was a kid. I was a band kid (flute player) in middle school and played
>> chamber music and jazz in college ensembles, also on the flute. I picked a
>> different major, but music basically has my heart. I'm also blind. Yes,
>> trumpeters really stand out and can't get away with missing entrances, but
>> I
>> bet it's great when you pull the group together! I use Braille music when
>> we
>> do big well-known pieces that are available, but I mostly end up writing
>> down the words and learning by ear. The choir director is great and uses a
>> lot of YouTube recordings, plus a program called Soundtrap which shows and
>> plays people's individual parts. Soundtrap could be more accessible than
>> it
>> is, though. She always wants to know how I'm doing with the music, and she
>> provides opportunities to practice a lot in sections. I have the same
>> experience of missing cues sometimes and starting later, but on a number
>> of
>> occasions, I've come in at the right place while other people were staring
>> at their music and not really listening, or watching the director. Very
>> interested in everyone's comments and suggestions.
>>
>> Jen
>>
>> On 9/4/23, Humberto Avila via MusicTlk <musictlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>> > Hello Catherine,
>> >
>> >
>> > My name is Humberto and I have been blind all of my life. Starting in
>> > high school I joined the orchestra, playing the violin for 2 years in
>> > it. And, what I'm about to say may not nor doesn't have to apply to you.
>> > Certainly there are many musicians who are fully sighted who are, in
>> > air quotes, musically gifted, and those of us who are blind who pull
>> > this off rather well, presumably because our brains elastically work
>> > towards allowing us to efficiently use other senses like hearing. I
>> > was that stereotypical blind musician who learned the music by ear,
>> > just as is, whatever I heard being played by my fellow violinists
>> > stuck with me, and sometimes the music teacher would help out with my
>> > part, but most likely I learned the music on my own, with no help. I
>> > have learned Braille music, but for me, learning the music is by far
>> > more efficient by ear than it is in Braille.
>> >
>> > I still catch myself doing just that from time to time. I am a
>> > Braillist by profession, and recently I worked at a school where my
>> > Braillist's office was situated rather conveniently next to the band
>> > and orchestra rooms. sometimes I would find myself singing to or
>> > writing down the scores they rehearse as they stick in my head. :)
>> >
>> > but anyways, please feel free to ask more questions of us, and we can
>> > help you find the system that best works for you. One amazing thing
>> > about our digital age is that we can find most scores or even recorded
>> > concerts on YouTube, or even songs you are going to rehearse, on that
>> > platform. So, I would encourage it if you are an auditory learner.
>> >
>> >
>> > Take care and have an awesome day.
>> >
>> >
>> > Yours in Music,
>> >
>> > Humberto
>> >
>> > On 9/2/2023 6:17 PM, Catherine Getchell via MusicTlk wrote:
>> >> Hi all,
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> I'm new to this list and am not sure how active it is.  But I'm
>> >> wondering if there's anyone on the list who plays or sings in a large
>> >> ensemble such as a band, orchestra, or choir.  I'm a totally blind
>> >> trumpet player and have played for decades in bands and orchestras,
>> >> both in college and in the community.  Not professionally usually,
>> >> but I'm pretty active.  I know there are lots of blind musicians out
>> >> there, but I've never met anyone who plays in large groups.  I'd be
>> >> interested in meeting people who do, to exchange tips and tricks on
>> >> things like memorizing large volumes of music, following the
>> >> conductor, and getting music in accessible formats.  Thanks!
>> >>
>> >> Catherine
>> >>
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>> >
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