<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div class="api-pub-date" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Originally published on June 18, 2018 1:21 pm </span></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; min-height: 250px;"><div class="field-items" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: italic; line-height: inherit; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">From <a href="http://www.texasstandard.org/stories/new-web-app-teaches-classical-guitar-using-braille/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit;">Texas Standard</a>.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired opened in <a href="http://www.tsbvi.edu/general-information-and-services/197-a-brief-history-of-the-texas-school-for-the-blind-and-visually-impaired" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit;">1856</a>, there were only three students. So in order to pay the bills, students were expected to make brooms and other goods to sell. Nowadays, students are able to focus on academics, life skills and enrichment opportunities, such as learning to play classical guitar. A new app is helping people learn through Braille.</span></p><div class="audio-container" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 16px; padding: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; overflow: hidden; clear: left;"><div id="jp-interface-inline-audio-176" class="jp-interface" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 8px; border-top-left-radius: 3px; border-top-right-radius: 3px; border-bottom-right-radius: 3px; border-bottom-left-radius: 3px; border-width: 1px 1px 5px; border-style: solid; border-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0745098); position: relative;"><div id="post-audio-inline-audio-176" class="jp-player" jp-instance="inline-audio-176" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: 0px; height: 0px;"></div><div class="playpause" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px -4px; padding: 0px; float: left; overflow: hidden; right: auto; width: auto;"><a href="https://cpa.ds.npr.org/kut/audio/2018/06/guitar_app_for_blind_and_visually_impaired_06182018.mp3" class="jp-play" style="text-indent: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: 26px; background-image: url(http://tpr.org/sites/all/modules/custom/pi_hull/jplayer/images/playpause-sprite-r.png); background-size: 50%; height: 44px; width: 44px; border: 2px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392); border-top-left-radius: 50%; border-top-right-radius: 50%; border-bottom-right-radius: 50%; border-bottom-left-radius: 50%; display: block; font-weight: bold; position: relative; transition: all 0.2s; background-position: 0.7em 0.5em; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;"></a></div><div class="audio-meta" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0px 45px; padding: 3px 0px 0px; line-height: 1; overflow: hidden;"><div class="listen-text-box" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; height: 15px; position: relative;"><div class="listen-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; left: 0px; opacity: 1; position: absolute; text-shadow: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.901961) 1px 1px 0px; transition: opacity 0.25s ease-in-out;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Listen </span></div><div class="listening-text" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; left: 0px; opacity: 0; position: absolute; text-shadow: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.901961) 1px 1px 0px; transition: opacity 0.25s ease-in-out;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Listening...</span></div></div><div class="jp-controls" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 8px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; cursor: col-resize; float: left; height: 16px; position: relative; transition: width 0.2s ease-in; width: 0px;"></div><div class="duration-wrapper" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px 0px; float: left; transition: all 0.2s ease-in;"><div class="jp-custom-duration" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; position: static; width: auto; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 28px; letter-spacing: normal; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">0:00</font></div></div></div></div></div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It’s mic check before graduation at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Austin. Three students are playing their classical guitars. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The teachers making sure the volume and music are just right are Matt Hinsley and Jeremy Coleman. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Today is the culmination of many achievements for these students. Their performance will showcase one of the skills they’ve learned. But as perfectly choreographed as the graduation ceremony will be, Hinsley says the guitar program at the school began because of a series of serendipitous events. The first was in 2011. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“They built this facility and we were touring it,†Hinsley says of that time. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When the tour arrived at a classroom, the principal introduced Hinsley as someone who worked with an organization called Austin Classical Guitar. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“And one of the girls in the room put her hand straight up in the air and said: ‘I want to learn guitar.’ And then the boy next to her did exactly the same thing. ‘I want to learn guitar!’ So, that’s kind of where it all started,†Hinsley says. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Hinsley actually already had a curriculum ready. He’d been working with other schools, especially in under-privileged areas in Texas. But, the curriculum would need to be modified. It needed to be translated into Braille. And here’s where Jeremy Coleman, the other teacher we met during sound check, comes in. He’s a former Marine who got a degree in classical guitar performance at a college in Louisiana. And he became essential to the second serendipitous event. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I didn’t know what I was going to do when I graduated,†he says. “I just wanted to move where the action was. For classical guitar, that’s Austin, and so I showed up at Matt Hinsley’s house one day for lessons. I wanted to be a music teacher – guitar teacher specially.†</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">While Coleman worked on his master’s at UT Austin, he started volunteering at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. That meant he needed to learn Braille. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“The Braille music is a different code. So I took what I learned from Braille and I learned another code,†Coleman says. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Coleman is the one who took Hinsley’s guitar curriculum and adapted it into Braille. Now, he’s the school’s full-time guitar teacher. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Coleman says his first day teaching was actually a learning opportunity </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“What I thought would happen was – everyone would be prodigies and everyone would be, like, music geniuses,†Coleman says. “Because everyone I knew at that point who was blind was, like, a famous musician, you know?†</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Of course, that’s not the case – blind and visually impaired musicians, like all musicians, rely on some talent and a ton of training. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It’s been seven years and the program is chugging along. Coleman and Hinsley’s students are improving by leaps and bounds, and some are becoming truly exceptional musicians. Recently, one of them moved to Arizona. She’s the protagonist of the final serendipitous event. She wrote to her teachers that her school in Phoenix, a school not for visually impaired kids, was able to translate its guitar program to accommodate her. Hinsley picks up the story. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“We were very excited that this transition had happened successfully – for like 30 seconds – after which I realized, ‘oh, my goodness, we have a problem here because we have kids who are learning a beautiful skill and are becoming passionate about guitar and the world doesn’t have resources to continue that study the way any other child would be able to,†he says. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But now, the world does have such a resource. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Coleman and Hinsley just released what they call a life-long learning app, called <a href="https://www.tsbvi.edu/lets-play/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit;">Let’s Play</a>. It’s free guitar curriculum in Braille and it will allow a person who is blind or visually impaired to take advantage of the program that began here in Texas. </span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.375em; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Back in the auditorium, I sit for a complete performance from graduating students Devin Gutierrez, Hector Lara and Davion Perez and notice that service dog Jetson and I move our heads in unison.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;"></span></p><div class="fullattribution" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 3.125rem 0px 1.5625rem; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Copyright 2018 KUT 90.5. To see more, visit <a href="http://kut.org/" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none; line-height: inherit;">KUT 90.5</a>.<img src="https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=New+Web+App+Teaches+Classical+Guitar+Using+Braille&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAwMTM1NDgzMDEyMzg2MDcwMzJjODJiYQ004)" style="box-sizing: border-box; max-width: 100%; height: auto; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle; border: 0px;"></span></div></div></div></div><div></div></body></html>