[Perform-Talk] Blind Collaborative Pianists

Mon Feb 5 21:37:25 UTC 2024

Hello.
I think there are a lot of things you could do, though I am not a pianist,
so take what I say for what it's worth, which might not be too much! 
If you are providing a service, you can set your own working conditions.
Therefore, you can say, "I only want to accompany three or four people" and
those hiring can take it or leave it. Also, you can look for opportunities
where you will have enough time to learn the music, and also for
opportunities where you have learned music in the past, and might just need
to have a refresher in order to be ready. I would probably record all of the
pieces I learned, and have them available so I could revisit them if I
needed to learn them again. And, of course, keeping any braille music, if
you read braille music, would be helpful as well. Then you will not have to
hunt if you need it again. Even if you are accompanying only three or four
people, that is still taking those pieces away from someone else who may
really appreciate not having to do as much work. So you would be providing a
valuable service.
Also, I know when I was in school, I participated in a contest each year
called Solo Ensemble. We could choose a piece of music to sing, and we would
need a piano player to accompany us. There was a list of only so many pieces
we could choose from however, and this list stayed fairly similar throughout
the years. Because of this, many of my friends ended up performing the same
pieces, so we often had the same piano player. This way, the piano player
only needed to learn a piece or two for the contest, but he or she was still
providing an extremely valuable service. I'm not sure if this contest is
offered where you live, but it might be worth checking with music
departments at local high schools and even middle schools to see if it is,
and if you could begin to learn some of the music so you could play for the
next upcoming contest. We always had a couple of months, at least, to
practice and polish our pieces. So you would have at least a month to learn
the pieces, and, if many are used year after year, you could play them again
when needed.
 The same might be true for high school, middle school, and maybe even
elementary school concerts in your area. I know my choir directors always
hired a different piano player to play for us during our concerts so he or
she could conduct instead of having to conduct and play. Again, the piano
player had time to learn the music because he or she usually didn't come in
to rehearse with us until perhaps a week or so before the concert. Often our
directors knew what pieces they wanted to do during the entire year as well,
so you could possibly start practicing pieces for an upcoming spring concert
in the fall.
And, I would think at least some churches would be similar. Sometimes choirs
learn music from week to week, but sometimes, particularly around the
holidays, they work on a few pieces for weeks before performing them. This
would give you the chance to learn them as well.
I really hope some of these thoughts are helpful! Just because there are
some people who learn and/or sight read 40 pieces at a time in two days does
not mean you have to! In fact, as a singer, I would much rather have someone
who has spent more time learning and perfecting the music, and some time
with me to cement a good rapport, so I would definitely love to use your
services! I am quite sure I am not alone. I imagine great opportunities
exist for you.
The best of luck,
Melissa 

-----Original Message-----
From: Perform-Talk <perform-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Ella Yu
via Perform-Talk
Sent: Sunday, February 4, 2024 2:57 AM
To: NFB Performing Arts Mailing List <perform-talk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Ella Yu <ellaxyu at gmail.com>
Subject: [Perform-Talk] Blind Collaborative Pianists

Hi everyone,

I am a dedicated blind amateur musician who has a fairly wide range of
musical interests, one of them being collaborative piano and accompanying.
I grew up taking both piano and violin lessons for years, so I am acutely
aware of the need for piano accompanists. I am not pursuing music as my main
career, though I'd certainly like to do it as a side career.

My question is, to those of you pros who must learn large volumes of music
at a time, what do you do? I have accompanied my younger sibling and a few
friends on and off since age 9, and in all those situations, I have only
needed to learn a small number of pieces at a time, which is not a big deal.
However, as you all know, blind musicians can't sight read and play, even
with braille music. I've done a lot of reading and have heard about the long
line of blind church organists in France, for instance. How do those types
of musicians deal with, say, learning 40 pieces on 2 days notice? The only
solution I see is to practice for hours on end, which is just mentally
exhausting. I have spoken to my piano teacher about doing
accompanying/collaborative piano as a side gig, and I mentioned that my
inability to sight read would make it difficult to learn the required volume
of music quickly enough. He basically told me that a lot of people suck at
sight reading, that I'll always have time to prepare my music ahead of time,
but in reality, I see the accompanists for my violin recitals having to know
40 pieces at a time, and they likely had to learn them on short notice. What
would a blind musician do? I guess this is just something that is very
difficult to work around as a blind instrumentalist, so we just can't take
on anything that requires learning 40 pieces in 2 days. Any thoughts? By the
way, yes, I do have lots of experience learning ensemble music for
orchestra/chamber music as a violinist, but in those cases, I always have at
least a few weeks to learn all the music for a concert, so it's not an
issue.
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