[Perform-Talk] Accessible Score for Handel's Messiah

[Ella Yu]

Hi, I sadly cannot be of much help, but will say a few things. Since it
looks like you're looking for an individual performance part (in this case,
a voice part) for a piece, I think most major libraries for the blind
typically don't have a whole lot of performance parts for ensemble pieces,
and even if they do, it may be a select number of parts or a full score,
but rarely both the entire set of performance parts and the full score.
You're likely better off getting this transcribed by a braille music
transcriber, or getting audio recordings somewhere. Hopefully, there will
be a way to have all lyrics in braille even if you can't get your hands on
the music. I currently play violin in a community orchestra and can learn
everything through braille music (although I practice with full ensemble
recordings), so I definitely feel you. In my case, I do have
technologically-involved ways of getting what I need in braille that does
not involve a certified braille music transcriber, but it is not right for
every situation. As you likely know, Messiah is a 2 or 3 hour long oratorio
with some 40 or 50 movements or short sections that fit into three larger
sections, so sourcing it using some of the websites I personally use to get
MusicXMLs and extracting my part (like the sheet music sharing site
musescore.com) has many more downsides than upsides. Anyway, that's a bit
of a ramble, but yeah, you're probably going to have to get this
transcribed if you want it in braille.

On Mon, Nov 18, 2024 at 5:41 PM Chris Nusbaum via Perform-Talk <
perform-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Hi Friends,
>
> I've been invited to participate in a new community choir that is
> performing a "Messiah Sing," which as I understand it is a performance of
> Handel's "Messiah" where the audience is invited to sing with the choir in
> the choral pieces. I would love to do it, but at this time I don't know
> where I'm going to get the music. The director has specified that she wants
> everyone to have the Watkins-Shaw edition of the score, though I don't know
> what separates that edition from any other version of the score. I checked
> today and it's not available on BARD. Does anyone have any ideas on where I
> can get the music either in Braille or in individual voice part recordings?
> I'd prefer having both, but will take the recordings if Braille isn't
> available. Unfortunately, they only have 3 rehearsals scheduled and we're
> expected to come to the first rehearsal with music prepared, so recording
> the part at the rehearsal doesn't seem to be an option here.
>
> Thanks in advance for your ideas!
> Chris Nusbaum
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