[Pibe-division] Fw: Music Competition

[Mary Willows]

Hi Michelle:
Here is a response to your question about music competition which I received from the music teacher at the California School for the Blind.  They have been in all kinds of competitions.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Wayne Siligo 
To: Mary Willows 
Sent: Friday, January 20, 2012 3:30 PM
Subject: RE: [Pibe-division] Music Competition


Hi Mary, here are some remarks that might help: . 

 

Since Braille Music is not usually used as a sight-reading tool, (normally more as a reference source to be read and memorized in sections, the students must be given the material to be sight-read at least twenty minutes  or more ahead, especially if print lyrics are included, since print lyrics and music notation are two separate Braille codes. )

Some VI music students have perfect pitch and this makes sight-reading in Braille much easier, but those who don't possess PP have a more difficult time, especially if the music to be read is a harmony or section part, ( Alto, tenor etc.)

Occasionally, but rarely,  we see music Braille readers with tremendous speed skills, but most Braille readers are not speedy readers since Many notes contain other cells before and after the note to give added information, ( accidentals, ties, octave signs, expression marks, etc.) All these signs must be tactually recognized. 

The phenomenon I have just mentioned is the most important difference in sighted students sight-reading and Blind students doing the same. The sighted student takes in visually an almost instantaneous mass of information, where the blind student must rely on tactile pathways and related neural routings in the brain to convert the information and sing  the material. 

The print music can be scanned by the Sharp Eye music scanner program and printed out as a file on the computer with the Duxbury Braille embosser program. Toccata is another scanner program that converts print music to Braille.  These are OCR programs.

Of course the time-honored method is to have  a Braille music transcriber, who embosses the print music on a manual Brailler into music Braille, ( These folks are getting few and far between.) Hope this helps,

Wayne R. Siligo, Music Director California School for the Blind.

 

From: Mary Willows [mailto:mwillows at sbcglobal.net] 
Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2012 4:40 PM
To: Wayne Siligo
Cc: Mary Willows
Subject: Fw: [Pibe-division] Music Competition

 

 

----- Original Message ----- 

From: Michele Boutin 

To: pibe-division at nfbnet.org 

Sent: Thursday, January 19, 2012 4:06 PM

Subject: [Pibe-division] Music Competition

 

Hello Colleagues, 
I would appreciate some guidance on what the standards should be for a blind student in a music competition. I have two high school students who will be competing in March and both read braille music. 

  a.. They will be in a large group competition. 
  b.. One student will be "sight" reading at Level 3 and the other will be sight reading at Level 4. 
  c.. Each choir/chorus is handed a piece of music that they have never seen before. 
  d.. They are given 3 minutes to look at the piece. 
  e.. Then they are given 2 minutes for the director to give them explanations. 
  f.. Then they start singing immediately.

I have several questions about this process:

  a.. One, how does the music usually get brailled? Could it be sent to me to be brailled with the strict understanding that I will not share it with the teacher or the students? 
  b.. My second question is regarding the "sight" reading? What would be a fair procedure for this? Should my students get double time on their own? 10 minutes? 20 minutes? 
  c.. Last, how would the student read and sing an unknown piece (words and music) with only a few minutes to look it over and keep pace with the rest of the choir?

Thank you for your time.
 
Michele Boutin, TBVI
Manchester, NH


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