[blindkid] It's not too Late to Apply: Summer Music Academy, August, 2017, Napa, California

[BillList1]

Please consider for yourself and share with any young, visually impaired
musicians you may know.  It's not too late to attend this year and
definitely not too early to start thinking about summer 2018.

...

Fourth Annual Summer Music Academy Session at Enchanted Hills Camp

We encourage visually impaired youth who have an interest in performing,
reading, writing, and recording music independently to apply for a place at
our upcoming fourth annual music academy session at Enchanted Hills.  See
link to online application below.

N. B.: although we tend to have a lot of fun and have the opportunity each
day to go for a swim, this camp is definitely not primarily intended as a
recreational experience.  We focus on building music literacy and
performance skills in a supportive environment.

for the past three years I have been leading a music technology session for
visually impaired youth each August in northern California.  We call it the
Summer Music Academy.  If you yourself are a blind or low vision musician,
this session will help you build the technology skills that will help you to
succeed.  If you are a teacher or rehabilitation professional, you may have
students or clients who might benefit greatly from attending.

Last summer, we had 14 participants from a number of states, Canada and
Mexico.  Although our target age range is 16 to 24, in last year's group the
ages ranged from 15 to 26 with average about 19.  We had kids who were
almost beginners with music as well as four campers in their early twenties
who are already working as musicians in various capacities. But they came to
improve their music literacy skills of reading, writing, and recording music
independently. 

Although the camp is not a traditional performing arts camp, most of the
campers are natural performers. We gave three performances last year with
varied programs of pop, jazz, R&B, classical and choral selections. I form
the campers into a chorus so we can sing together and literally show the
audience how blind people can read braille scores while singing and how
people with low vision can read magnified scores while singing. We
introduced our audience to the BodyBeat Sync wearable metronomes that
allowed me to conduct our chorus through passages that slowed down and sped
up simply by literally dialing the tempo up and back. We even premiered a
silly song I wrote about a blind guy who dreams of his first solo ride in
his self-driving Google car. Our only surviving recording of that song is
from our final performance at the San Francisco Lighthouse. The young woman
who was our last-minute, stand-in soloist, even though she missed a few
words, helped us get a few laughs from our enthusiastic audience. Listen in
at:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26996884/the%20glorius%20dream%2C%20Live
%2C%20August%209%2C%202016.mp3 

More information and online application form at:
http://lighthouse-sf.org/youth-music-academy-august-7-august-13/ 

Please send questions or request for further information to Summer Music
Academy Director, Bill McCann,
info at DancingDots.com
or call 610-783-6692.