I hope everyone out there had a relaxing and peace-filled holiday season. Now that the year is almost through, it’s time to look ahead to 2016 and the new beginnings that await us there. In keeping with that spirit, this blog will highlight some of the newest braille and digital talking books that have been …
I usually attend a number of concerts and events during the holiday season, and this year is no exception. However, this season, I’ve noticed how enduring some of these classic tunes are and wondered what circumstance brought them to us. Many of us are familiar with the miracle of Silent Night being performed on Christmas …
Ludwig van Beethoven was a prolific and music-history-altering composer. Today we celebrate his life on the anniversary of his baptism, which is the closest date we have to knowing his actual birth day. I can remember, as a young pianist, that Beethoven’s Für Elise was the first “real” piece I learned to play outside of …
A couple of years ago, I received an email inquiry from an NLS music section patron wanting to know if we would accept gift braille music, from his personal collection. I said we would be glad to receive whatever he wanted to send. He, then, responded by asking if we could send him some empty …
This following is a guest blog by Donna Koh, music reader services librarian in the Music Section. It’s still early in December, still time to think about holiday gifts. The Music Section has a great holiday gift idea that will surely pull some heartstrings. First, let me share a personal testimony that may convince …
Although motion pictures are, for all intents and purposes, a visual art form, one can still appreciate the music from those films on their own without the movie-going experience. For this I am grateful, as, being more drawn to music than film (and having limited spare time to catch all the movies that I’d like …
Hopefully, everyone has arrived or on their way “over the hills and through the woods to Grandmother’s house” by the time this blog is posted, preparing to spend time with family and friends and give thanks on this special holiday, and one of my favorites. I would like to give thanks to the idea that …
The Music Section was on the move this past week, when I flew across the country to manage an exhibit booth at the American Music Therapy Association (AMTA) annual conference in Kansas City, Missouri. I expected the city to be abuzz with baseball themed billboards and memorabilia because, the week before my trip, the Kansas …
There are a lot of B’s in the Music Section. Bach, Bax, Beethoven, Brahms, Britten, Barber, Bartok, and Bernstein, not to mention the very note B –in every octave. We can’t forget Beer, Berger and Belcher, or Badarzewska-Baranowska. Instrumentally, we have the bass guitar, string bass, bass drum, the bari and the bamboula. The bongo …