September signifies many things to us–cooler temperatures, leaves starting to turn, and…back to school! I would like to showcase some of the items requested with increasing frequency as the semester begins. We have some new titles and some that would be helpful if you’re looking for a guide. Most of these are intended for college …
As part of a continuing series introducing blog readers to facets of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS), I recently spoke with NLS Senior Staff Engineer and music enthusiast, Lloyd Rasmussen. By interviewing Lloyd, I hoped to answer two questions: 1) What does an engineer do in a library? 2) …
This is the second post announcing the availability of free braille scores. The response to our first offer was good, but modest. So, in this post, not only are we offering a larger number of titles, but we are also trying to encourage more requests. These are scores that have been received over the years …
Continuing our series of interviews with narrators from NLS’s own studio, I got a chance to sit down and talk with narrator Julian Thompson. Recently, Julian has recorded the liner notes for one of our Smithsonian Folkways books, Richmond Blues (DBM 03642). In addition, he has also narrated a number of books about music and musicians in …
Summertime, and the living is easy… …Except here at the NLS Music Section where we use the time to update our catalogs and circulars. In the near future, we will be offering a new version of the former Instructional Cassette Recordings Catalog. But because of the growth of the collection it will be divided into two separate catalogs. …
The Music Section’s collection of music scores and audio materials is plentiful. Piano music, yes! Guitar lead sheets, we’ve got them! Vocal librettos, songs, etc. But, what about music written for lesser known instruments? Do you play the penny whistle or know how to yodel? The music collection also contains titles for instrument or voice …
The following is a guest blog from Gilbert Busch, braille music specialist in the Music Section. Although active on the piano and organ, he has a strong interest in symphonic music, especially that of Mahler. On Thursday, May 14th, I travelled to Boulder, Colorado, for MahlerFest XXVIII, an annual event devoted to the music of …
This post announces the beginning of an ongoing project to make available -for FREE – excess copies of braille scores. This is not the first time that we have blogged about gifts. See this post by Mary Dell Jenkins. But this is the first time the gifts are going out, not coming in. These are scores …
Tomorrow we celebrate the birthday of one of the Twentieth Century’s most well-known composers and music pedagogues, Carl Orff (1895-1982). Although Orff may be best known for his cantata Carmina Burana, he is also quite well-known in the music education field because of “Orff Schulwerk,” an elementary approach to music he co-developed with his colleague Gunild …