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Archive: 2017 (54 Posts)

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Aiming Beyond Graduation: Creating Inclusive College Music Courses for Blind and Visually Impaired Students, Part 1

Posted by: Donna Koh

Part 1 The end goal for most college music students is to develop and cultivate skills to prepare for a successful musical career after graduation. For some music students with visual impairment (V.I.), just getting through the college degree program can be challenging.  Here are some common reasons: inability to learn a large amount of …

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American Composers and Musicians from A to Z: A (Part 2 – Atkins, Charles)

Posted by: Juliette Appold

This blog is about filling the alphabet with names of American composers, and American composers and musicians who are visually impaired or blind. At this point the idea is to have two composers listed for each letter of the alphabet, knowing that some letters will have more options than others, or that for some letters …

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Celebrating that “Parisienne Gaiety”

Posted by: Gilbert Busch

When I was a teenager, I began learning about classical music by listening to radio programs in the evening. Often the shows would begin with an overture or “light classic”, such as the Light Cavalry Overture (which our school band played), or the William Tell Overture (the “Lone Ranger” to me). There was also a …

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The Music and Sounds of the Vietnam Era

Posted by: Katie Rodda

Like many other Americans, I have been tuning in to the documentary The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick this past week. This 10-part series depicts the grim realities of the Vietnam War at home and abroad, and the soundtrack of the movie transports one back to the late 1960s quite perfectly. With …

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We Just Keep Adding…to BARD!

Posted by: Mary Dell Jenkins

One of the fun and interesting parts of working at the NLS Music Section is being able to upload files to BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download). Our patrons are always checking to see what is new in the “Recently Added” link, and we frequently remind them that not all the NLS Music Section collection is …

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Discussing Braille Music with Lifetime NLS Patron Linn Sorge, Part 2

Posted by: Donna Koh

Continued from last week  5. When should a music student start learning braille music? As soon as a youngster is reading braille somewhat comfortably, I believe they can begin to read music braille. If they keep playing by ear, then the desire to learn to read music diminishes. And sadly, very often there is no …

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Discussing Braille Music with Lifetime NLS Patron Linn Sorge, Part 1

Posted by: Donna Koh

Linn Sorge has been a NLS patron since she was in kindergarten some 60 years ago. I met Linn when I took “Braille Music Basics,” an excellent introductory online course to reading braille music offered through Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired.  In addition to being a teacher at Hadley, Linn is an …