Top of page

Category: Music History and Appreciation

Hokusai's “Laughing Demon,” depicts an evil looking, wrinkled woma laughing while crushing the head of a small person in her right, long-nailed hand, held up to her right ear. She points with her left long-nailed index finger to the little bleading head. The woman is boney, wrinkled, has long fingernails, brown hair, and small horns on her head.

Seeing Music: Gnomus and Baba Yaga from Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”

Posted by: Juliette Appold

Who are Baba Yaga and Gnomus? This blog shows how Mussorgsky represents them in his piano suite "Pictures at an Exhibition," and what kinds of related NLS materials you may be interested in.

Posted in: Audio, Braille, Braille and Audio Reading Download BARD, Braille Music, Folklore, Folklore-Russia, Instrumental Music, Music and Art, Music History and Appreciation, Music Instruction, NLS Music Section, Piano, Piano Music, Uncategorized, Violin music, Women in Music

Close-up of the fingers of two hands as the touch a paged filled with raised dots

New BARD Additions: September 2021

Posted by: Juliette Appold

What a Wonderful World this would be, dancing Cheek to Cheek, imagining to be Just a Gigolo: Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald's songbooks, and the piano version of Leonello Casucci's memorable song, are now available as digital braille music scores for you to download from BARD. Check out this week's blog to find these and many more new titles in the NLS Music digital collection.

Posted in: Audio, Bach, Braille, Braille and Audio Reading Download BARD, Braille Music, Classical Music, Instrumental Music, Music History and Appreciation, Music Instruction, NLS Music Section, Piano, Uncategorized

Close-up of the fingers of two hands as the touch a paged filled with raised dots

New BARD Additions: June 2020

Posted by: Juliette Appold

We added more talking books and braille music for your enjoyment! This includes more Smithsonian Folkways recordings, a book on piano tuning, and braille music for piano, voice, violin, organ, and woodwinds.

Posted in: American Composers, Art Songs, Blues, Braille, Braille and Audio Reading Download BARD, Braille libretto, Braille Music, Classical Music, Country Music, Flute, Folk Music, Instrumental Music, Jazz, Music History and Appreciation, Music Instruction, Organ, Piano, Piano Music, Piano Tuning, Poetry, Popular Music, Smithsonian Folkways, Uncategorized, Vocal music

(ca. 1890) Peasants dancing, Bosnia, Austro-Hungary. , ca. 1890. [Between and Ca. 1900] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2002710708/.

Béla Bartók and the Importance of Folk Music

Posted by: Juliette Appold

Béla Bartók was a seminal 20th-century composer and musicologist. Born in Hungary on March 25, 1881, he lived through World War I and experienced the beginnings of World War II, before immigrating with his second wife to the United States in 1940. He died in New York on September 26, 1945. What makes Bartók‘s works …

Posted in: Braille Music, Music History and Appreciation, NLS Music Section, Uncategorized

Close-up of the fingers of two hands as the touch a paged filled with raised dots

American Composers and Musicians from A to Z: F (Part 2 – Feliciano, José)

Posted by: Juliette Appold

José Feliciano is a guitarist, singer and songwriter best known for his interpretation of the songs “Feliz Navidad,” “Light My Fire” and “Hi-Heel Sneakers.” Feliciano was born blind on September 10, 1945 in Lares, Puerto Rico. At age five, his family moved to New York. José Feliciano always liked music and started playing the harmonica …

Posted in: Blind Musicians, Hispanic American History, Music History and Appreciation