Summer and jazz seem to go hand-in-hand. I am noticing weekend jazz festivals and evenings of “jazz in the park” all over the D.C. area. I am sure some of you have enjoyed some of these events where you live. Now I am thinking about jazz! This thought lends itself to a discussion of related genres like […]
As I detailed in my last blog post, much of the braille music in the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) Music Section collection comes from the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, MA. Their (now defunct) Howe Press has provided us with many musical treasures that are unique to […]
The Music Section regularly adds new music to its collection. In this first post to address new additions, we highlight recently added titles that are in digital format. Each can be embossed and loaned in hard copy, if needed, but this list shows new titles in digital format. Strictly hard copy paper acquisitions are made through purchases […]
The NLS Music Section recently acquired a braille transcription of Benjamin Britten’s Friday Afternoons. The songs in this collection are available both in hard copy and for download from BARD, for anyone who is performing them or otherwise interested in this music. The music is scored for soprano, alto, tenor, and bass choral parts. A […]
Children and youth comprise an important part of the patronage at a public library, and this is certainly true here at the Music Section of the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped as well. Young musicians use NLS music materials in a variety of ways as they learn to play instruments. Here […]
The Music Section at the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS) has the largest collection of braille music in the world, with music from numerous national and international braille producers. One of the best represented publishers in the music collection is Howe Press, a braille publisher that was the in-house braille […]
Don Hoffer was a dentist. Bill Irwin was a salesman. He peddled organs. The kind you play. Barbara Kolb is an internationally renowned composer These are just some of the people who are behind the instructional audio recordings in the NLS Music collection. They didn’t merely create and write the narrative, their voices are the […]
Some of the Music Section’s most ardent patrons are operagoers. This comes as no surprise to other opera aficionados, but blind/low vision operagoers are usually not able to pick up a program in braille or large print and read a synopsis when they arrive at the theater; that is, until they (or the opera companies) […]
Recently, on May 4, 2014, musician Happy Traum was inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame. Here at the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, we are quite familiar with Happy because of his work in establishing the audio music company, Homespun Tapes. As a local New Yorker and musician during […]
Co-written with Claire L. Rojstaczer Whether it is a music librarian humming a tune, a recording of a trumpet lesson, or the soothing voice of an instructor detailing the intricacies of a Rossini opera, the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped’s Music Section is constantly abuzz with the sounds of music. For […]