This narrative inquiry aimed to re-story the experiences of Paulina, a blind music education major, as she navigated her degree program at a large university. While scholars have begun to document the experiences of students who are blind or visually impaired in both PK-12 settings and during student teaching, no known study has explored the…

This article discusses findings on schooling, pedagogy and notation in the life-experiences of amateur and professional visually-impaired musicians/music teachers, and the professional experiences of sighted music teachers who work with visually-impaired learners. The study formed part of a broader UK Arts and Humanities Research Council funded…

In 2011, a collaborative effort began between the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI) and Austin Classical Guitar (ACG), a local 501(c) nonprofit music organization. The idea behind this collaboration was to start a small guitar program that would provide TSBVI students with quality classroom guitar instruction. At that time,…

This article discusses the usefulness of Braille music as a mediational means for musicians with visual impairment (MVI). Specifically, three broad issues are the focus of this study: (1) three notions as the conceptual frameworks, namely, mediation, appropriation and mastery; (2) three criteria of the usefulness of Braille music, including…

Although recent advances make it easier than ever before for students with severe visual impairments to be fully accommodated in the music classroom, one of the most significant current challenges in this area is most music educators' unfamiliarity with current assistive technology. Fortunately, many of these tools are readily available and even…

Affordance refers to the properties or designs of a thing that offer the function of the thing. This paper discusses the affordance of Braille music in terms of three notions: mediational means, mastery and appropriation, and focuses on answering the following three questions: (i) How do musicians with visual impairments (MVI) perceive Braille…

With the support of the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB), the life histories of five visually impaired (VI) musicians were collected and analysed between November 2011 and August 2012. This research was conducted as a pilot for a two-year, national investigation of VI musical participation, "Visually-impaired musicians'…

Discusses teaching methods and instructional aids developed to integrate blind students into a private class for elementary-school-aged piano students. Instructional aids incorporate auditory and tactile stimuli to teach music notation skills. Commercial games, like Bingo, were modified with Braille symbols to teach rhythm concepts. (AM)

Three short articles about music braille are presented for braille transcribers and teachers of the visually handicapped. The first article focuses on common in-accord-related errors in braille music and provides a definition of and information about accidentals and in-accords and doubling and in-accords. The second article deals with the rules…

Three short articles about music braille are presented for braille transcribers and teachers of the visually handicapped. The first article discusses new rules and signs added to the braille music code with the publication of the 1980 American Addendum. Examples illustrate key signatures, time signatures, accumulating arpeggio, doubling, and chant…

Describes a three-week summer institute which provided seven blind students (grade 10 to college level) with musical training that included Braille music, keyboard and theory, computer skills, and independent college-living skills. (DB)

This article will give music educators some practical tools and information for helping students with visual impairments enjoy the ensemble experience. The author has used these tools as music director at the California School for the Blind (CSB) and as a musician who is visually impaired. All observations and techniques mentioned here come out of…

Explains that there are two forms of braille in existence, literary and music, and maintains that music educators can help blind students learn to read music through the use of braille. Provides resources for teaching blind music students, including college-bound musicians, from parents and colleagues to recorded music, publications, and…