Where Do I Start with Music Braille? This video is posted online with the following chapter markers: Chapter 1. Braille Music Instruction Chapter 2. Structure & Code Chapter 3. Software & Resources Description of graphical content is included between Description Start and Description End. Transcript Start Chapter 1. Braille Music Instruction [Silence] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Texas School for the Blind & Visually Impaired Outreach Programs Present Text: Where Do I Start with Music Braille? February 23rd, 2016 Presented by Sharon Nichols, VI Outreach Education Consultant nicholss@tsbvi.edu Image: TSBVI Logo Description End: [ Music ] Announcer: Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired Outreach Programs Present Where Do I Start with Music Braille? February 23, 2016. Presented by Sharon Nichols, VI Outreach Education Consultant, nicholss@tsbvi.edu. Sharon: My name is Sharon Nichols. I work here at Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in the Outreach Department. I'm a teacher of the visually impaired and I specialize in assistive technology. So that's mostly what I do. The reason that this webinar came about was... because I noticed in most districts that... I would be called in to do a training on the Goodfeel software, which does the musical scores, but the children hadn't been taught to use Braille music and to read it. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Topics to Cover Text: • How is Braille Music Different • Working with Music Teachers • Matching Braille Music to the Classroom Lessons • Teaching Braille Music • Braille Music Resources Description End: So today the topics to cover are benefits of Braille music, how is Braille music different from print music, working with music teachers and band directors, matching Braille music to the classroom lessons, teaching Braille music, and also some Braille music resources. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Benefits of Braille Music? Text: ¥ rhythms, articulations, etc. to interpret the composer’s nuances ¥ notes and note values ¥ rests ¥ dynamics ¥ lyrics and their positioning in the music ¥ words (rehearsal marks) Description End: The benefits of Braille music are that the students learn to read the rhythms, the articulations, and they also get to interpret the composer's nuances by having the whole piece in front of them. At first they're going to start with the notes and values and then they'll build upon that with the rests and dynamics. And lyrics are handled very differently in Braille music, but... they're important as far as linking the... positioning to the music. And then you have the rehearsal marks that are very important when... they're in choir or when they're learning music in a band because that's what the teacher refers to quite often. [ Slide end: ] How is Braille music different? It's linear instead of graphical. Usually this will throw the sighted teacher at first, but they need to understand that Braille music is one single line of a combination of the different cells in a Braille cell. And therefore anything that makes the note different or that has a slur or an articulation must come before the note so that they know ‑‑ that the reader would know that that note was different or it starts a different... piece of it. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: How is Braille Music Different? Text: Braille music is linear instead of graphical. In this example: • The time signature is at the top of the music • There is an octave marker before the first the note • There are spaces to represent the measures • The last indicator is an end bar Image: Figure 1 Image of sample sheet music Figure 2 Image of sample braille music Description End: So in the example you have in front of you, you notice that the 4‑4 time signature in the Braille is on top of the first line and it's a centered title and you use the number sign and 4 and then the drop 4. You never use a slash. It could be 3‑4, but it'll always be top cell, bottom cell. Um, there's an octave marker before the first note because typically in Braille music we don't use the... clefs, we don't use the treble clef or the bass clef. It's more important for the reader to know in what octave is that first note. So you'll notice also that there's groupings and the spaces are the measures. So that lets the reader know this group of notes, then it's a measure, this group of notes. And that would be helpful if they're actually trying to figure out the value of the notes within the measure and why you would need rests and everything. The last indicator is an end bar or a double bar. And that's those last two cells. Because if you look at this piece it starts in the fifth octave that's a dot 4 and 6. Then you have your note, which is an E. And then you have D, C, and then you will notice a space for the measure. Then it starts with the letter A and it has another octave sign, and basically that is very simplified beginning structure of music and what would be included in the music. [ Slide end: ] Okay. Working with music teachers. Uh. It's important for the music teacher and TVI to view the Braille music as different not harder. It's the same as when we teaching Braille to a new beginner. You never use the word "hard" because that has set the seed for the student to know that it's going to be a harder time and it's going to take them longer and they might have much more trouble than the print reader. Um. The other thing is it should not ever be considered literary, much like Nemeth is not literary. It's- It uses the same cells, but it is not literary. So- [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Working with Music Teachers Text: • It is important for the music teacher and TVI to view braille music as different not harder • Supply the music teacher with a basic braille music chart • Explain to the music teacher that braille music is not literary braille but represents: do,re,mi,fa,so,la,ti,doDescription End: I like to supply the music teacher with... basic Braille music chart just so they have an awareness of... the notes and how the values are represented and maybe what a rest looks like. It- it's really just for awareness. And also to explain to the music teacher and sometimes to the TVI that Braille music is not literary Braille, but represents do, re, mi, fa. So, that's why the letters do not correlate to the notes. [ Slide end: ] When Louis Braille first was writing the Braille code for music it was the first accepted code. Um. They didn't fight over it like they did with the literary code. So the Braille music code was the first one that was adopted and it's very important to realize that the rest of the world, many, many places use the letter names for the notes. But there's many places that do not use a letter name to identify the different note. And that's why it's important to think of them as do, re, mi. So as you're teaching beginning lessons and you have these notes under their fingers, count out [clapping] the values and the rhythm and have them read it as do, re, mi. They need to get very comfortable with the fact that it is a musical note and not to constantly be thinking of it as a literary letter that they're trying to then figure out what the note is. They need to practice with the do, re, mi if they're ever going to stand a chance. Matching Braille music to the classroom lessons. Um. If you're looking at elementary lessons, what we're talking about is all the drawings, and there might actually be two lines of music on the whole page. And sometimes the drawings have nothing to do with the lesson like other lessons, but sometimes the drawings actually give them clues. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Matching Braille Music to the Classroom Lessons Text: ¥ Follow lessons as closely as possible ¥ Does the student know the braille code needed for the lesson? ¥ Modifications ¥ Pre-teach lesson design and purpose Description End: So we have to follow it as closely as we can. And... does the student know the Braille code needed for the lesson? If the lesson is changing from the Braille that they've known and adding some other identifying Braille music, then do they know the code? Modifications. Sometimes when you're looking at elementary school music, you have notes separated just on a line, not on a staff, just on a line as they're beginning to learn, you know, the letters and the names. And sometimes you'll have to use the letter sign to designate, okay, this is a literary letter as opposed to a music note. And sometimes like in other... new indicators we'll have to use the full cells around the new symbol. You have to preteach the lesson and why it's designed and the purpose. [ Slide end: ] Now, this is going to be very difficult, but a lot of the lessons that teachers use are extremely repetitive and... we're going to look at some samples in a minute. And kind of discuss some ideas on... how you might handle adapting that or modifying that for your student to make it more successful with the Braille music code. Okay. So who is teaching the Braille music? [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Teaching Braille Music Text: ¥ Music Teacher and/or TVI? ¥ Does TVI read music? ¥ How? ¥ When? Description End: Hopefully most of the information they're getting is from a music teacher. And the TVI then has to work with the music teacher to not only work out what the lesson's about, but what's the most important skills in that lesson. Does the TVI have to read music? Boy, [ Laughter ] makes it so much easier [ Slide end: ] But I'll tell you that when I started this... I didn't read music and I basically was matching and using a lot of books and a lot of charts to match it. But yes, if they don't read music, they need to have somebody very readily available that will help them. And sometimes what... I've done in schools is the music teacher will give them a sheet of music and the Braillist will, like, have them just write the notes above the- the... actual staff. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Teaching Braille Music Text: ¥ Music Teacher and/or TVI? ¥ Does TVI read music? ¥ How? ¥ When? Description End: How are they to learn Braille music? Well, preferably at the same time that the sighted students in the class are learning the letter names and the letter values, the note values. So that they can build upon that. Now, when do they need to learn Braille music? [ Slide end: ] And when can they be taught? Some of it can be separated, but a lot of it can be... taught together. Back when I was talking about what are the benefits and we were talking about the... differences in the Braille music, one thing I want to make clear is that... basically there is nothing wrong with learning music by ear. Everybody does it to some extent. It's just if that's the only medium available to the student then they are going to have a much more difficult time as they move up through the schools. Many high schools I've been to now are using music theory in their class and so if our students aren't familiar with the Braille music code, they aren't going to be able to represent that and once again they're going to fall back with needing someone there as a scribe or... always have to work with a partner. So Braille music is very important, but so is learning music by ear. Chapter 2. Structure & Code [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Braille Music Text: Notes and values Image: Figure 3 Image of notes and value chart Description End: Let's look at this notes and values. Basically if you look at the different notes you'll see the do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ni, do. And remember, that's how you start it. [ Laughter ] You'll also see that there are some designations that let you know whether it's a whole, half or quarter by the dots on the bottom cells. The note that has no dots on the bottom cell at the bottom of your sheet, those are the eighths, so they start with eighth notes as far as nothing on the bottom 3 and 6. If you look at whole notes, they give it the value of both the 3 and the 6. If you look at the half note, they use the left‑hand side, the dot 3 to let you know that it's a half note. If it's a quarter note they are adding the dot 6. That is what you really have to work on is the patterns of whether it has 3, 6, 3 or 6 added to it or whether it's an eighth note and only has the upper cells showing. [ Slide end: ] There are all kinds of charts that you can find that will help you learn these. Um. And it's also important because the... rests are very similar in how they're represented, but you pretty much have to memorize the rest symbols and... you'll see those in the music too. Let's look at the next... slide. And what we're going to talk about here is that this is an elementary lesson that you're going to see in a minute. And it has graphics on it, but the graphics aren't the most important thing. Um. What's important is that they're linking words with notes and note values. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Elementary Lesson Text: None Image: Figure 4 Image of bear playing baseball with the ball pointing to the note B. two staffs of notes b with different note values. Description End: Here's the thing. There are several things that are problematic with this lesson and Braille music. First is do you use the octave sign? Do you use the fact that it's in 4‑4? Because with the example up there at the top with the bear hitting the ball, it looks like the most important thing is that this is a note B. And so that appears to be what they're teaching, but what's important too is if you look at it, it's taking place in the bass clef, until the last two measures which go up into the treble. This could be difficult because maybe the... student is going to have to listen to figure out what octave it's in because at this age when you see a lesson like this, you wouldn't expect the student to need to know what octave it is. And so in examples like this there is a symbol for the treble clef and the bass clef so it might be nice to use that symbol here because I'm almost sure that's what the teacher's going to talk about. And you can use the clef within the music to show that it's changed. Okay so. Mostly what this le- lesson is about is... just the note values. And so the lyrics are also problematic because if you were to look at the measures in this, you see there's three notes in the first measure, one in the second, two in the third, one in the fourth, three in the fifth, three in the sixth, one in the seventh and one in the finishing measure. [ Slide end: ] Okay. Now, if you think about that basically you're gonna have three notes close together with no spacing. Then you're gonna have a space for those measures, then you're gonna have one note with a space for the measure. Then you're going to have two notes and so forth. There is no way to match those lyrics in conjunction with the notes. And if you try to separate the notes then you've made them measures. So this is where you have to make those decisions on how am I going to teach this? What am I going to put as far as in the Braille, as far as explanations? Am I going to have the lyrics separate so that they can read the lyrics and know what they are, but they're also by ear matching them with the- their notes? I have no answer to that. That is something that you have to work out with the teacher. And as long as you develop a consistent way of making those choices, then your student's going to be able to tell. Um. Once again it looks like in this lesson it's more important just the note and the value of the note. So the song helps, but I don't think it's important for them to learn this song. That's not what they're trying to do. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Notes and Rests Text: ¥ Notes ¥ Dotted rests/notes ¥ Rests Image: Figure 5 Image of braille and staff music with an emphasis on the notes, dotted notes/rests and rests: Description End: I'm going to go in a little bit into actual Braille music and the different parts of it. Okay. On this one we're talking about the notes and the rests only, so we're talking about note value, notes, dotted rests and dotted notes which change the value, and then rests by themselves, except there's no examples of that in this one, I just noticed. Okay. For the sample this does not have the 4‑4 time signature in it. It starts immediately with the note C and it shows the dotted note which is a dot 3. And it also is an eighth note because of the one flag. Then all of these are the letter C, they just change values as far as 16th, then eighth, and the rest is what's important is that the... dotted rests and the dotted notes because those add beats and- and timing to the piece. So if you look at the Braille you've got the C and then it's shown that it's dotted with the 3. You've got the C that's a- a 16th. You've got the C that's an eighth. Then it shows a rest and the rest is a 16th. The flags. And it's dotted. There is still no space between any of these because they're one measure. Okay? And so they're all the same notes. You go back into another C with two dotted beats. And in the example I did use the... double bar at the end so those last two symbols at the end you'll see constantly as the double bar, even in the samples that I'm going to use. So I wanted to show you in this slide basically notes and how it gives the note value, how you add a dotted note to change the beat and also how you can add a rest, and in this particular case the rest is a dotted rest. [ Slide end: ] I'm... kind of just looking at this as... how we might have strategies to teach Braille music even if we're not the strongest music reader, and also if you think about the progressions as you begin in elementary school and go to middle school, the pieces become much more complicated and much more a score than an actual sample of music. So until our students know every bit of those identifying markers before the notes, if they don't know the note value first, that will throw them off. If they don't understand the measures it's kind of like a code that you have to build on and it's the same thing that they're doing in the elementary classes. The difference is they're not going to talk about the octave and they're not going to talk, you know, about the measures. They're just going to talk about a bar for the measure. And so all of these things need to be taught to our elementary school students so that they understand how is the Braille music made up, what does it look like when it's actually put together. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: How Would You Present this Lesson in Braille? Text: None Image: Figure 6 Image of three columns with two note addition of rhythm values with equals signDescription End: In the next slide you have an example of a worksheet and in this worksheet I can't tell how well you can see the picture, but basically what they've done is It All Adds Up is what's the name of it, and it's basically... quarter, whole and half notes. And so what they're doing is just adding up the values of the notes. It doesn't matter where they are on the staff. That isn't what they're after. They're not after what note is it, but they are interested in what the values added together equal. And then if you see at the bottom of the worksheet there's a separate score for that row, how many out of 10, and a separate score, but those are going to be decided by the teacher. But once again it's addition, so basically on this one there's a couple of things to think about. Um. For the teacher they need to know that you drop all the pictures, you just give it a title, and you would choose a note. And if you're choosing a note you would think about the plus sign and how that appears and what it looks like next to a note. And an equal sign. So on this particular one knowing what an eighth and a quarter and a half and a whole note look like and looking at my chart if need be, I might choose to use the B note. Because if it's put up against the plus and the equal sign, it will not be confused with the plus or the equal sign. [ Slide end: ] But once again, it's not so much identifying the note, so the kids just need to know that this is a letter B, this is, you know, the note B, this is what it sounds like. This is what it starts with, but it's really [clapping] what it adds up to in value. So I would think you could just choose any note you want as long as it feels good to you and you consistently use something like this. Um. I will tell you that later on if you have someone in percussion there are different notes that... represent the snare and the different drums. So that ‑‑ when you're reading a score, a C will always be a snare. And- So later this might be important. When you're looking at adding these notes, the note values, would it be important to pre-teach this sheet? I think that they should see it before it's introduced in the classroom because we don't want any confusion on what the sheet's actually asking for. We don't want them to worry about the notes, but we do want them to understand that there are two notes that are added together with the equal sign. And what they're looking for is a number, not a note. So they would need maybe a little bit of practice with that. And so that's where you would have to make sure that they understood... the different note values, whether they're a whole note or a half note. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Intervals Text: None Image: Figure 7 An illustration of a bar of music with intervals Description End: This is a chart that shows intervals. And basically I just wanted to show you what a handout might look like from the teacher. And if you notice there's colored text, there's boxes of text, there's titles and then there's some notes and they've chosen to highlight some of the notes so this would be extremely difficult to think of taking it and in Braille making it look anything like this. It would be more of a document that would explain and then I think that you would have to be very creative in how you represented this and taught it because they're discussing the unisons and octaves when they're the... same and they're called perfect and a perfect octave. And then they're discussing fourths and fifths, which are important because later on they're going to get into the wheel of the fifths and fourths. So I think that probably I would make sure to drop that talking note but I think this is one that's much more important to have the test-- text fully explain what the actual concept is. And this is one that matters less with the octaves. What it really matters with is for them to know what these intervals are between and the difference between an interval and an octave. [ Slide end: ] And I'm not going to teach that today. I'm going to say that... basically you would work with the music teacher so that you could be able to explain the difference and be able to make sure that when you're checking in with your student that they actually understand what that concept is. So we've looked at a few lessons now. The first two looked very simple. The first one with the baseball, even though it looked so simple, actually took the longest amount of time to discuss with the teacher and decide what the lesson is and what you should include in the Braille. Because it had a lot of information that mattered, but really basically they just wanted it to be the note B and know the values and the rhythm of those notes. And in the second one they just want you to add those note values. So it's important to really work with the music teacher and find out what is the purpose of this lesson. And the only lucky part in most of this is if they go through let's say three worksheets a day in that music class they tend to be on the same concept. And so if you have, you know, samples of that concept you shouldn't have to make those decisions each time for each worksheet. You will, but it should be much easier because you know what the teacher, the music teacher is trying to work with the students on. Is it the octaves or is it the note value or is it the treble clef? So know what the teacher's trying to do. That way when you're overwhelmed with the number of lessons you get, see that week what lesson they're working on or if they're working on more than one concept that you discuss those two concepts with them. You don't have to discuss every worksheet with them, but you do need to know what are you looking for in these lessons that I could then give to the student so that lesson matches what you as a teacher are trying to get across to the students? If we consider that they've worked so far on the notes and the note values and that they've also worked on what's a treble clef, what's a bass clef, and that they've worked with what are some rests and how does that change the rhythm of the measure and they know that notes are then surrounded by the space that marks the measures, and the other thing would be probably by this time they would also understand the time signature. Whether it's cut time, 4‑4, 3‑4. So those concepts would have to be in place before what I'm going to show you next would be then introduced to the students. Okay. The next slide talks about octave marks. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Octave Marks Text: None Image: Figure 8 Image of braille and staff music emphasizing octave markings Description End: And octave marks are what is used in Braille music instead of the bass clef and the treble clef because it gives them the exact information of where that octave starts. And this is something you would definitely need to work with the teacher on because you can see as the top row shows here we're using the note C which has got a dot in front of it, so the first one has a dot 4 with the note C and that's showing us it's the first octave. Then the new indicator on the second one is second, then third, then fourth. And fifth. And so one thing to understand with the octaves when you're teaching it is that they are always a combination of 3, 5, 6. They're never in the 1, 2, 3 part of the cell. They're always in the 3, 5, 6. And as you'll notice it says the A below the first octave and the C above the seventh octave. They've had to use double octave indicators because that's‑‑ when you look at a staff sheet of music and you see all of those extra lines, the teacher is still going to be calling it the note that it is, but they're going to talk about how it's lower and it's-- they may not even introduce the word octave at first. They may just be talking about how that note when it's represented there is lower than when it's at the other parts of the staff. [ Slide end: ] Whereas when you're teaching Braille music you are going to have to work on the octaves because once again you have linear notes that are going across under the students' fingers. If there's not an indicator before those notes, they have no idea where on the staff that note would be located. So it'd be very important and this is when they would start working on the octaves and you might have to work on that independently of when the teacher is, so that when they see that in a piece of music they will understand why those notes sound different even though they're the same C note, how different they sound in different octaves. When you... look at this you are... basically probably going to have to talk to the music teacher and... or the band director because they are not going to understand that your student will need to learn octaves along with the notes because until they're in upper grades in school they're not going to really break it down into what octave these notes are, whether it's a C 4 or 5. They're not going to be using that terminology. However, when you're working with a student who is using Braille, you have to introduce those octave marks or it will make no sense why they're hearing the letter C but it's sounding so different every time they hear it. Whereas if they have an octave it lets them know, just like the staff, whether it would be lower or higher. I know that's not good terminology, but that's the best I can think of right now. Octave marks have to be added after the student has worked on the notes and the note values, the rhythms, whether it has rests, whether it... has... measures so they make sure they have those concepts down and they can use them consistently as they're reading and then you would start introducing the octave marks to let them know exactly what that note would sound like in the piece. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Major Key Scales Text: None Image: Figure 9 A chart of the keys and their organization (example: G sharp; F Flat) Description End: The next slide shows a major key scale. So maybe the music teacher hands this out to the students and your student at this point it looks to me like you would have to look at the information, but this one's labeled pretty well. It looks like the different keys are on the left column and then as you go down it shows ‑‑ it represents how many sharps are going to be within those keys. Now, you could set this up in many ways and... I talked to another teacher about this. I don't think there's any correct way as long as your student understands how you're representing it. You might put it in a step table to somewhat match what the music teacher's showing. As long as you have an explanation or a key that explains what that table is to let them be able to match the lesson and more than likely this is an important one because the teacher's probably going to use this for many different lessons. So once again like many, many things we have to put in Braille you're having to make a decision on what's the information that's being presented and what it is is keys and sharps at the top. And then at the bottom you have your keys and your flats. And it matters little that they're in a box. It really matters that they're step down and that they have more within each row. [ Slide end: ] So as long as you could explain that ‑‑ now, you don't have to explain what the chart means you just have to explain the chart because the teacher in the music class or the band teacher is going to be responsible for explaining the chart. And they're going to be doing that at the same time as your student has the Braille. The other kids will have this chart. Okay, so once again, I don't think there's any proper way. There's many different methods you could use but what would be important here is for you to use the same method when you're using the different tables and for you to explain with a key why that table looks that way and how it's going to be res- represented in print to the other students. If we look at slide 14 [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Accidentals Text: None Image: Figure 10 Image of accidentals in braille music and print Description End: pretty much it matches that... table we were just looking at. It doesn't have anything to do with the keys. But it starts introducing the student to whether it's a sharp, a flat, a double sharp and whether it's a natural. Now, this is important both because it gives information about the note, but also if you think of the... key that it's played in, a lot of times it's on the treble clef and it will have the four sharp marks there. It will have the four flat marks there, two or three. So that gives some information about the key, but then when you find a sharp or a flat, immediately in front of a note [ Slide end: ] That gives you the information on the note. You... have to remember that the teacher needs to be reminded, the music teacher constantly, that there may be two or three cells of information, even more as they learn more, that are going to be located before the note. Things that visually are just placed on a line on the staff and have a little symbol to the side, you're going to have to have three cells. You're going to-- What octave? Is it a sharp or a flat? And then you're gonna have to have the note itself. So they need to understand that there is information before the note that they read. Okay. Accidentals aren't too hard. The next one-- as far as ties and slurs. When these are found in music we're definitely jumping up to the next level of types of music that are put together. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Ties and Slurs Text: None Image: Figure 11 Image showing staff music with ties and slurs and also showing the definition of ties and slurs. (Slur indicates a musical phrase. Ties connects the duration of same-pitched notes). Description End: Um. I tried to show in this one that a slur is like the entire musical phrase put together. And that a tie basically connects the duration of the same pitched note. And if you notice in this example when you look at the third note and it has the tie to the next measure note, that's why it would show that is because the duration you want that to continue through the measure with the same note. However, with the slur that is looking at the whole set of notes that are in front of it. When you have a slur ‑‑ and we're going to look at that in the next slide, but wait. When you have a slur you're going to have a symbol before the note and then a symbol after the last note in the slur. However when you have a tie, you're gonna have a tie indicator, you're gonna have the note ‑‑ tie indicator note. So, let's look at the next slide [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Slurs Text: None Image: Figure 12 Image of braille and staff music emphasizing slurs Description End: which basically is an example using slurs and ties. I'm not sure how you want me to explain this, but I thought we might kind of go step by step. It's a- it's a bit tedious, but- but we'll go and if you have a question or if I've gone too fast or we need to start counting again through the cells, please let me know. And I'm not going to give you cell numbers. I'm probably just going to go to the next cell with the information. So you'll notice that we do have the centered time signature at the top in three‑quarter time. So by this point we would expect them to know this. And maybe in these lessons they are learning ties and slurs, so you would expect them to know the notes, the note values, measures... rests, and now you're going to be introducing ‑‑ and octaves-- and now you're gonna be introducing them to ties and slurs. If you notice on the staff music and in the Braille music, the first symbol-- remember that we already have the key signature at the top, the 3‑4. So the next symbol is your rest. And so that is what's indicated in the Braille. The next thing that's indicated is an octave marker. You'll notice it's in the- it's dot 5. And for now just know that represents the fourth octave. Then you have the letter G and then if you notice you have one that's not a note and not an octave because it's all in the top cell. This is a slur indicator. If you look at the print music below, you'll see that the G and the E are tied together with a slur. So you have the slur indicator, then you have ‑‑ you have the note, then the slur, then the... next note. After that much like at the first of the Braille you have the rest. And there are two. Then in the Braille before you get to the letter C you have an octave indicator because it's changed. So then you have the note C and now you have another slur indicator. And then it goes to a measure, which is your space in Braille, and then you have a sharp. The note. The slur ending. Then you have a note, a rest, and so forth. So what's important here for this concept of slurs is [ Slide end: ] you need to... have many examples of how the notes are going to be tied together with a slur, when the slur begins and when the slur ends. Because many times it will be within the same measure like the first example with the le- with the note G and E. And many times like in the second [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Slurs Text: None Image: Figure 12 Image of braille and staff music emphasizing slurs Description End: you're have a measure between it so that would be a space in Braille, but you have told them with the indicator after the note C that that slur has started with the 1‑3 indicator. And then you have to tell them that it stops before the letter ‑‑ on the letter A. Okay? And then once again you have rests. And if you look towards the end of the print music-- I'm not sure who reads music-- you'll notice there's a symbol beside a note. And that is a natural symbol so you'll notice that above it in Braille before the measure-- before the space-- you have the natural, which is the CH, and it comes before the note B. So before the B it's told that it's a natural. And then at the end you have another rest and it tells you that that's a half rest and you can simply memorize this from a chart. And then you're-- see that same two symbols again on the end for the double bar for the end of the music. So. Let's talk about that a little bit as far as [ Slide end: ] go back to how we have to build with practice and make sure they understand each part before you go to the next part. Or it's just going to be confusing. What happened and the reason I had this idea was we're going to talk next about something different. And it's an excellent tool, but basically it is looking for an entire score, an entire piece of music. It's looking for a piece of music that has to make sense to the software. It has to have the octave. It has to have the time signature. It has to have measures and slurs. They need to know all of this before you can use the software to produce Braille music. Because the Braille music software is going to assume they know all of the indicators for the Braille music. Now, if your student has learned most of the indicators that ‑‑ all of the indicators that we've talked about so far, then maybe you would then start introducing a piece of music and going through it and seeing how it's structured. And... if you look at a piece of music that actually has a beginning and an end, not a lesson, not a single staff, then looking at the next slide you or... Chapter 3. Software & Resources [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Goodfeel Software Suite: dancingdots.com Text: ¥ Sharp-eye (scanning) ¥ Lime (notation) ¥ Goodfeel (braille) Description End: your Braillist could start to use the Goodfeel software suite, which is a really good program, but you have to have a full piece of music to use it. Until then you are going to be producing in Braille either through six key on a Perkins or a Mountbatten or a BrailleNote or a computer with Ducksberry or any other bran-- Braille translation. You are going to have to produce it six‑key. The Goodfeel software suite contains three different pieces: Sharp‑eye scans it and makes it into music. Lime changes it into notation. And Goodfeel that changes it into Braille. [ Slide end: ] All of your changes-- you would save yourself much, much misery if you make sure that when you scan it in Sharp‑eye and it translates it to music that is where you should make all your corrections. Because if you then go into Lime and try to make corrections, if you try to add a rest it'll bump every note beside it and it'll just become a neverending battle on trying to get the correct no- note values in your measure. So all of those corrections need to happen in Sharp‑eye with Goodfeel software suite. Okay. The last slide I wanted to show talks about some resources. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Resources Text: See handouts Link for NFB video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8Ti1dlrud4 BRL: Braille through Remote Learning: http://www.brl.org/codes/session09/overview.html Finale notation software http://www.finalemusic.com/Finale/ Description End: I have a link to an NFB video that-- it's really nice. It- it shows... Braille readers. It talks about how they didn't want to learn Braille music. They later understood why they wanted to learn Braille music. And the importance to them. The second one is a site that's no longer active as far as... true learning site... as far as they had... lessons on it. But they kept it up and it's Braille through Remote Learning and it is excellent. It gives- matches the print to the Braille and really helps a lot. The final one I have listed here is Finale Notation software and if you do know music you can actually create your music, your score, your- your sheet of music in the Finale notation software, they... have a free version- it's called Notepad, Finale Notepad. [ Slide end: ] And then you can save that and export it into your Goodfeel software and have the ability to just title it in a few things and then make it Braille. So if you're lucky enough to read music really well, then... something like the Finale Notepad would be really nice. A lot of music teachers, as you get up through the grades and the band directors, will use Finale software. And so sometimes you can start working with them and having them give you just the piece of music that your student ‑‑ if they're playing trumpet, the trumpet part, saxophone, so on. So Finale software really helps. I also included in your notes a handout on-- both in Braille and a visual-- walking you through how to use the Goodfeel software first using the Sharp‑eye, saving it, then using the Lime and saving it, and then having it go through the Goodfeel and having Braille. And the nice thing about that is if there's a lot of instructions you need to add you can copy or import that Braille music file into... your Braille editor. Be it Ducksberry or Braille 2000. Most of what I've learned as far as the Braille music or music Braille-- whichever you want to call it-- has been from samples and looking at the Braille music manual that's available on the website as a PDF. Um. On the... BANA website. And yes, it's a huge manual, but if you keep it on your computer it's searchable so when you're looking for a specific concept or lesson that you need to teach, you can actually search for it. Much nicer than having those huge manuals in front of you. So thank you very much for joining me today. I hope it might have helped in some way. [Silence]