Can blind musicians "sight read?" In this book, Richard Taesch describes his approach to teach his students to do just that while reading braille chord symbols such as C-Minor 7 and F-Diminished with one hand while voicing out those chords with the other.
The author tells us: "While teaching at the Southern California Conservatory of Music and supporting blind students enrolled in college music programs elsewhere, it soon became obvious that my students were teaching me. Clearly, traditional pianistic approaches to chord work for jazz and pop ensembles were not adequate to handle the challenge of braille chord symbol reading while performing in live situations.
True, it takes two hands to play piano. However, one hand can be used for basic chord structures, while the other either enhances voicings or adds melody and /or improvisation. For the blind reader, this opens the possibility of using the right hand for braille reading while performing at least a preliminary left hand harmonic support basis. This basis or harmonic accompaniment can easily be enhanced by the right hand later on as melodic functions are added."
This book follows the progression of concepts as presented in An Introduction to Music for the Blind Student, Part I.
N.B.: Literary text is presented in English Braille American Edition (EBAE).
