After a recap of octave signs and intervals, this session covered:
- Word signs
- Ties and slurs
- Phrase marks
You can follow Stuart on Twittre (@stuartlawler)
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Archives: Episode
Xia Leon Sloane on Studying Composition and a Commission for the BBC Proms (Episode 28)
We’re almost exactly a month away from the opening night of the BBC Proms, the world famous summer season of concerts of classical music founded in 1895. Since their infancy, they’ve championed the composition and performance of new works of music through various channels including, latterly, the BBC Young Composer competition.
In 2018, one of the winners of this competition was blind composer Xia Leon Sloane, who describe themselves as “a writer of words and music, with a particular interest in the way that art can respond to political and ecological ideas”. Their choral piece, Earthward, subsequently received its world premier by vocal ensemble VOCES8 at a prom at Cadogan Hall on 22 July 2019.
In addition to the BBC Young Composer competition, they’ve won The Cambridge Young Composer of the Year, The Joan Weller Composition Prize, The Humphrey Searle Composition Award and the Royal Philharmonic Society/Classic FM 25th Birthday commissions. They’ve also composed with Aldeburgh Young Musicians, The National Youth Orchestra and the Britten Sinfonia Academy.
Xia first undertook composition lessons at the age of 12 and, at time of publication, they’ve just finished their final year of undergraduate study at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Much of their composition emerges from their spiritual practice and their own responses to world affairs.
Blind since the age of 2, they’re an advanced braillist and a prolific user of braille music. We spoke with them in February about their braille music journey, and what it was like to have a score that originated in braille performed by sighted musicians in front of a live audience of nearly a thousand, and a radio audience of hundreds of thousands more.
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The Most Inexpensive Braille Reading Setup in the World? Introducing Braille on the Amazon Fire Tablet (Extra 27)
Over the years, blind people have benefitted from incredible enhancements in the fields of electronic braille and accessibility in general. In fact, it’s now possible to purchase a fully accessible Amazon Fire tablet for under £50 which, pared with an inexpensive braille display such as an Orbit Reader, and Amazons Kindle store which offers access to quite literally hundreds of thousands of digital books, makes for an incredibly cost-effective braille reading setup. But how does it work?
In this masterclass, presented by Ben Mustill-Rose, we provided a general overview of the Fire tablet, the basics of setting it up, how to connect a braille display and how to navigate the device using it. We then purchased a book from the Kindle store and walked through how to read it on a braille display.
This session was recorded on Tuesday 15 June 2021. For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page.
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The Clearvision Project and the Typhlo and Tactus International Tactile Book Competition (Episode 27)
Parents reading with their children: it’s an experience common to many households in virtually every country of the world. It’s a uniquely special experience for both the parent and the child, remembered for years to come, and often relived as children become parents themselves, and parents become grandparents.
For many blind people in the UK, it’s been facilitated for decades by the Clearvision project and its collection of over 14,000 books, each designed in such a way as to simultaneously enable blind and sighted people to read and enjoy them.
It’s been directed since 2013 by Alexandra Britten, and she joined me on the podcast to tell me more about the project and its involvement with a competition to find the world’s best tactile book.
Contact Clearvision
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: 0208 789 9575
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Braille in the Kitchen (Extra 26)
This week’s Masterclass has a more low tech flavour as we take a wander into the heart of the household. If you’ve ever wondered how to read braille recipes without ruining them or what to do when the label is too big for the jar, this session is for you.
Emma Williams led the session – teacher of Independent Living Skills at New College Worcester, and a familiar voice to many from our Clever Cooking events last year. She drew on a wealth of personal experience of using braille in the kitchen, as well as things which have worked well (and maybe some which haven’t) for her peers and her students.
This session was recorded on Tuesday 1 June 2021. For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page.
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Braille Music: Let’s Tackle the Basics, Session 2 (Extra 25)
In this session, we covered:
- Rests: quaver, crotchet, minim, semibreve and dotted versions of the above
- Clef signs: treble (G) and bass (F)
- Octave signs and their use
- Interval signs and their use
A mid-month clinic will take place on Monday 14 June at 8:00 PM in the UK and Ireland. The next teaching session will take place at the same time on Monday 28 June and cover hand signs, in accord, ties, slurs, articulation, fingering and maybe tongueing.
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An Introduction to Braille on Android (Extra 24)
If you’re a blind Android user, you’re bound to have come across Steve Nutt at Computer Room Services. He’s blind himself, been in the accessible smartphone business for over 20 years, and has a vast amount of knowledge and experience when it comes to using smartphones with braille displays.
We’re delighted that he joined us on Tuesday 18 May to present an introduction to using an Android device with a braille display. He covered which braille displays work with Android, how to connect them, how to navigate the operating system, other key concepts, and how to use braille input.
For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page.
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New Braille Displays and Firmware Updates from HumanWare (Episode 26)
You don’t have to have been in the blindness community very long to have come across HumanWare and their two flagship brands: Victor Reader and BrailleNote. Indeed, on the second episode of this podcast, we talked extensively about the BrailleNote Touch, which has since been succeeded by the BrailleNote Touch Plus.
BrailleNote is not the company’s only line of braille product, though. In 2003, thanks to an agreement with Baum, HumanWare launched its Brailliant line of refreshable braille displays. A braille input keyboard was added in 2011 and now, ten years on, the stakes have been raised still further with the launch of their most recent innovation, the Brailliant BI20X and BI40X.
The 20-cell and 40-cell displays have been shipping since mid-February, and a significant software update was released towards the start of May. Software version 1.1.1 also applies to the Mantis Q40 and Chameleon 20, which were released last summer and manufactured by HumanWare in partnership with the American Printing House for the Blind.
To discover more about this exciting new range of braille displays, and the new software update, we’re joined by HumanWare’s Andrew Flatres, Braille Product Manager; and Martin Roberts, Blindness Product Specialist for the UK.
Notes
To join the Brailliant BI X Users list, send a blank email to: [email protected]
If you have trouble subscribing, email [email protected]
To express your interest in beta testing new software from HumanWare, please fill out this Google form.
To contact HumanWare in the UK, call 01933 415 800 or email [email protected]
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What is a BRF and Why would you Want one? (Extra 23)
We’re starting to hear more and more about BRF files. They’re the default braille format on platforms such as RNIB Reading Services; they’re regularly used in the transcription industry to share braille versions of documents between producers; and notetaker users have used them to transfer files from one brand of braille device to another. But questions still prevail:
- What, exactly, is a BRF?
- Why would you use BRF files over more mainstream file formats?
- What are the limitations of BRF?
- How do you read BRF files?
- How do you navigate through them?
- How do you create them?
Matthew Horspool answered all these questions and more on Tuesday 4 May.
For further information please visit the Braillists Foundation Media Page.
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Braille Music: Let’s Tackle the Basics! (Extra 22)
Topics covered in this session:
- Debunking some myths
- Notes and note values – quavers, crotchets, minims, semibreves and dotted notes
- Sharp, flat and natural signs
- Time signatures and their placement – 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, common time, 6/8, 9/8
- Key signatures and their placement – D major (2 sharps), A major (3 sharps), B major (5 sharps) and F sharp major (6 sharps)
Resources of interest:
- RNIB Music Advisory Service
- Braille Music for Beginners for the Piano by Joan Partridge: available from RNIB, product code 25282902 (braille) or 25282903 (print)
- A Course in Braille Music by Maeve Smith
- Focus on Braille Music by Lisette Wesseling, published by Musicians in Focus Ltd and available from Techno-Vision Systems Ltd
- Who’s Afraid of Braille Music? by Richard Taesch and William R. McCann, available from Dancing Dots
- Braille Music in a Digital Age, by Roger Firman and Clare Gailans, published by the International Council on English Braille at its Seventh General Assembly (2020):
- Hadley School for the Blind braille music course (no longer available)
- ICEB Braille Music page
- New International Manual of Braille Music Notation
- BrailleOrch (in English)
- Braille Music Editor
Follow @stuartlawler and @roisindermody on Twitter
Join the next event on Monday 10 May 2021 at 8:00 PM in the UK and Ireland
Join the Braillists Foundation on Clubhouse
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