Braille Music Technology

While I was at a master class this whole weekend, there was a flutist their that was blind.  Although I really did not have any interaction with him, I left the class wondering how does he play?  I mean I know how he plays but how does he learn a piece? What resources are out there for him and other blind musicians? I have thought about this once before when I met another blind flutist a couple of years ago who learned every piece by ear!  I thought to myself, geez sometimes I have trouble understanding and playing a piece of music when I can read everything on the page.  I did some research and found out some very interesting technology that has helped blind musicians. 

I learned a tremendous amount.  There was actually a camp they started in 2006 in Texas for blind and visually impaired musicians.  The musicians learned how to use technology from a product called Dancing Dots. In Dancing Dots you can prepare pieces by entering individual notes by typing on a keyboard or playing on a musical keyboard.  After they did that they actually turned their music into braille by using a program called Goodfeel.  I think that program is amazing. You can compose a score or individual parts, you can even transpose parts! You can also choose how many lines per page and the braille cells per page. 

I thought the articles that I read on this was amazing.  I think that the technology out there for blind musicians is amazing and it sounds like they keep trying to improve it!