COLLEGE MUSIC PROGRAMS - 
    Are they meeting the needs of our blind and VI students?
                                
                               By
                      Valerie Gaer M.M.  


Music is a knowledge-based language.  As a learned behavior, it is an understanding - an intimate
communication that musicians share with their instruments as the result of years of practice and
countless hours of reading the written page.  A knowledgeable musician is, in effect, the product
of his or her literacy.

With a single glance at a page of music, a sighted musician can absorb many pieces of musical
information at once.  For the musician who is blind, however, every detail from that printed page
is inaccessible without the skilled use of the sense of touch and an ability to read braille music.

As competition for jobs in the music industry continues to soar, it is imperative for the blind
musician to become armed with all the available tools at his or her disposal. It is also imperative to
develop a common literacy of shared communication with sighted peers so as to be competitive in
the job market.  The question remains however, whether the educational institutions that accept
blind students for enrollment are truly educating them, whether they have the understanding of
how to educate them properly, and subsequently whether they ultimately accept the financial,
ethical, and moral responsibilities for this task.

As an employee of Berklee College of Music for four years, and again during the completion of
my Master's degree thesis at New England Conservatory of Music in Boston (September, 1997 to
December, 2002)*, I discovered many interesting facts, indeed! Most significantly, music schools
nationally, and probably internationally, are not meeting the needs of the blind and visually
impaired population in several areas:

         Curriculum development that addresses the fact that blind/vi students do not
          function in a visual world
         Counseling and mentoring services directed at the blind/vi students environmental,
          social, professional, and emotional needs
         Material formatted to Braille, Braille Music or large print is not completed in a
          timely manner
         Technology that aids, but does not replace the blind/vi student's ability to read
          tactually, is non-existent in private, postsecondary venues

Obviously, if a college has a student population of 3000 and only ten of those students are blind
or visually impaired, the percentage may seem quite small to be undertaking these responsibilities,
but it is even smaller however, when a school has only one student enrolled with a visual
disability.  Yet educational institutions today are accepting the tuition dollars of the blind/vi
population for enrollment, but they are not seeking alternative solutions for their educational
needs.

As a measuring tool, I surveyed 233 postsecondary institutions in the US and received 70
responses to my inquiry.  With a total population of approximately 19,000 students, the following
results were presented:

         54 out of 70 colleges had absolutely NO blind/vi students
         13 colleges did have blind students
         17 had VI students 

     This represented that  .00005 percent of the population had a visual impairment 

In the past five years:

         44 of the schools had at least one blind/visually-impaired student.
         39 of those students earned a Bachelor's degree; 2 earned a Masters; 1 earned a
          Ph.D.
         Seven schools waived reading and writing requirements; 45 did not; 16 left the
          question blank or used a "?"; One answered that they assessed on a case by case
          basis and one worked with other universities.

There were many more questions and many more answers that I will provide in future articles. 
Music education is not just for the sighted musician alone.  Each individual must be musically
educated to his or her very potential so that no opportunity may be lost.  Each must be provided
with an outlet for the inherent needs of artistic expression which is clearly stifled by lack of proper
instruction.  Braille music as a medium not only brings literacy to the blind music student, but also
the endless possibilities of expression.  These possibilities can open for them only in their own
language - the language of composition, notation, and ultimately, in their own legacy.

There are no obstetricians who can yank us from the birth canals of illiteracy, whack us on the
back, stand us on our feet, and ameliorate the passivity of postsecondary music schools with
respect to its blind students.  Change invariably requires a concerted effort in defining the
fractures that exist between illiteracy and literacy.  For blind students to thrive and grow as
musicians, this effort, this vision in motion, is crucial to developing new tools for understanding
and for action.

For further information or if you require assistance with defining responsibilities or assistance with
advocacy for your student, please write to me at vgaer@earthlink.net.

     *Master's Thesis: BlindSight; Literacy, Language, and Learning for Blind Students
          Enrolled in Postsecondary Music Schools in the U.S. (2000)