[Menvi-discuss] Some ideas for software tools

[Dale Lieser]

But, as is sometimes evidenced on this list, poor spelling can result from
not reading braille or print.


-----Original Message-----
From: Menvi-discuss [mailto:menvi-discuss-bounces at menvi.org] On Behalf Of
Marc Sabatella
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2013 4:28 PM
To: This is for discussing music and braille literacy
Subject: Re: [Menvi-discuss] Some ideas for software tools

On Aug 7, 2013, at 12:58 PM, Leena Dawes <leena.salim at gmail.com> wrote:

> Exactly. However, even sighted people will make the distinction. "Do
> you listen to books on tape?" is a common question as opposed to "Do
> you read books on tape?" This isn't reading because spelling, grammar,
> and other important aspects of literacy aren't learned.

FWIW, as a sighted person, I'd agree that there is something of a
distinction between reading a book versus hearing it read on tape, but I'd
also say this is a *very* different distinction than the one that exists
between listening to music and reading it.

Whether you read a book or hear it read on tape, you are getting essentially
the same information out of it: the actual contents of the book.  No one
then expects you to "perform" that book - to read it yourself later.  And
even if they did, I'd argue that there would be very little difference
between learning to perform a book by reading it versus learning it by
listening to it.  Assuming it was being read accurately, you'd still learn
the exact same sequence of words, regardless of how complex the book was.  A
book is essentially just a libear stream of words, and while maybe you
wouldnt be sure of the location of every last comma, in practice that is
normally justnnot that relevant - the comma is an aid to understanding, but
that understanding would come just as easily from a tood reading.

But in the case of music, I don't care how good your ears are - you are
*not* likely to learn every single note of that piece just by listening to
it.  So your eventual performance of it will be an approximation.  Sure, for
sufficiently simple pieces, the approximation might be essentially perfect
(depending on how accurate the recorded performance you learned from was),
but you'd never know to what extent things like dynamics and other
interpretive things were just accidents of how that performer played it
versus what the composer actually specified.  And yes, for pop music or jazz
or other music that is not normally fully notated in the first case, then
even reading the music will mean you are learning one arranger's
interpretation of the song rather than the actual essence of the song, which
might indeed be better learned by ear.

Still, there exists a huge amount of music for which lisening to it does not
convey nearly the same level of information as reading it, from the
perspective of allowing you to fully understand or reproduce it.  So if
someone says "listening is a form of reading", I'd say yes, but only to a
certain extent.  It might tell you everything you need to know about
extraordinarily simple pieces, or most of what you need to know about
somewhat more complex pieces, but at some point it is guaranteed to fall
short.

Marc


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