About Braille Music

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(initiated by Jim Taylor, compiled and edited by Angela Purll, October 2009).

This very inspirational idea was initiated by now retired musician and teacher Jim Taylor, in an attempt to make the production of Braille music more accessible to the sighted computer user. Jim explains:

“Christmas of 2008, our choirmaster asked us for a more spirited performance of a newish carol we were in the process of learning. I turned to my colleague in the choir and told him that the word "spirited", in contracted Braille, could be equally well read as a bar in Braille music: A minim just below middle C, followed by E crotchet. The choirmaster overheard this and asked me about it at the end of the practice. The net result was that I was able to provide him with a list of most signs next day, and within two days, he had transcribed the bass parts of two carols I had never heard before.”

Jim, an x-pupil of RNIB New College, Worcester, studied for four years at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and taught for a further twenty years in two schools for visually impaired children. After becoming disillusioned with what was going on in the vi children sector, and as a result, he moved out of teaching and into Braille production, working for sixteen years at the National Library in Stockport. Jim now produces an emailed list of the programmes broadcast each week on BBC Radio 7, which he sends to around 250 visually impaired people nation wide.