recordings forvisually imparied and blind classical piano students

[luxuchu]

Hello everyone,

I am a blind classical pianist who has learned repertories entirely by ear. I just graduated from college with three degrees in math, history and piano performance. I would normally ask my teachers to record the pieces I need to learn, which including solo, concerto, chamber music and piano duet, accompaniments for vocalists, and etc. These recordings are somewhat slow (compare to the concert tempo, but not extremely slow like some Youtube tutorials), and depends on the piece, if the texture is not too hard, my teachers would play hands together with a few explanations of some complex chords and voicings (e.g. the alto voice A is held by 3 betas, or that chord is divided into 4 notes for the left hand and 5 notes for the right hand) Now I am wondering if there is a way for me to get more recordings like what I have mentioned. As most of you would think, music braille is an option, but mostly for lower level players, and I don't know music braille from growing up. Another option is learning from MIDI files. But the quality of midi is, as most of you know, not great, especially for complex classical pieces, like a Bach Fugue or 20th century piano sonatas. So my question is do you know anyone who is specializing in this area (making recordings) or any established business or "publishing services"? I am sure I am not the only who needs this, but after browsing this site, I have not found anyone asking this question yet.
P.S. Attached is a recording from one wonderful piano professor Christopher Lewis, playing and explaining the first half of Brahms violin sonata in d minor, last movement.
Looking forward to your reply,
Tony Lu

[dogperson]

Sorry, I can’t offer any specific advice. However, Berkelee College of music in Boston discusses  training for blind musicians on their website and offers contact information for the director as well as a professor.  I hope they can provide support


https://www.berklee.edu/assistive-music-technology

[luxuchu]

Thanks for your reply. I contacted professor Kim last year as I also found out about this program. Unfortunately, this is designed for music production and lower level performers. As you may know, imslp.org is a popular place to find sheet music for classical players, and there is simply no braille version for Brahms d minor sonata for violin and piano or Rachmaninoff third piano concerto. And of course, midi is not clear enough to learn all the details from the score (such as pedal, dynamics, accents and so on). So that's why I'd like to explore the possibility to see if someone is willing to make recordings from a real piano, with explanations, to make it as a different way of "publishing" the music. As an example,  here is a recording of the primo part from a Beethoven 9th symphony piano 4 hands arrangement (this is the second movement).

[dogperson]

See if this application will help you ... it lets you slow down to 25% without distortion, and designate a snippet to play in a loop.

https://www.grandpianopassion.com/2017/11/06/fast-music-slow-downer-piano-app/?omhide=true

[luxuchu]

Thank you for your reply. I do have this app on my phone. The problem I find with this app is that it does not tell you which hand plays what notes. In a Bach Fugue or Rachmaninoff pieces, it is necessary to know which hand play how many notes, so I wonder if there are any services in which somebody would record hands separately for pieces like what I have mentioned. It seems like the current technology is still a bit far away to achieve everything.