Music is very important in the life of a blind child, both
as a therapy ( emotional balance ) and also as a possible
form
of
future
professional
orientation.
Blind children listen to a lot of music and learn
spontaneously, without coercion, dozens of songs.
Blind student have outstanding musical skills (rhythm,
auditory perception, voice playback, auditory memory,
perfect hearing, musical creativity).
Music is beneficial for:
• significant increase in the qualitative level of
communication;
• enriching nonverbal communication;
• manifestation of desire and pleasure to
communicate;
• progress in establishing social relationships;
• increased self-confidence;
• decreasing and even resolving anxiety.
The first festival, first class
Celebration at the end of the first grade.
The first guitar sounds.
Kids create spontan rytms lisening a song
All started as a game
Although all started as a game, and it can be said that
is the way it continuous, because it can be considered
that the technique of learning through play is one of
the most effective ways, keeping alive the enthusiasm
and joy of learning more and more elements - results
and responses of children were more than encouraging,
downright exciting for teachers and parents.
Developing a sense of rhythm leads to better timing,
coordinating their movements by interventions of the
other tools, and the ability to meet time and measures of
a song, qualities that are needed to study any other
instrument and even vocal interpretation!
Starting with the Spring of 2012, our School for the
Visually Impaired has been host for weekly volunteer
activities that target acquiring techniques to use Bongo
drums as accompaniment to songs and play guitar
rhythms.
The activities are aimed, on the one hand, at improving
the sense of rhythm, achieving good synchronization at
group level (8 pupils in Year 2 A), practicing the
melodic sense, and on the other hand, multisensory
stimulation, more specifically of the tactile- kinesthetic
and auditory senses, as well as harmonizing
relationships with the others at the personality level (e.g.
building self-confidence, initiative, creativity,
communication, collaboration etc.).
Engaging blind children to work with instruments of
percussion seemed at first not necessarily easier, but rather a
more manageable approach, because during the song there
is no need for the students to make heavy use of spatial
orientation, since the percussion instrument is fixed in one
place and for beginners it is just the hand-beating technique
which needs to be acquired, while only at later stages will
they develop: a sense of rhythm, the ability to maintain the
steady pace throughout the song, while synchronizing with
other instruments and even simultaneous intercalation of
two rhythms.
If at first only two children managed to keep steady
pace, thereafter, all students have achieved this, and
even more than that, they were discovering themselves,
arrange, orchestrate and compose the songs. Thus,
without the compulsion to repeat a theme necessarily
imposed, giving them greater freedom, it allowed their
own creativity to express.
Benefits :
• Learning to play an instrument, enjoying yourself,
playing, learning through play and joy;
• Music can be a bridge for better cooperation between
school, family and society: all for the benefit of
visually impaired students.
Taking into account that the career choices of visually
impaired persons are dramatically reduced, discovering
and stimulating the musical skills of these children can
bring both material and spiritual benefits to society as a
whole: instrumentalists and musicians of high quality,
optimal integration of the visually impaired in society,
as well as a global change in the attitude of society
towards people with disabilities.