How to teach the blind to play the piano

By | April 6, 2021

1.

Begin his piano lessons by teaching him the keyboard. Let him learn that there are two black keys and three black keys with white keys in between. He should learn that this is how a keyboard consists of whether he is playing a piano or a keyboard and whether he is blind or has sight.

2.

Have the blind piano student put his fingers on the white keys. Tell them to play the keys on the right. Let him know how the sound gets louder. Tell them to do the same thing, but this time play the piano keys on the left. Always hold him on the central C key (this is the first key in the middle of the piano}, where there are the two black keys. Let him hear how the tone (sound) changes as his fingers hit him on each key. Let him play the piano scales while playing with him.Let your ears remember the musical notes and piano keyboard notes as his fingers move slowly across the keyboard.Real fingering comes later.

3.

Teach the blind child or adult to touch each key with their fingers. (Even if it’s a finger at the moment) Place your fingers on the two black keys. Let him feel the step as it goes from the white key and up to the black key. This is an important exercise because the piano keyboard consists of octaves of the seven keys and in the same order on the entire keyboard. A blank piano student must feel with his fingers what a piano student with sight can see.

Make the child literally play (touch) the buttons with each of the fingers so that he can hear different sounds as each key does. Let him play the black keys to the left of the white key. Have him play a black key to the right of each white key to recognize the different sounds. Always let him start with the middle C. In the beginning, it is not important that he uses the right fingering – that is the sound he needs to hear and how he can create new sounds and how he creates new sounds. Let him have fun – but he must always start with the center buttons. He needs to know that this is always in the middle of the keyboard. His fingers must know this because he has no vision. The others are coming. Just as a blind person learns to read using brail, he must learn the keyboard by touching and sounding.

5.

Let the blind child hear the music and how he can make the sounds or tones of the music change as he goes up and down the scale. However, he must always start and learn to touch and feel when he is on the middle keys and that they are always C, D, E when there are two black keys in the middle. You can show him (and tell him) and make him feel that there are always two black keys after a C and three black keys after an F, and that this is the pattern of the whole piano. He must know that the keys on all pianos are always C, D, E (two black keys) and F, G, A, B (three black keys) all the way up on the keyboard and down on the keyboard. Let him feel them with his fingers when he hears it with his ears.

6.

Teach the piano student to sit in the middle of the piano when he plays. Show him the foot pedal by placing his feet on them. First, make them sit. Then make them reach down with their right foot until they find the pedals. They will learn how to use and hear how the foot pedals change the sound of the music later, but first you have to present them on the entire piano keyboard including the foot pedal. Do not monitor a blind adult or a child by teaching them too much too quickly if they do not ask questions.

Tips and warnings

  • Teach them a little after a little, or as much as they want to know in any lesson.
  • Teach them and then let them touch the keyboards, the black and white keys.
  • Let them play – the blind person needs to hear the sounds each key makes and how it sounds when two keys are played together.
  • This does not apply to a digital piano. The digital piano does not have the pitch or the change of tone that a piano has.
  • This will introduce the blind child or adult to the piano. Teach them to actually play scales and learn the notes by finding a certified piano teacher who is certified to blind piano teachers.
  • Do not be too strict in the beginning. Do not promote them. Let them find their own way to begin with and that the piano is fun to play.
  • There are many famous blind pianists who learned to play the piano after losing their sight. A piano is one of the easiest musical instruments to learn. Notice that Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles and other blind entertainers all play the piano. Introduce a blind person to the piano keyboard. They should practice daily until their fingers learn the position of the C key, the D key and the E key. These are the white buttons under the two black keys.

    Source:danspela.com