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I don’t remember exactly how I ⠛⠕⠞ started with music, but this is how the story was told to me: I was four years old, and had discovered my aunt’s old upright piano with several sticking keys and out-of-tune notes, although I had no idea what “out of tune” meant at the time. As I started tinkering on it, my tiny brain was discovering and processing all kinds of musical information that I was not even aware of–consonance, dissonance, pitch, rhythm, tempo, dynamics, melody, and harmony. My mom ⠉⠁⠍⠑ along and played “Mary Had A Little Lamb” for me, and I echoed her back with one finger. At that moment, the whole room fell silent as my family imagined the prospect of raising a “child prodigy” and nurturing this talent to its maximum potential. Thus began my lifelong passion and insatiable appetite for music and immersive storytelling.

Flash forward to today, I am now a doctoral student, music educator, and coach-accompanist, who has served as musical director for youth and community theatrical productions. I have also been totally blind from birth, due to anophthalmia, a rare genetic condition meaning “without eyes.” Although I spent three years at a school for the blind developing my ability to read braille and get around safely, most of my education and work experience has taken place alongside my peers who could see, hereafter referred to as “sighted”. With the help of software that makes my computer talk, accessible music notation software, a digital voice recorder, and a blind person’s version of an Android tablet, I have successfully integrated myself into both the sighted community and, in particular, the musical community. After 17 years of riding the metaphorical roller coaster of formal training and employment as a totally blind musician, I’m now able to create an online space where this topic can be discussed freely, so that other musicians will not have to ride the same roller coaster I did. I also offer consultation, coaching, and advocacy services (see the end of this post for contact info.)

Music has been a critical part of my life since I was an infant; my parents used it intentionally to help me establish daily routines, shift to a different mindset, and learn new information. I taught myself classical piano by ear and was successfully (and unknowingly) playing many complicated pieces. After a year of private lessons with the Suzuki Method, I began working with another teacher, who was also blind, who transferred that knowledge to basic music theory—counting, note values, beat functions, measures, and subdivided rhythms. By age seven, I was playing Beethoven sonatas and Haydn concertos competitively and, according to this instructor, “had an adult understanding of dynamics” (louds and quiets.) I was also giving my own solo recitals at local retirement and assisted living communities, having programmed them myself with guidance. Some of those recitals even featured a piece that I would play and sing at the same time. I’d always loved to sing but didn’t truly discover my voice until I joined choir in eighth grade. At that time, my voice became my primary focus, but I still maintained my piano skills by accompanying voice students and choirs and later playing in musicals. During my later elementary years (grades 4-6), I had great difficulty in my public-school music classes, both because the environment was too chaotic and because I was not being taught in the same manner as the rest of the students. Worst of all, I didn’t know how to tell my wonderful private teacher or other supporters about this difficulty. Sure, these instructors were making a sincere effort with the information they had. In hindsight, however, I believe their approaches tended to single out ME, the student with vision loss, who had enough trouble being part of a group as it was. In so doing, an atmosphere was created in which my differences were made more obvious, and several common myths and stereotypes about blindness were perpetuated.. After completing a BME and MM in Music Education at a large public university, it became clear that the problem was NOT me after all. The manner in which music is taught in the schools is primarily visual and tends to focus too much on the visual elements of music literacy (reading and writing notes on a page.) In other words, the current system of music education is “overvisualizing” an auditory art that does NOT EVEN REQUIRE the use of sight. In fact, I learned in my Master’s program that ear-training is the precursor to the development of sight-reading (the ability to read an unfamiliar piece of music quikly.) Five years of teaching elementary (K-6) music, both in-person and online, reitterated this point in my mind time and time again. From doctoral coursework in arts-based research, disability studies, and human development/counseling methods, I was finally able to put a name to the phenomenon I’d experienced my entire life: OCULARCENTRISM. OCULARCENTRISM, also known as Ocularnormativity, describes the privileged position and value of the sense of sight, and the information it brings, in Western society. In laymen’s terms, it’s an ableist mindset that assumes everyone can engage with the world in the same vision-centered way, effectively marginalizing those who don’t or can’t. In even simpler terms, sight = knowledge, and knowledge = power. ⠠⠹ phenomenon tends to be especially prominent in the arts and arts education industries, and is a key driver of the pervasive ableism and cultural dynamics. Statistically, around 75% of blind or visually impaired people, (hereafter referred to as BVI for the sake of brevity and simplicity) still remain unemployed, or aren’t gainfully employed in a field of their choice. This, I believe, is largely due to sighted powers-that-be who are either uninformed, misinformed, or underinformed about a BVI’s true capabilities. In other words, they’re IGNORANT. Now, let’s clarify one thing before we go any further: IGNORANCE, according to the Oxford Dictionary, means “lack of knowledge or awareness about a particular thing.” This is the definition we’ll be working with from here on out. If you’re a music educator and this sounds like you, you’ve come to the right place. Although you may only encounter a student with vision loss once or twice in your entire career, all the variables and possible scenarios are still worth discussing, so we can work together to foster inclusivity and accessibility in the arts.

Through my blog, coaching services, and podcast (in progress), we’ll discuss all of these and other related topics freely, safely, and even with a bit of melodramatic, lively humor. I will present several ideas about teaching and reinforcing musical concepts nonvisually and encouraging “non-ableist” ways of thinking in the classroom, on stage, at the podium, or even a private studio. For this purpose, I will assume that the student has received consistent training in braille and other compensatory skills since toddlerhood, has no secondary disability, and is academically able to enjoy the same wonderful benefits of music as their sighted classmates. As always, if you have any questions, or would like to schedule a one-on-one consultation or coaching with me, please email me at
visionthrumusic@gmail.com