Music, Art, and Science Meet

Did you know there are music scores in Braille? Check out these elaborate notations! I'm not sure I would ever be able to make sense out of them. I don't have the patience or delicate touch for it. If I were a blind musician, I would probably just try to learn everything by ear. And, chances are my music would be limited to Fur Elise on the piano. :)



Artistically speaking, being a blind musician wouldn't be so bad! You would have no visual distraction from the sound you're making - you could focus exclusively on tone and sound. I love that idea. Sometimes Sister Applonie has us close our eyes in choir as we tune up chords. It's amazing what making your ears work a little harder will do to your sound. I mean, it worked for this guy, right?


(Blind Egyptian Musician, 15th century Wall Mural)

Music for the deaf is a little trickier. How does one make an art form based exclusively on sound accessible to those who can't hear? Well guess what! I found out about some awesome technology this week! There's a program that makes visual representations of musical pieces. This video is made by someone who does a bunch of these "animated scores", if you will. My favorite is Debussy's Arabesque No. 1. It's so much fun to watch! The intervals are pretty good for computer software! And the rhythms are right on. Maybe this is a way the deaf could experience music! And who knows, maybe in a couple hundred years this will be the way everyone learns music. You really should watch at least some of it. My favorite part is 4:28 to the end. And everything else.

BYU Student Section Flash Mob Dance

Kansas State's student section surprised the crowd by doing a flash mob dance during one of their Basketball game's time outs. A week or so ago, the BYU athletic department sent out a training video for OUR VERY OWN surprise dance. My thought process was, "no one's going to do this, I'm not going to try to learn it" but boy was I wrong! The special day came and everyone was at the game hours early practicing! I learned it as quickly as I could. It was AWESOME. The crowd was totally surprised and we stole the show! Here's a video. I'm the one in white...haha just kidding. It's a little hard to see the dance moves because there's 5,000 of us! Beat that, Kansas State!


Oh by the way...we WON the championship! :)