Will Denayer wrote:
'I must compliment the folks on this list for their kind and caring
attitude, and willingness to help others. What started as a mild
annoyance at someone asking seemingly "simple" questions might have
turned into an ugly "flame" on another list. Instead, it was treated
gently, with patience and understanding - and when the details of a
member's visual handicap were revealed, I'm sure most of us suddenly
felt very proud to be a member of such a group of people helping
people.'
Well, let me add something to this. Untill a couple of years ago, my
eyes were just fine. During the last two years, things have become
much worse. I can imagine that I have been something like a pain to
this forum asking simple questions, but, on the other hand, I am
certain that no one with normal eyesight can imagine what it means to
live in darkness, it is not complete darkness, but it is pretty dark
regardless of how many times you enlarge something (like a manual for
example). I absolutely want to write a couple of pieces this year
(instead of being a mere theorist), because if it gets worse, I am
lost (but I am stuck for the moment). I read some interviews with
Morton Feldman a while ago – he was very a verbose person and I like
the things he said. While listening to his music (some of which I
really like) something struck me. It is as if I can hear his bad
eyesight. I know that this sounds strange, but in my mind I see him
working on these long, slow pieces with his nose very close to his
score, pondering every detail for a much longer time than what would
be the case normally. I am sure something like this played a role.
Just a thought, Will
Interesting point. It's hard to know just what plays any sort of role
in the music we compose, and it's equally hard to know what doesn't play
a role.
My heart goes out to you in your situation because you are right that I
(and probably most members of this list) can't fully imagine what it
would be like to be in your situation. My mother-in-law is in a similar
situation (she has gone from 20-80 in her left eye to 20-400 in a couple
of months and is legally blind in that eye -- we're hopeful that
cataract surgery will improve things but her doctors aren't giving any
guarantees) and I hear her anguish because she is a calligrapher of
international reputation and teaches at institutes as well as at a
university, and there is no hope for her (there aren't screen readers
for sheets of paper) if this fails. She also loves reading, and I can
hear her anguish every time we talk. But I still can't really know what
it's like because I haven't experienced it.
I do know that some composers have worked with an assistant to whom they
have dictated their music (I would have a hard time working this way,
I'm sure) and that some blind computer users work with screen readers
and I believe Finale is a program which works with such a program but
I'm not sure since it's been a long time since I've read messages from
such users. I believe the Band-in-a-Box group at Yahoo has a blind
member or two who are quite active musically, so you might consider
joining that group just to make contact with fellow sufferers to learn
ways to work around it and still create your music.
I am glad that you did make your situation clear, and apologize for
complaining about your questions. The nature of e-mail contact, though,
is that we can't know any more about our fellow correspondents than they
are willing to tell us, and in the past many people have asked the same
questions you were asking because they were using pirated copies of
Finale and didn't have the manual on their computers so they had to turn
to groups such as this one to learn how to use the program. And we (I
think I can speak for at least most of the members of this group) don't
want to facilitate people who drive up the cost of our software through
piracy.
Knowing what I do now, I will certainly not mind answering your
questions and helping you get a better handle on using the program.
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
