Teaching Piano to Blind and Visually Impaired Students

When welcoming a blind student into your studio space, begin by introducing yourself, and then offer to guide them into the space. Remember, offer assistance, don’t just grab. If the offer is accepted, guide them into the space using the sighted guide technique. What is sighted guide? Unless you yourself are a member of the blind and visually impaired community, or you’ve worked with a blind person before you’ve most likely never heard the term. Sighted guide is a method used to assist blind and visually impaired people to get from one place to another by letting the blind person grab on to your arm. Let the blind person grasp onto your arm just above your elbow, and have them walk at least half a step behind you so you can lead the way. Letting the blind person hold on to your upper arm gives you the ability to use your hands freely while giving them a sense of your body’s movement. When entering a doorway or any narrow space, move your arm back so your hand is close to your lower back. This will signal to them that they need to walk behind you at arms length so you’re not both walking through the narrow doorway side by side. Once in the space, return your arm to the previous position. Describe the space in great detail including the size of the room, the room’s contents, and even the brightness or dimness of the room in case they have some useable vision or if they saw before and have some idea of this concept. Lead the student to the piano bench and let them know you’re approaching the bench and instrument. Once there, tap on the bench to let them hear where it is before guiding their hand down to it.

It may seem like a common sense idea, but you’d be surprised at the number of well-meaning sighted people who touch blind or visually impaired people without permission in order to physically show them what they want them to do or how they want them to place their hands. By asking the student for permission, you’re acknowledging their autonomy and are asking to be invited into their personal space. As a blind piano teacher myself, I even do this with my sighted students. I need to put my hand over theirs to make sure they’re using the correct fingering or that they have their hand in the correct position, but I make sure they understand that is what I’m doing before asking for their permission to do so. Early on in my own training, I’ve had teachers grab my hands and place them in awkward positions and it was uncomfortable and made me feel like I didn’t have a say in who entered my personal space. Establishing consent early on builds trust and makes the student feel safe.

When introducing the layout of the instrument, begin by asking the student to explore with their hands and get familiar with the black and white keys. The white keys are the flatter, wider keys and the black keys are the shorter keys slightly raised above the white keys. Ask the student what they notice about the black keys. Is there a pattern with the way they’re grouped across the keyboard? The student will most likely notice that the black keys are grouped in twos and threes. Explain to the student that they can use that pattern of grouped black keys as a guide to finding the seven notes of the musical alphabet on the piano, which are represented by the white keys. Demonstrate this by finding the note C and explain that it is the white key to the left of the group of two black keys. Ask the student to find the note C themselves. Then find the note D and explain that it is the white key in between the group of two black keys and get the student to repeat after you and find the note D. Then find the note E and explain to the student that E is located to the right of the group of two black keys. Just like you did with the previous notes, get the student to repeat after you in finding the note E. Refer to these notes as the C D E group. Then, using the group of three black keys, from left to right, find the notes F, G, A, and B and ask the student to repeat after you in finding these white keys. Refer to these as the F G A B group. Using the groups of two black keys as a guide, ask the student to locate four C notes, four D Notes, and four E notes. Then, using the groups of three black keys as a guide, ask the student to find four F notes, four G notes, four A notes, and four B notes.

In addition to touch, hearing is a blind person’s best friend. We use it in all aspects of our lives and it is the primary way we perceive the world around us. To make up for our lack of sight, you might even say our sense of hearing works overtime. When teaching any student, particularly a blind or visually impaired student, train their ear as early as the first lesson. Teach them to recognize steps and intervals, identifying the difference between whole and half steps. Turn it into a multi-sensory experience. Get them to first hear the distance between the whole step and half step. Then, get them to recognize the distance between the notes on the piano by touch, introducing a tactile element. If the student is up for it, introduce a movement element by asking them to stand up and take a big step forward while you play the whole step. Then ask them to take a step half that distance while you play the half step. This will reinforce the idea that the notes that are a half step apart are closer together than the notes that are a whole step apart. You can introduce chord identification, specific intervals, rhythm identification, just make sure you introduce them early and reinforce them often!

An alternative to sending the student home with sheet music is recording their practice material for them to refer to throughout the week. I use a Zoom digital recorder, but a voice recording app on your phone works just as well. Record technical exercises by first demonstrating the exercise, and then explaining while you demonstrate, talking through which finger goes where, and when to cross over with your first or third finger. Record a music theory concept by first talking through the concept, then demonstrating the concept in action either on the piano or a rhythm instrument. When recording the song the student is working on, separate it into three recordings. First, record the right hand melody. Then record the left hand part. This can be either chords, maybe a counter-melody, etc. Then record the song with hands together. Of course, don’t forget dynamics, articulation, and rhythm.