This system is called Tactile Stave Notation, which is essentially 3D printed sheet music with the notes and staff slightly raised from the surface; which allows blind people to feel the tactile notes to connect with what a teacher for example is seeing. The students that are working on the project with Yeaji constantly send over improvements and she provides feedback on how to make it absolutely perfect.
With Yeaji Kim being a visually impaired musician herself, she was inspired to develop the system in order to offer young musicians a chance to understand sheet music better and be able to communicate with their music teachers better. At the moment, blind musicians must read a complicated Braille notation for their music and memorize bits at a time.
Todd Welbourne, a piano professor at UW-Madison and Kim’s instructor whilst she was there explained that “The (Braille) letter system is already very complicated. And then to have the symbols also mean something else, to mean music, can be very confusing to a kid.” The Tactile Stave Notation, the visually impaired musicians will be able to keep up in class and actually learn to play music at a quicker and faster rate.
Yeaji Kim has recently received her PhD in piano performance and pedagogy and has since returned home to South Korea.
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