For over a week now, all our posts and comments have been about music. And today, Bárbara Martín Muñoz not only has a great story for us about a fantastic collaboration with a real celebrity in their field, but also a video that we are presenting on our YouTube channel. In it, the two show the result of their joint project. An exciting insight into something that has never been done before.
A big thank-you to Bárbara for allowing us to share this beautiful story with you all.
Bárbara Martín Muñoz
My name is Bárbara Martín Muñoz. You can tell I’m Spanish because I have 2 surnames and one with the unique ñ. I’m from Granada where the sun shines and flamenco is part of its culture.
I was born blind but nowadays I have 24% of vision in my right eye. Glaucoma took sight of the left one when I was 12.
I’m 51 years old, I have 2 degrees, 3 masters, I speak 3 languages, I’m Vice president of the European Blind Union, and I live in Madrid, where you can find all type of artistic disciplines taught by talented artists.
Three years ago, I made one of the best decisions of my life: learn how to play castanets, the small percussion instrument made up normally of two pieces of wood joined by a cord allocated on each thumb and worldwide known because they are part of flamenco dance.
I did a search, and I found Teresa Laiz. I contacted her interested in learning to play castanets from scratch. She responded with a phone call that I will never forget.
Teresa told me she was a composer and concert castanets soloist who used music scores. I had no idea this could be possible! I found it very difficult especially for someone with low vision like me. I told her that I was partially sighted. She didn´t care too much because she had already taught a blind person! She explained to me that for castanets a bigram instead of a pentagram is used, one line for the notes of the left hand and the other for the right one. In castanets all types of notes and symbols are used: whole, half note, quarter…, with silents, crescendo etc… She sounded so enthusiastic and motivated that I thought to myself: why don’t I give it a try? So I did.
Once I could play some basic touchs I started to read my first music score, the beautiful tarantella “viva la Sicilia”. I remember thinking on how I could make it accessible for me, I tried several things: print it in large size, it was better but very uncomfortable, then I highlighted it with all type of colors including fluorescents so that I could recognize by the color the different touchs, this worked very well!. It takes time to do so but while doing it I get familiar with it.
After a year I suggested to Teresa the possibility to donate one of her compositions to the Spanish National Organization of the Blind, ONCE, to transcribe it into Braille. She had no idea this could be possible, but she accepted, and so she did. The Orquestral Suite nº 2 in B minor, BWV 1067: Badinerie by Bach was her choice and since November 2024 it’s the first castanets music score in Braille ready to be shared from Spain to the rest of the world thanks to the Marrakesh Treaty to all blind and partially sighted people curious like me in playing concert castanets.
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