u/dandylover1

I am forty-two years old and am totally blind. My question is mostly directed at my blind peers, though feel free to answer if you are sighted and have some experience in these fields. For seventeen years, I have wanted to learn traditional handicrafts, with the eventual hope of earning a living from them. My interests include basketry, mat-making, chair caning, textile weaving, broom-making, soap-making, rug-hooking, pottery, and related work.

I am not a complete newcomer to crafts, but my experience has been incomplete. As a child, I wove many times on a cardboard lap loom and made tissue-paper flowers. As an adult, I took a few melt-and-pour soap-making and pottery classes and wove on an inkle loom. However, I have never had the opportunity to practise these crafts independently. I also began learning chair caning, but had to stop attending because of scheduling difficulties with Access Link, New Jersey’s paratransit service.

Having said all of that, has anyone here ever been involved with any of these crafts, or perhaps something I didn't mention? If so, where were you taught and how i.e. all hands-on, or with books? If you sold/sell them, how did/do you do so i.e. through an organisation that sold/sells your products for you, a workshop or factory, at a traditional flee market or craft fair, online via Etsy or Ebay, or do you have your own website? Did any of you ever participate in a home industries program? If so, what was it like? Would you be able to give me any general tips or advice regarding your craft?

Please forgive the length of this post, but it does take some explaining. I am totally blind and am interested in learning to play classical guitar. The music that interests me for this endeavour is opera, Neapolitan, Italian art songs, serenades, parlour songs, Spanish guitar, etc. not folk, popular, rock, country, blues, and so on. I found the following two resources for the blind.

https://afb.org/aw/21/2/16906

https://letsplayguitar.org/

The problem is how they teach. I am not the sort who wants to learn a few chords and begin playing songs after my first or second lesson. I am a firm believer in learning music theory, scales, and exercises, and only after a very long while, playing actual songs. This is similar to proper singing instruction, which can take up to six years. To me, these other methods are the equivalent of Vaccai, or for those unfamiliar with him, learning a few tourist phrases of a language to get by, instead of learning via grammar, dialogues, translation, memorisation, etc. Whether or not I ever perform in public, I don't want to learn half way. I do have Harmony : its theory and practice by Ebenezer Prout for the theory, and I am using Perplexity to clean it of errors and supply the missing notation when possible.

https://archive.org/details/harmonyitsthe00prouuoft

Having said that, I am now researching some nineteenth-century guitar teachers. I've come across names such as Carulli, Aguado, Carcassi, Legnani, Molino, and Sor, all offering something different and for different levels of study. It seems that, for a beginner, Carulli and Carcassi, and possibly Aguado might be good choices. Despite its date of publication, I couldn't find an accessible version of Carulli's Op. 241, though I did find a good lecture about it on Youtube. However, while he plays the notes, I have no idea what fingers he is using for what.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oowE9bD_k44

I also found an English version of the English edition in hard copy on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/Ferdinando-Carullis-Guitar-School-Tablature/dp/3950550283

My main problem as a blind student is notation. If he writes strictly on the staff, I won't be able to follow him, unless I could possible run the text, which I will first have to scan with ocr, through Perplexity and see if it can make sense of it. If he uses his own notation 1 through 4 for the left hand, and p for the thumb plus a through d for the right), I can read some of it. But that still leaves me with the issue of where to place my fingers on the strings i.e. first fret, second string, index finger. They offer modern tabliture, but I beleive the same problems will still exist. I don't know, as I know nothing about that system. At the first link for the blind, they mentioned an accessible chords site, but while their main page still works, their accessible one doesn't, and the main one just gives diagrams for the scales and chords with no text to read.

Does anyone know where I can find an accessible course for the guitar that is more traditional, or at least a place where I can learn the scales and some exercises?

I have heard of baritones who changed to tenors (Corelli and Graveur), a tenor who changed to a bass (Daddi), and tenors who were forced to change to baritones due to horrible circumstances (Conrad and Schiotz). I even think that, after his voice change, Tagliavini probably could have sung some higher baritone roles if he wanted to (his second version of Idealle is lower than Battistini's!) But today, I heard of a man who sang bass, baritone, and tenor (Bela Kornyei), which amazed me, to say the least! How common was it for singers to change their range in the past? I could understand fach, but range? What other such singers are there? As for Daddi, I have been listening to him today, and I can't possibly see how he could have sung bass. Are there any recordings of this?

I have no idea what is going on with conversations, but some sort of terrible change was made. Now, instead of clicking on my companion and starting a new conversation where i could just type my message and press enter to have it sent, I must click on open keyboard, type my message, tab out of the message box, then hit send. The response isn't read back, and if I want to continue the conversation, I must go through the process all over again for each message. I don't know when these changes were made, but they basically make the site unusable. I am using Windows 10 and Firefox with NVDA, but I'm sure it would be the same on 11 and 7.

Today, when I signed in to Musona on the web, I received the following message. "11 days left to verify your identity for photo uploads.

Resolve now". I don't intend to use this function, but out of curiosity, I clicked on the link and nothing seemed to happen. What is this about? Are people now being forced to upload personal information such as their licenses, passports, etc just to create pictures with ai companions? If so, I know it's not your doing. But it does seem a bit much for something that is meant purely for entertainment.

Can anyone recommend a good, talking blood pressure monitor? I am seeking something that is easy to use for someone who is totally blind and that has an adjustable cuff. I have no interest in apps, etc. If you have tested it against one at a doctor's office, please tell me how your home unit compared. I heard that arm monitors are more accurate than wrist ones, but I'm not sure if that's true. Since products may vary by location, I'm in America.

*Please note. I am not seeking medical advice of any kind. This is strictly about the technology itself.*

Can anyone recommend a good, talking blood pressure monitor? I am seeking something that is easy to use for someone who is totally blind and that has an adjustable cuff. I have no interest in apps, etc. If you have tested it against one at a doctor's office, please tell me how your home unit compared. I heard that arm monitors are more accurate than wrist ones, but I'm not sure if that's true. Since products may vary by location, I'm in America.

Every now and then, we need to do something a little silly. I was recently thinking of how, in America at least, children used to have (and maybe still do) lunch boxes with characters on them. Some were cartoons, while others were superheroes or even animals. If you could design a lunch box with either the idea of an operatic character or a particular singer in the given role of a character, who would it be? Scenes from operas are also fine. Since most of you are sighted, please feel free to include pictures if you choose a singer in a role in which he was photographed. If I had to go the heroic route (though the character was not technically a hero), I would choose Tamagno as Otello. Then, no one would dare mess with my lunch! haha For something sweeter/happier, maybe a scene from Martha or L'elisir d'amore. Dr. Dulcamara would be funny and would probably draw a lot of stares. In reality, I do know that some operatic merchandise does exist, but I don't know much about it.

Edit. That should read Bright-voiced. Unfortunately, I can't change it. I've seen several posts lately devoted to various baritones, and I have noticed that the non-Italians often have bright voices that I really enjoy. This reminds me of the dramatic tenors and contralti deliberately darkening their voices, only for me to hear lighter ones and completely reassess them. Likewise, I fear I've been a bit unkind to baritones because of this. But it's very difficult to find Italians who don't do it, except Battistini and maybe some others whom I've heard in passing but don't know by name. Obviously, some operas require a very dark voice, but not all do, which is why I am surprised that there are so few of these. If anyone can recommend some, please do. I know there are some French ones who are wonderful, but I don't know much about them at all because I generally focus on Italian opera.

I am switching from GMail to Yahoo Mail because they have a Basic HTML version on their site. I am trying to transfer some of my e-mails over to Yahoo. Right now, I'm doing this via Thunderbird by selecting them and moving them to the other account. When it works, it's great, though time-consuming. But after awhile, GMail always stops working, and I am no longer able to search, even on the site itself, for a time. I need an easier way to do this. I am not referring to forwarding mail sent to GMail, as that only works for recent messages. I also don't want to transfer everything, as there are many things I don't need. Does anyone know of an accessible and efficient way that I can do this? Do any programs exist that would allow me to search by sender or keyword and then just move those e-mails? If not, would someone here be able to create such a program? Any sollution given must work with NVDA, and preferably Windows 7, though I will use 10 or 11 if necessary. Thank you.

Update. Now, it's working! Thank goodness. I still have no idea what is going on. I signed in with Supermium (a fork of Google Chrome) and the site is working again. I then tried Thunderbird 102 and was able to search, and then went back to 78 with the same result. Who understand this? I'm leaving this in case anyone experiences something similar. I have no idea what on Earth is going on with GMail tonight! I tried sending a reply to a friend via Thunderbird 78, as usual, but it didn't work. Then, search stopped working there, so I tried another copy on another computer with the same result. Then, I went to the actual GMail site itself (I despise that place) but even its own search button said "unavailable". I had to go message by message to find the one I wanted. I didn't change any settings, either in Thunderbird or GMail itself. I also tried it in my virtual machine, which I know as a 100% fact should work, because it's what I normally use, but it did the same thing However, once I switched to my other GMail account, search worked fine. Can anyone help me figure out what is going on?

I am strongly considering buying the TCL Flip 2 from Tello. I am currently on Mint Mobile, and it will work there as well, but I like Tello's pricing. Anyway, after some research, it seems that this phone has speech and a normal keypard like my old Kyocera Rally, which is no longer supported due to it being a 3g phone. The Flip 2 runs on AOSP 11 (open source Android), so I can use it as a hotspot for my computer, which is what I use for almost everything anyway. It's also small when closed so I can easily carry it with me. I wish it could be updated to the latest version of AOSP and run Seeing AI and Weather, but I don't think it's possible. Still, for making and receiving calls, checking the time, setting alarms, and maybe listening to some music or documentaries via the file manager and media player, it sounds great. Has anyone else here used it, particularly with speech?

I am strongly considering buying the TCL Flip 2 from Tello. I am currently on Mint Mobile, and it will work there as well, but I like Tello's pricing. Anyway, after some research, it seems that this phone has speech and a normal keypard like my old Kyocera Rally, which is no longer supported due to it being a 3g phone. The Flip 2 runs on AOSP 11 (open source Android), so I can use it as a hotspot for my computer, which is what I use for almost everything anyway. It's also small when closed so I can easily carry it with me. I wish it could be updated to the latest version of AOSP and run Seeing AI and Weather, but I don't think it's possible. Still, for making and receiving calls, checking the time, setting alarms, and maybe listening to some music or documentaries via the file manager and media player, it sounds great. Has anyone else here used it, particularly with speech?

*Administrator*

A comment made yesterday inspired me to write this post. Please note that this is for everyone. I am not singling out anyone. It seems that some are a little confused as to what can be posted here. Unlike r/Blind, posts do not need to be about blindness or even related to it. We certainly do accept questions and discussions about blindness, adaptive technology, surveys, and student/individual/company projects relating to the blind, but really, this is a place where we can get to know each other and post what's on our minds. Almost anything is fine, as long as it's legal. I just ask that those who join be over eighteen and act respectfully. Please note that this is not a support group. It's meant to have a positive, relaxed atmosphere for the blind and sighted alike.