Welcome back to our January 2024 installment of what’s new on BARD. This month, we added a number of braille books for piano, including some more from the popular Alfred’s “Basic Piano Library” series. We also have a good number of new vocal works for you to enjoy. In the audio realm, we’ve added popular tunes in both our piano-by-ear and guitar-by-ear series. Additionally, we’ve added two Talking Book editions of our new “Talking Blog” series. We’ve taken previous blog posts written by NLS Music Staff members and turned them into Talking Book editions that you can download from BARD and liste ..read more

Happy Holidays from the NLS Music Section! We are proud to share the latest additions to BARD (Braille Audio Reading Download) with our patrons! Picking up where we left off last month, we have more audio lessons on bass guitar from Bill Brown, including Beatles hits “Here Comes the Sun” and “Help!”. In our digital braille collection, we have also added a sight-singing method by Andrew Fox, and a brand new transcription of selected piano works of Sofia Gubaidulina. For our younger students, we have also recently uploaded more piano lesson books by Jane Bastien, including Pre-Reading Duets and ..read more

This month, we’ve added a number of new piano and clarinet pieces to our braille collection, along with various other pieces for voice and choir (and another one for our tubists)! In our audio collection, we’ve added more popular songs by Bill Brown to our piano and guitar collection, along with two new lectures from the Library of Congress on Henry Threadgill and Louis Moreau Gottschalk. There’s more to enjoy this month, so keep reading to check out our other new-to-BARD books. Please note that all materials listed below are also available to borrow by mail, not only through BARD. Please cont ..read more

Welcome to the January listing of our new BARD additions! In our braille collection this month, we added a variety of music for piano, violin, voice, and even B-flat tuba! In the audio collection, we’ve added more popular songs by Bill Brown to our guitar and piano collections. There’s more to enjoy this month, so keep reading to check out our other new-to-BARD books. Please note that all materials listed below are also available to borrow by mail, not only through BARD. Please contact the Music Section to borrow talking books on digital cartridge or to borrow hard copies of braille music. Cal ..read more

Anyone who has ever heard an authentic Hungarian folk tune, such as one of the many discovered by Béla Bartók (1881-1945) and Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) at the start of the 20th Century, is familiar with the problem that notating such tunes is much like driving without a map. These ancient dialects and foreign languages had no alphabet or any other form of notation. Because of this, one has to become completely absorbed in the language in order to understand it. If any composer was ever capable of capturing the spirit of this ancient Hungarian dialect in the form of organized sounds, it was Bar ..read more

Ned Rorem (1923-2022), who was once referred to by legendary choral maestro Robert Shaw as, “the greatest art-song composer of all time,” passed away last month at the age of 99. With an amazing globe-trotting life that took him from Chicago to Morocco, and from Paris to Manhattan, Rorem’s experiences led to a titanic output of music and literature. He was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and a Grammy Award, and served as the President of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Rorem was born in Richmond, Ind., on Oct. 23, 1923. His father, Clarence Rufus Rorem was a medical economist who ..read more

Giving Thanks for BARD additions! This month, we added audio titles for piano with music from the movies and the classical area, and in braille the popular piano teaching method by James Bastien along with works by Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky. Please note that all materials listed below are also available to borrow by mail, not only through BARD. Please contact the Music Section to borrow talking books on digital cartridge or to borrow hard copies of braille music. Call us at 1-800-424-8567, ext. 2, or e-mail us at nlsm@loc.gov. If you are new to BARD, you may find the following link ..read more

Welcome to the October listing of our new BARD additions! In our braille collection this month, we added a bevy of Beethoven piano variations for you to download and enjoy, along with books on learning the blues in all 12 keys and a songbook of the classic tunes from “Sesame Street” that you probably remember from your childhood. In the audio collection, we’ve added three instructional courses on popular tunes for the piano. There’s more to enjoy this month, so keep reading to check out our other new-to-BARD books. Please note that all materials listed below are also available to borrow by mai ..read more

The month of October always brings to mind Halloween, which has become more of a season rather than a one-day observance. There are many works of music that depict the spookiness, darkness and morbidity of the annual tradition, but few pieces capture the spirit of the season as playfully as Danse macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921). Originally conceived as an art song for voice and piano with a French Text by the poet Henri Cazalis, it eventually evolved into a tone poem for violin and large orchestra. Saint-Saëns was born in Paris, and became one of the most well-known composers of the ..read more

Welcome to the August roundup of the NLS Music Section’s BARD additions! This month we’ve added a large number of piano and guitar instructional books to our talking book collection, ranging from Christmas music to rock classics like “Louie, Louie.” In our braille collection, we’ve added a wide variety of music, including Philip Sparke’s Trombone Concerto, an article on voice leading and chromatic harmony in Chopin’s music, and the libretto for Puccini’s Suor Angelica. Please note that all materials listed below are also available to borrow by mail, not only through BARD. Please contact t ..read more