Mt. Airy visitor edits sacred music despite her blindness

by PAMELA ROGOW

Obviously, the study of medieval and Renaissance musical literature is a challenge. Rats have nibbled away at some of the great works. A knowledge of both the French and Italian languages is mandatory. Musical training is essential. A visual as well as aural memory is required. The repositories are almost all in Europe, where funds for American students are scarce.

Add to these hurdles one that makes Jessica Bachicha’s plan all the more extraordinary: she has been blind since birth. Her goal is to edit sacred music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance so that it can be made more accessible to modern audiences.

Last week, the 24-year-old from New Mexico flew to Philadelphia from the University of Leeds, where she is halfway through a three-year Ph.D. program in musicology. She came to our area to learn the Opticon, a tactile electronic aid.

“It became clear that my ability to edit would need to rely on first-hand experience with the manuscripts,” she explained. “I came to Philadelphia thinking, if this works, I can continue studying. But if it doesn’t work, then I am going to make some other decision about what to do with my life. I am a classical singer. I could perform. But being able to access this early music would enable me to grow as a scholar and an artist.”

Jessica stayed with friends in Mt. Airy but in fact put in 12 hours a day, five days in a row, training with Dave Simpson of Glenside. A graduate of Westminster Choir College, the 50-year-old Simpson is a poet and consultant to Dancing Dots of Valley Forge (they produce Braille music translation software) and to a national resource center for blind musicians. He plays several instruments and is adept at the Opticon.

For Jessica to read early musical texts, she and her academic adviser, Richard Rastall, decided that the only option was to master this tool, a portable electronic traducer that translates forms — like letter forms — into sensations of bumps. The machine was manufactured in small quantity for about two decades, beginning in 1973. It is not known how many are still in use, but an international listserv has about 50 members. The four-pound tool is about the size of a standard book.

“The machine never really took off. The learning curve is lengthy — the initial training course was two weeks, in the ’70s and ’80s. And not everyone is steady enough,” explains Simpson. “It came out before PCs. I used it for several things immediately, including reading the bottom of a page to see how the last line that I’d typed came out.”

Jessica received her Opticon while in high school, a gift from her cane travel instructor, Mike Hayes. “This might come in handy one day,” he said. The present was especially generous, given its initial $4,000 price tag.

The machine has no intelligence, so it does not “recognize” anything for what it is. Some of its functions were soon superseded by later generation Braille translators of flat pages and by other electronic tools. Jessica’s Opticon sat in her closet until last month.

The machine does not recognize letters or words, merely allows the reader to shoot a camera at a surface and read the image as sensations on the fingertip. Script is almost impossible to read “with its dips and valleys.” Smudges can be a real impediment.

But a trained reader can read individual letters and units and visualize a page. Jessica reports, for example, that lower case is harder to read than upper case.

The Opticon can be used to read surfaces that do not lend themselves to standard recognition of letters or to standard pages. One blind medical student used his Opticon to read x-rays. Others have used it to read circuit boards. Simpson reads cans and recipes. He also follows how verse breaks up, line by line. Jessica now reads patterns on fabrics — “I like my clothes to match,” she says. No stripes accidentally consorting with checks for her.

With limited funds, Jessica gave herself five days to train, working with Simpson until 8 or 9 each night. Day one was devoted to capital letters. Day two was lower case. Day three, sentences. Day four, various media — dictionaries, books, package directions. Day five, modern music notation, samples of early print and handwriting.

Further complicating the task ahead, ancient texts used Roman letters differently at different times and in different places. “The letter ‘F’ at the time of William the Conqueror looks a lot like an ‘I’ with big feet. And a rustic ‘A’ had no horizontal line connecting the two vertical strokes,” said Jessica.

The Opticon has a camera. Its lens is the size of a ring finger. The display is designed for a finger, running from the tip to the second knuckle joint. Using information in small units, one puts together a word, a sentence, a page. Only one person uses the Opticon to read music, to my knowledge. But I want to read early music, which is not standardized.

“Not until the end of the week, training with Dave, did I understand the process enough to decide to invest the additional time necessary to master the Opticon. There was no guarantee when we started. I’ll need to study every day for weeks to achieve the level I’ll need to know these early works.”

It is clear that Jessica Bachicha can meet the challenge. The oldest of four children born to a dental hygienist and an account manager at a pharmaceutical company, she remains very close to her family, dedicated to their faith and engaged with their Hispanic heritage. “The family name is Basque. We have been in New Mexico since the 16th century conquistadores.” Yes, she speaks Spanish, too.

Jessica attended the University of Mexico on a full scholarship, double majoring in music and foreign languages. She learned French and Italian and can read Latin passably. A coloratura, she sings opera but favors sacred music — oratorios and masses.