NON-SIGHTED BUTTON ACCORDION PLAYERS: GETTING PREPARED FOR A CONCERT PERFORMANCE

The paper analyzes the pre-performance routines which are highly desirable for visually challenged musicians due to their psychophysical specificities. The range of tasks solved by them includes the involvement of compensatory functions of touch, hearing, speech, and memory in order to intensively develop their thinking, communication and behavior skills, as well as to cope with their personal traits that provoke discomfort and mishaps. Taking to the concert stage requires more efforts from non-sighted musicians, including button accordionists, as it is a more challenging task. In this regard, a comprehensive pre-concert training, which includes two elements — the musician's work on the musical piece and the stage presence itself — plays a major role in preparing for a concert performance. The first involves such factors as the event context, the proper choice of a musical composition, the actual interpretation of the artistic image, and the specific training for blind performers. The second is related to their being on stage. Understanding of possible reasons of stage anxiety and misfortunes; maintaining a comfortable pre-concert state, as well as a pre-designed course of action reduce the risks of unsuccessful performance of blind button accordionists. Comprehensive pre-concert preparation allows the blind musician to successfully regulate his or her performance well-being.