Ask Slashdot: How Can a Blind Singer 'See' the Choirmaster's Baton?

New submitter krid4 writes "Question from a blind friend: 'My ears replace my eyes. However, when it comes to the very moment of starting, or the change of tempi, my start will always come too late. Neither tuning in with the voices around me, nor listening to the moment of their breathing-in helps to solve this problem. Fancy that it might be possible to produce tactile pressure or even lines at the top of my right hand, head or body. Even pulses would do, because what finally counts is the moment of the 'beat' produced by the choirmasters baton.' What simple, possibly DIY solutions are possible? It would help many blind chorus singers."

Re:Have someone next to you squeeze your arm

[martin-boundary]

It's not a geeky solution, and it involves people touching each other, but it's very reliable.

Ah, but I'm afraid that only solves 99.99% of cases. To fully solve the problem, you also have to deal with the 3 blind-choralists-in-a-row problem, which is well known to not have an analytic solution except in trivial cases. Perhaps a numerical approach using a Sobolev auditorium might work, though.