[MusicTlk] An idea - what are your thoughts?

Thu Aug 9 13:14:43 UTC 2018

Hi everyone

I have an idea for a product that could help some people.  I wanted to find out what everyone thought.

First, let me tell you about myself.  I’m a visually impaired musician.  I’m very nearsighted.  I use a pair of telescopic glasses to read my music.  Due to the magnification I require to read a standard piece of music, I can only see a measure at a time.  It makes learning the music slow, and if I ever wanted to just sit down and read and play, it’s almost impossible to do that in a performance situation.  Consequently, with this experience, I’ve been thinking there has to be a better way.

My idea is to have some software that allows you to read your music from an electronic file, then render and magnify the music and display it on say a 26” monitor.  The user should be able to set the magnification level in the software as desired. Plus, have a footswitch tied to the monitor (probably wirelessly) so that you just tap the footswitch, and the page advances or goes back.  I’ve been thinking about this for several months and the technology to do this appears to all be there.  The big problem is having the software that will render the magnified view.

Here’s how it might be accomplished.

  1.  Scan your music to graphic form
  2.  Have software that “rips the music” from the graphic form and converts it to electronic format … maybe XML format (it appears this is already available)
  3.  Store the music on a small flash card
  4.  Have software running on a very small device such as Raspberry Pi computer which can read the files and render the music on a 26” monitor which is connected to the Pi.
  5.  Have a wireless footswitch communicating with the Pi.
  6.  Have the software recognizes the footswitch clicks, which are used to turn the pages forward and back.
  7.  Have the software programmed so that it allows the user to increase the magnification / decrease as desired and updates the monitor display.

The  Pi is a small device.  The footswitch is small also.  Therefore, it could be easily transported to a gig, or to a music lesson.  Or if you’re practicing, you put the monitor on your music stand or piano and you’re ready to read your music.  The software would allow you to pick which music you wanted to play from your stored music library.  If you were playing a gig, you’d want to be able select and sequence multiple pieces so you  can move seamlessly from one song to the next.

All of this technology is relatively inexpensive.  The software would be the big undertaking.  From what I’ve seen, the only thing that approaches what I’m talking about is the LimeLighter / Dancing Dots system, and it’s like $4000.  That’s really unfortunate, because I think it prices a lot of people out.  What I would see is that the software I’m talking about would be a couple of hundred bucks, plus the hardware the end user would buy.  In addition to the Pi, the monitor, and software, you’d also need a good scanner.  One caveat, however, is that this software would probably not allow composition.  You’d have to use a different product to write the music, and then export the music to XML (or other) electronic format.  But once created, the electronic file could be read and rendered.

So again, let me say this would be a VISUAL system.  Based on what I’ve said, would there be interest for such a system?  It would take a tremendous amount of work to do.  I’d be interested in in it.  Being a retired software engineer, it’s something I might be interested in working on for myself.  And if others could benefit, that would be even better.

So, what kind of interest would there be in something like this?

Thanks for listening.

Sent from Mail<https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for Windows 10

________________________________
From: MusicTlk <musictlk-bounces at nfbnet.org> on behalf of peter acosta via MusicTlk <musictlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 9, 2018 7:07:40 AM
To: musictlk at nfbnet.org
Cc: peter acosta
Subject: Re: [MusicTlk] MusicTlk Digest, Vol 168, Issue 1

Metronome plus.

> On Aug 9, 2018, at 8:00 AM, musictlk-request at nfbnet.org wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>   1. Accessible Metronome apps (Seyoon Choi)
>   2. Re: Accessible Metronome apps (Robert Moore)
>   3. Re: Accessible Metronome apps (bflyblue13)
>   4. Re: Accessible Metronome apps (Neil)
>   5. Re: Accessible Metronome apps (Seyoon Choi)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2018 15:55:59 +0000
> From: Seyoon Choi <schoi09 at outlook.com>
> To: Music Talk Mailing List for Blind Musicians <musictlk at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: [MusicTlk] Accessible Metronome apps
> Message-ID:
>    <DM5PR2201MB15636074D6D66DAB97FD140EAB260 at DM5PR2201MB1563.namprd22.prod.outlook.com>
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> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Hello all,
> I?m currently in a lookout for any accessible metronome for iOS. I was wondering if you use any metronome apps, if any, and would love to know the ones that are usable with VoiceOver.
>
> Regards
> Seyoon
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2018 12:23:44 -0500
> From: "Robert Moore" <robertjmoore at embarqmail.com>
> To: "'Music Talk Mailing List for Blind Musicians'"
>    <musictlk at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [MusicTlk] Accessible Metronome apps
> Message-ID: <001e01d42f3c$8fddd490$af997db0$@embarqmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;    charset="utf-8"
>
> Hi Seyoon. I do not have an answer but since you brought up this topic I would like to also   piggyback on this post  and ask if there is a good guitar tuning app that would work with voiceover. Even a very low tech one that just gives a tone for each string to match to would work  fine for my purposes.  Could use a four string bass tuning app also.
> Robert
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MusicTlk [mailto:musictlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Seyoon Choi via MusicTlk
> Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2018 10:56 AM
> To: Music Talk Mailing List for Blind Musicians
> Cc: Seyoon Choi
> Subject: [MusicTlk] Accessible Metronome apps
>
> Hello all,
> I?m currently in a lookout for any accessible metronome for iOS. I was wondering if you use any metronome apps, if any, and would love to know the ones that are usable with VoiceOver.
>
> Regards
> Seyoon
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> ------------------------------
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> Message: 3
> Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2018 14:40:26 -0400
> From: "bflyblue13" <bflyblue13 at gmail.com>
> To: "Music Talk Mailing List for Blind Musicians"
>    <musictlk at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [MusicTlk] Accessible Metronome apps
> Message-ID: <992BA761BB2B4B62BDBE92B0137249E3 at AshleyShawPC>
> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="UTF-8";
>    reply-type=original
>
> Hi all,
>
> I am new to this list, but to answer your question about the guitar, there
> are a couple of things that I have done to tune mine. One way is an app
> called talking tuner. I think it is paid but it's been quite some time since
> I got it. You play the note, and it tells you what note you play. Another
> thing I do, is I ask alexa to open guitar tuner or even pitch pipe, I have
> it play a note and I tune it that way.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert Moore via MusicTlk
> Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2018 1:23 PM
> To: 'Music Talk Mailing List for Blind Musicians'
> Cc: Robert Moore
> Subject: Re: [MusicTlk] Accessible Metronome apps
>
> Hi Seyoon. I do not have an answer but since you brought up this topic I
> would like to also   piggyback on this post  and ask if there is a good
> guitar tuning app that would work with voiceover. Even a very low tech one
> that just gives a tone for each string to match to would work  fine for my
> purposes.  Could use a four string bass tuning app also.
> Robert
> -----Original Message-----
> From: MusicTlk [mailto:musictlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Seyoon Choi
> via MusicTlk
> Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2018 10:56 AM
> To: Music Talk Mailing List for Blind Musicians
> Cc: Seyoon Choi
> Subject: [MusicTlk] Accessible Metronome apps
>
> Hello all,
> I?m currently in a lookout for any accessible metronome for iOS. I was
> wondering if you use any metronome apps, if any, and would love to know the
> ones that are usable with VoiceOver.
>
> Regards
> Seyoon
> _______________________________________________
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2018 03:15:08 +0530
> From: Neil <nileshformusic at gmail.com>
> To: Music Talk Mailing List for Blind Musicians <musictlk at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [MusicTlk] Accessible Metronome apps
> Message-ID: <C940A565-3AF5-4A6D-9E8B-E087CAAD9A82 at gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;    charset=utf-8
>
> Hello there,
> you can try tempo perfect or SmartMetronome these are very accessible apps.
>
> Regards
> Neil
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On 08-Aug-2018, at 9:25 PM, Seyoon Choi via MusicTlk <musictlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hello all,
>> I?m currently in a lookout for any accessible metronome for iOS. I was wondering if you use any metronome apps, if any, and would love to know the ones that are usable with VoiceOver.
>>
>> Regards
>> Seyoon
>> _______________________________________________
>> MusicTlk mailing list
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>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2018 02:29:51 +0000
> From: Seyoon Choi <schoi09 at outlook.com>
> To: Music Talk Mailing List for Blind Musicians <musictlk at nfbnet.org>
> Subject: Re: [MusicTlk] Accessible Metronome apps
> Message-ID:
>    <DM5PR2201MB1563B4F68BD077C5DDACF51EAB250 at DM5PR2201MB1563.namprd22.prod.outlook.com>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> I already had Tempo Perfect on my phone, which I still like to this day, but realized that it was quickly going outdated. The app developer did not keep the app up to date or something. I?ve just downloaded SmartMetronome and sounds equally accessible.
>
> Thanks
>
> Seyoon
>
>> On Aug 8, 2018, at 10:55 AM, Seyoon Choi via MusicTlk <musictlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hello all,
>> I?m currently in a lookout for any accessible metronome for iOS. I was wondering if you use any metronome apps, if any, and would love to know the ones that are usable with VoiceOver.
>>
>> Regards
>> Seyoon
>> _______________________________________________
>> MusicTlk mailing list
>> MusicTlk at nfbnet.org
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> End of MusicTlk Digest, Vol 168, Issue 1
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