[MusicTlk] An idea - what are your thoughts?

Thu Aug 9 16:40:26 UTC 2018

This is a really interesting and wonderful idea.  However, I 
think the device needs to be something that'll fit on an 
average-sized music stand, like an iPad or tablet.  Foot pedals 
can be effective.  The conversion to XML should be eliminated, 
since that requires special software and can be too technical for 
many people.  I think that it would be better to make an app that 
can magnify an image file or PDF file of sheet music, since these 
are the most common sheet music formats.

----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Jolls via MusicTlk <musictlk at nfbnet.org
To: Music Talk Mailing List for Blind Musicians 
<musictlk at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Thu, 9 Aug 2018 13:14:43 +0000
Subject: [MusicTlk] An idea - what are your thoughts?

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:

   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.namprd2
2.prod.outlook.com

 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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 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
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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.namprd2
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 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
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