[MusicTlk] DottedNotes — bidirectional braille ⇄ LilyPond/MusicXML translator (built out of my own frustration transcribing orchestral scores)

[Ella Yu]

Hi Judith, Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. I just ran a pretty
straightforward orchestral instrument part XML through DottedNotes with
full compression and I think the standard BANA template, and I'd say the
main things I noticed is that as far as I could quickly glean from the
online tool, there is no way to adjust how bar numbers are displayed, text
expressions in the music don't seem to be preceded by a word sign but
dynamic markings are rendered correctly, and the rule that each parallel
must begin with an octave sign does not seem to be followed. If only there
was a way Sao Mai's underlying braille music engine could help DottedNotes,
since I know it takes a lot of effort and so on to translate between XML
and braille, and going from braille to XML I anticipate to be even more
complicated. I've never really considered learning LilyPond because it's
quite a code to learn and it can take a lot to wrap my head around compared
to a GUI like MuseScore. I suggest you also get on the MuseScore
Accessibility group on groups.io, blind music readers, etc, so you can
maybe cast a bit of a wider net. I'd also check out/maybe get in touch with
those at the DAISY music braille project. I know their main activities
recently wrapped up but I'm sure your initiative/ideas might capture their
attention.
Ella

On Tue, Jul 21, 2026 at 2:22 PM <judith at judithlung.com> wrote:

> On 2026-07-21 14:06, Ella Yu via MusicTlk wrote:
> > Hi Judith, I think this is a really interesting tool, and I definitely
> > intend to experiment with it soon. Just out of curiosity, have you
> > looked
> > into Sao Mai Braille and MuseScore? MuseScore, despite being fully
> > mainstream notation software, supports braille music input/output at a
> > very
> > basic level now, though this is slated to be improved in the future.
> > While
> > Sao Mai Braille is a MusicXML to braille translator and does other
> > braille
> > tasks as well outside of music, its translation is very high quality
> > for a
> > free program. I know this may be a bit of a stretch, but you could
> > perhaps
> > reach out to the Sao Mai Center for the Blind, since they are also the
> > ones
> > responsible for MuseScore's braille features, and maybe your ideas and
> > theirs could merge together to make your vision come true, since their
> > BungSang translation engine is incredibly well-developed for braille
> > music
> > and they appear open to working with developers.
> > I know this may seem like a stretch, but just some thoughts.
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 21, 2026 at 11:50 AM Judith Lung via MusicTlk <
> > musictlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> >
> >> Hi everyone,
> >>
> >> I'm a blind composer, and for years my biggest bottleneck wasn't
> >> writing
> >> the music — it was getting it out of braille and into something a
> >> publisher, ensemble, or sighted collaborator could actually use.
> >> Transcribing an orchestral score from braille into LilyPond by hand
> >> could eat several days of work before I'd even gotten to the actual
> >> engraving and proofing. That grind is what pushed me to build
> >> DottedNotes.
> >>
> >> It's a free, bidirectional translator between:
> >> - Braille music (.brf / .brl)
> >> - LilyPond (.ly, which compiles straight to publication-quality .pdf
> >> and
> >> .midi)
> >> - MusicXML (.musicxml / .mxl)
> >>
> >> So you can go from a braille manuscript to a publisher-ready PDF and
> >> MIDI in one pass, or take a print/MusicXML score and get a proper
> >> braille edition out the other end — with BANA validation built in
> >> (standard or strict profile), configurable compression levels, and
> >> layout presets for solo piano, art song, chamber, orchestral, and lead
> >> sheet scores, since orchestral formatting has its own headaches that a
> >> generic converter won't get right.
> >>
> >> It's also useful if you're a sighted composer, engraver, or publisher
> >> who needs to move a score between these formats, or produce a braille
> >> edition without knowing braille music code yourself.
> >>
> >> Free to use here: https://www.dottednotes.net/
> >>
> >> I built this to solve my own problem, but I know braille music
> >> workflows
> >> vary a lot person to person, so I'd genuinely appreciate feedback from
> >> other blind musicians — especially anyone who's dealt with the same
> >> orchestral-score transcription slog. Bug reports, edge cases in the
> >> braille code handling, feature requests all welcome.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Judith
> >>
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> Hi Ella,
> Thanks for trying out DottedNotes, I would love to get your feedback on
> it!
> It has been several years since I tried out MuseScore. I was using a Mac
> with VoiceOver, which unfortunately was not compatible with MuseScore at
> the time. This is why I looked into and ultimately switched to using
> Lilypond. Lilypond is text-only and produces the highest quality of
> printed notation, compared to all the other major players in the space.
> Since it is also free and open-source, it was an obvious choice of
> format for DottedNotes to support. The only drawback is that Lilypond
> require the user to either set up a programming environment or compile
> the file via command-line, which may be more overhead than composers
> want to deal with. Therefore, I put DottedNotes on the web, so that
> users can avoid downloading another desktop app or setting up a coding
> environment altogether. Since DottedNotes also supports import and
> export of MusicXML, it's possible to import into MuseScore for editing
> if that's what a composer prefers.
> I tried out Sao Mai Braille recently, and it is very good! I used one of
> its output files, an orchestral score, to stress-test DottedNotes's own
> braille transcription. However, SMB doesn't support parsing of braille
> music files, which was what I most wanted. I didn't want to have to type
> in my music twice, once on my braille notetaker and again into the
> notation program. This is what I used to do, and it more than doubled
> the number of mistakes I had to fix. It was also necessary for
> DottedNotes to support Lilypond export, which would allow blind
> composers to adjust layout via text instead of having to deal with drag
> and drop. DottedNotes is also open-sourced on GitHub, so anyone can
> submit a bug, request a feature, or open pull requests with changes to
> improve the program.
> Having said all that, I am quite impressed with the features of Sao Mai
> Braille, although I think the problems we solve are different. Whereas
> SMB is a multi-purpose braille transcription program, DottedNotes is
> focused on parsing and rendering between different digital music
> formats. Best of all, though, both are free, so you can experiment and
> switch between these programs as much as you want!
> Thanks again for your suggestions, Ella, and please let me know if you
> have any more questions!
> Cheers,
> Judith
>