[MusicTlk] Mobile music apps and accessibility

[Julie A. Orozco]

Hi Leigh,

What a good question. I think you are right that at this time, asking for and ensuring that your students receive their music in alternate formats is probably the way to go. 

At some point in the future, I think the goal would be for blind students to use multi-line Braille displays to access musical scores. I'm not sure how that would work with these apps because as you said, the music in the apps would be produced in image files. But if the Braille displays could take XML files or something, that could work. But this is all speculation. I know multi-line Braille displays can read Braille music, but I don't think they have the ability to turn a print score into a Braille one. 

Hope this helps,

Julie


-----Original Message-----
From: MusicTlk <musictlk-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Tara Briggs via MusicTlk
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2026 10:14 AM
To: Musicians Music Talk Mailing List for Blind <musictlk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Tara Briggs <thflute at gmail.com>; MusicTlk at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [MusicTlk] Mobile music apps and accessibility

 Hi! My dream would be that I can hook up a braille display to the iPad and read the music in braille! I’m not sure if this answers your question.
—
Tara Briggs
Check out my podcast, Crip Parenting on your podcast platform of choice.

> On Mar 30, 2026, at 6:24 AM, Mosley, Leigh via MusicTlk <musictlk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello all!
> 
> I'd like to pick the collective brain and ask about the increasing practice of music students performing using music scores displayed on their iPads. I think we are going to see more and more native apps designed to do this (Henle, Nkoda, etc), but this seems like a very tricky area for accessibility. How can an image of a music score inside an app ever meet WCAG standards? Even if the app can be navigated using the screen reader, once you arrive at the score itself (which is the point of the entire app), the image of that score of course cannot be navigated and cannot even be exported to another format.
> 
> In the past, we have just added contract language requiring the vendor to provide any needed scores in an alternate, accessible format upon request, but with the April deadline coming up, I am less comfortable relying on that workaround. Once we buy these apps for our music school, they get incorporated into classes, and I just don't see how they could be made at all accessible for the visually impaired.  At our university library we may not purchase or subscribe to new resources unless the vendor submits a plan to improve WCAG non-conformances, but I am not sure what to even ask these vendors to do here.
> 
> All thoughts welcome and thank you!
> 
> Best,
> Leigh
> 
> 
> Leigh Mosley, MA, MLS, CPWA
> Accessibility Coordinator
> University of Tennessee Libraries
> 1015 Volunteer Boulevard
> Knoxville, TN 37996-1000
> 865-974-0011
> lmosley1 at utk.edu<mailto:lmosley1 at utk.edu>
> 
> Schedule a meeting with me: https://calendly.com/leighmosley
> 
> [The University of Tennessee Knoxville logo]
> 
> 
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