[NABS-L] Compose in Braille with MuseScore 4: An accessibility breakthrough — Muse Group

[David Andrews]

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><https://www.mu.se/post/704tef5v71-accessibility-breakthrough-compose-in-br>https://www.mu.se/post/704tef5v71-accessibility-breakthrough-compose-in-br
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>Compose in Braille with MuseScore 4: An 
>accessibility breakthrough — Muse Group
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>Wee’re delighted to announce MuseScore will be 
>the first mainstream music notation program to 
>support the groundbreaking accessibility 
>features of Live Braille Translation and 6-key 
>Braille note input. Developed in partnership 
>with two prominent accessibility organizations — 
>the DAAISY Consortium, and Sao Mai Center for 
>the Blind— thesee new Braille features will 
>complement the advanced keyboard navigation and 
>screen reader support already available in 
>MuseScore 4; providing more ways for musicians 
>who are blind or partially sighted to interact with music notation.
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>New accessibility features coming to MuseScore 4.1:
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>Braille view
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>Arriving with the upcoming release of MuseScore 
>4.1, the live braille translation will be 
>displayed in the braille view: a new text panel 
>below the score. For sighted users, the braille 
>will show up in the panel as actual braille dots 
>(no need to install any special braille fonts). 
>For blind users who have a braille terminal 
>connected to their computer, the braille dots 
>will appear on the refreshable braille display.
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>This image is part of a score from The Cuckoo, 
>and highlights the braille view which is the new 
>text panel below the score, as well as the 
>braille in the panel that is actual braille dots.
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>The braille notation displayed in the viewer 
>always corresponds to the bar (i.e. measure) of 
>whatever element is selected in the main score 
>view. When the music in the score is changed, or 
>a different element becomes selected, the 
>braille notation is updated to match. This 
>enables blind musicians to explore the score one 
>bar at a time, and is much faster than the 
>traditional method involving a screen reader, 
>which is only able to describe one note at a 
>time. This live braille translation fosters 
>inclusivity and opens up new opportunities for 
>users to engage with sheet music more efficiently.
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>Braille 6-key note input
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>In addition to being able to read braille music 
>on the braille display, the release of MuseScore 
>4.2 later this year, will make it possible to 
>write music into the braille panel as braille 
>music notation and have it appear on the screen 
>as print music. This is done using the six keys 
>on the computer keyboard – S, D, F, J, K, L – 
>which represent the six dots in a braille cell. 
>These keys can be pressed in different 
>combinations to create all the possible braille patterns.
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>A huge leap forward for blind musicians
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>When combined with MuseScore 4’s enhanced 
>keyboard navigation and screen reader support, 
>these new braille features create an extremely 
>accessible workflow that is a gamechanger for 
>blind and partially sighted musicians.
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>James Bowden, Braille Technical Officer at RNIB, 
>stresses the importance of enabling blind 
>musicians to use a free program to write music 
>that can be printed and played by others:
>{$te}
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>James goes on to explain how the braille 
>features are helpful for a sighted music teacher 
>who is working with a blind student, or vice 
>versa, to be able to read each other’s language:
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>“The sighted teacher can see on the screen 
>exactly what is being written [for the student] 
>on the braille display. There's a lot of music 
>teachers out there who can see, and they might 
>have a student who can't. It's useful to be able 
>to see what each other sees.”
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>He adds that the features provide a useful tool 
>for blind or sighted musicians who are trying to learn music braille:
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>“With MuseScore, you can use the [screen 
>reader] speech to describe the notes, and use 
>the braille to read the music notation. If you 
>didn't know what a particular braille music sign 
>was, you could get the speech to describe it for you.”
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>How it came about
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>Implementation of the live braille features 
>would not have been possible without the 
>dedicated community of volunteers and 
>freelancers who contribute to MuseScore's open 
>source development alongside our internal team here at Muse Group.
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>Before joining Muse Group in 2021, Peter Jonas, 
>now our Community Ambassador, had already 
>contributed to MuseScore's development as an 
>open source developer specializing in 
>accessibility. His past contributions were 
>supported by RNIB, the UK’s leading sight loss charity.
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>In 2020, Peter was invited to apply for funding 
>from the DAISY Consortium, a global alliance of 
>accessibility organizations, who were looking to 
>finance development of music braille software. 
>Peter teamed up with Sao Mai Center for the 
>Blind, a Vietnamese non-profit, to get MuseScore 
>working nicely with a MusicXML to Braille 
>conversion tool that Sao Mai was to develop.
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>As luck would have it, at that time another open 
>source developer named Andrei Tuicu 
><https://github.com/musescore/MuseScore/pull/6343>submitted 
>code to MuseScore adding the ability to export 
>scores as braille music files, albeit without 
>the detailed options for customization provided 
>by Sao Mai's dedicated tool. This unexpected 
>development allowed Peter and Sao Mai to extend 
>their plan to include the live braille features you see today.
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>Finally, with a concrete proposal in hand, Peter 
>approached us at Muse Group for confirmation 
>that the live braille features would be welcome 
>in MuseScore. Naturally, we were thrilled to 
>hear about the project, and pledged the support 
>of our internal development team to get the 
>features fully merged. In 2021 we hired Peter as 
>a full time developer to assist with future 
>accessibility development and to liaise with our open source community.
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>What's next?
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>Accessibility continues to be one of the key 
>driving principles of Muse Group, as we strive 
>to empower everyone to be more creative. Our 
>development teams continue to design and update 
>our software with accessibility in mind, and we 
>actively seek feedback from blind users, as well 
>as agencies like RNIB and the DAISY Consortium. 
>Our two most popular applications, MuseScore and 
>Audacity, are both free, open source, and 
>accessible to musicians who are blind or partially sighted.
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