[Perform-Talk] DottedNotes update: braille-in-braille-out part extraction, plus BANA-aware error checking

[Ella Yu]

Hi, Having tried the DottedNotes website myself, I'd say what this tool
does, and honestly it's not nearly as mature as, say, Dancing Dots and Sao
Mai Braille, is that it can convert from braille to print, rather than
being strictly XML/notation file to braille like most others. However,
getting from PDF to XML isn't something that can be easily solved in the
magical way we expect without issues of errors and accuracy.

On Fri, Jul 24, 2026 at 9:15 PM Leslie Hamric via Perform-Talk <
perform-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Hi Judith. How does this do with cello music? I played cello in a symphony
> and I'm looking for a faster way too get the parts translated into braille.
> Leslie Hamric
> Cello and Braille Music Teacher
> Vice-President of National Federation of the Blind of Illinois At Large
> Chapter
>
>
> > On Jul 24, 2026, at 12:59 PM, Judith Lung via Perform-Talk <
> perform-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> >
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I want to share a significant update to DottedNotes (www.dottednotes.net),
> the free, open-source music transcription tool I've been building for blind
> composers and musicians.
> >
> > A quick recap for anyone new to it: DottedNotes converts between braille
> music (BRF/BRL), LilyPond, and MusicXML, in any direction, and it's free —
> no per-page transcription fees, no software license in the hundreds of
> dollars.
> >
> > What's new: DottedNotes now supports almost the full range of MusicXML's
> notation features, accepts braille or LilyPond as input in addition to
> MusicXML, and — this is the part I'm most excited about — lets you extract
> individual instrument parts after translation, in both braille and printed
> PDF (if you choose the Lilypond option).
> >
> > In practice, that means: if you write a full ensemble score in braille
> following BANA conventions, DottedNotes can now give you back correctly
> formatted braille and print parts, ready to hand to your other musicians.
> As far as I know, that's a genuinely new capability in this space — most
> existing tools treat braille as something you convert to print, not
> something you can start from and get usable parts back out of.
> >
> > The error checking is the part I think matters most. DottedNotes now
> flags exactly which part and measure has a problem, and tells you what BANA
> rule it broke, so you can fix your own score without needing a sighted
> proofreader or an expensive transcriber to catch the mistake. For example,
> here's a real error message it produces:
> >
> > Conversion failed. Error details: Instrument 'Flute': Measure 33:
> triplet group left incomplete at a bar line: 16 of 24 ticks accumulated. A
> triplet group's notes must complete within a single measure — a
> doubled-sign block may continue with a fresh group in the next measure, but
> one group cannot itself span a bar line.
> >
> > So instead of a wrong or garbled export, you get told precisely where
> the problem is and why, in terms that map back to the BANA rule you can go
> check.
> >
> > DottedNotes is still actively developing, and I'm one person building
> this, so if you try it and hit something confusing, broken, or missing, I'd
> genuinely appreciate hearing about it — that feedback is what makes it
> better. It's also open source, so if you or someone you know codes,
> contributions are welcome.
> >
> > You can try it at www.dottednotes.net.
> >
> > Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear what you think — or what you're
> working on that this might help with.
> >
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