Although I (and most classical-music-oriented) blind musicians prefer the
use of Braille music, the newsgroup post reproduced below raises an
interesting subject which I thought some of us might find worth thinking
about. Even when using Braille music, one often needs to transcribe such
music from dictationby a sighted person and so a system such as outlined
below might be of use. (I'd prefer it to speak in Braille music notation
rather than Britishese, though -- grin).
Mike Freeman
------- start of forwarded message -------
From: jn@tommy.demon.co.uk (John Nissen)
Newsgroups: alt.comp.blind-users
Subject: Music to speech
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 97 21:54:23 GMT
Organization: Myorganisation
Message-ID: <856475663snz@tommy.demon.co.uk>
Reply-To: jn@tommy.demon.co.uk
X-Mail2News-User: jn@tommy.demon.co.uk
X-Mail2News-Path: tommy.demon.co.uk
X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.30
Lines: 44
Xref: pacifier alt.comp.blind-users:3037
Hello,
If a musician loses useful vision, how can printed music be made
accessible? Braille music notation is one possibility, but:
* few people can cope with Braille (perhaps 10%);
* there is a problem of availability of music in this notation;
* Braille music notation is difficult for somebody used to
the conventional printed notation.
An alternative approach which has been tried (in US, Netherlands
and now in the UK) is to "read out" the music, for example:
Bar 1: G crotchet, G crotchet, A crotchet;
Bar 2: F sharp dotted crotchet, G quaver, A crotchet;
etc.
To indicate the octave, one can refer to G4 or middle G, being
the G above middle C. A preamble of key (G major), level (mezzo-piano),
tempo (andante), etc. can be added.
The music could translated by a sighted person reading printed music
and recording on tape. However a lot of music is now held as data on
a computer. This music could be converted to text by a program,
and then read out by a speech synthesiser. This output could be
synchronised with synthesised music, or could alternate with it
(for example: a bar of text and the same bar of music played, then
similarly for the next bar, and so on). The user would have control
over speed, and could "one shot" a bar at a time.
I am looking on this newsgroup to see if:
* there is a demand for such a system;
* whether people would prefer the tape or computer solution.
I would also like to know of anybody who has thought about a standard
for the textual representation of music in suitable form for speaking
(as opposed to Braille music notation).
Cheers from Chiswick,
John
-- Access the word, access the world Tel/fax +44 181 742 3170/8715 John Nissen, Chiswick, London, UK Email to jn@tommy.demon.co.uk------- end of forwarded message -------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Dec 02 2012 - 01:30:04 PST