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Copyright © 2008, 2009 Mario Lang
Abstract
FreeDots provides a way for blind individuals to access scanned sheet music in a convenient format (braille music notation).
This book serves as an introduction to braille music notation for those readers that are not familiar with it yet. It is also the User's Manual for FreeDots.
Table of Contents
List of Tables
List of Examples
Braille music notation is an internationally accepted standard for expressing musical ideas in tactile readable form.
Since FreeDots is mostly useless to a user who does not know braille music notation, the first part of this book is dedicated to teaching the very basics of braille music notation. If you are already familiar with the international braille music notation standard, you can safely skip over this section.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The characters for the notes are formed from dots 1, 2, 4, and 5. The absence or presence of dots 3 and/or 6 determines the note values. Each note or rest has two value possibilities.
Table 1.1. Note and rest symbols
| Note value | C | D | E | F | G | A | B | rest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| wholes or 16ths | ⠽ | ⠵ | ⠯ | ⠿ | ⠷ | ⠮ | ⠾ | ⠍ |
| halves or 32nds | ⠝ | ⠕ | ⠏ | ⠟ | ⠗ | ⠎ | ⠞ | ⠥ |
| quarters or 64ths | ⠹ | ⠱ | ⠫ | ⠻ | ⠳ | ⠪ | ⠺ | ⠧ |
| eighths or 128ths | ⠙ | ⠑ | ⠋ | ⠛ | ⠓ | ⠊ | ⠚ | ⠭ |
For dotted notes, dot 3 represents each print dot following a note. It is placed immediately after the braille note. No other sign comes between the note and its dot(s). Dotted rests are treated the same as dotted notes.
Example 1.1. Example 1-2 from the new international manual of braille music notation
⠼⠙⠲
⠐⠙⠄⠽⠙⠍⠄⠝⠙⠄⠄⠝⠹⠣⠅
Click here to listen to this example
Octave marks, rather than clefs on a staff, indicate specific pitch locations in braille music. Octaves are numbered from one to seven, beginning with the lowest C on the normal, seven-octave piano. Each octave begins on C and includes all the notes up to, but not including, the next C above. The fourth octave begins on the "middle C" of the piano.
The octave mark is placed immediately before the note to which it applies with no intervening signs. The following table shows the octave marks from 1 to 7 placed before quarter-note C.
Table 1.2. Octave marks
| Example | Description |
|---|---|
| ⠈⠹ | contra |
| ⠘⠹ | great |
| ⠸⠹ | small |
| ⠐⠹ | one-lined |
| ⠨⠹ | two-lined |
| ⠰⠹ | three-lined |
| ⠠⠹ | four-lined |
The first note of a piece must be preceded by its octave mark. For the succeeding notes the following rules apply:
if the next note forms an ascending or descending second or third, it does not receive an octave mark even if it is in a different octave.
if it forms an ascending or descending fourth or fifth, it only receives an octave mark if it is in a different octave from the preceding note.
if it forms a sixth or more, it must always have its own octave mark.
These rules are illustrated in the following example from the “Cologne Key” of 1888.
Example 1.2. Example 1-11 from the new international manual of braille music notation
⠼⠙⠲
⠨⠏⠱⠹ ⠪⠨⠕⠹ ⠪⠨⠏⠱ ⠝⠻⠫ ⠱⠗⠻ ⠫⠹⠨⠪⠨⠹
⠚⠙⠑⠋⠛⠓⠊⠚ ⠝⠥⠣⠅
Click here to listen to this example
FreeDots is not a full optical music recognition solution. To be able to read sheet music, you will first need to obtain the music you want to read with FreeDots in MusicXML format.
The following chapters are concerned with how and where you can obtain sheet music in MusicXML.
Table of Contents
MusicXML is a XML based file format for storing musical notation. It is being developed by Recordare LLC.
MusicXML is now supported by almost all commercial applications dealing with musical scores in one way or another. There are basically two ways to obtain a score in MusicXML format. Either you already have it in some computerized form, then you need to investigate how to convert your data to MusicXML. Many commercial notation editors offer a way to export to MusicXML these days. If you have the music on paper, you need some optical music recognition software to scan and recognize your music.
A list of applications that allow to save or export to MusicXML format can be found here.
Since MusicXML is increasingly being used as an interchange format between different music notation software, it is increasingly being used as the canonical format to distribute musical notation over the Internet.
Therefore, there is a chance that the music you are looking for is already available on the Internet in MusicXML format.
Below is a list of some Internet resources that offer MusicXML files for download.
A repository of scores in various formats, including MusicXML, from “Verein zur Förderung der Hausmusik” in Switzerland.
Wikifonia is a collection of Lead Sheets (lyrics, melody and chords) of pop songs.
Peter J Billam provides a few of his arrangements for recorder in MusicXML format for free.
Now that we have acquainted ourselves with braille music notation and know how to obtain MusicXML documents we can go on and examine in detail how FreeDots can be used to automatically transcribe scanned sheet music to braille music notation.
Table of Contents
The user interface of FreeDots closely resembles a typical editor application. At the top is a menu bar for convenient access to the most used actions. The main part of the application is a text edit window which contains the result of transcribing the currently opened MusicXML file to braille music notation.
You can use the caret to navigate inside the resulting braille music document as in other editing applications. The caret position is context sensitive. For instance, if you move the caret the status area will automatically be updated with textual information about the braille symbol currently underneath the caret.
FreeDots also offers the possibility to play back the score currently opened. During playback, the caret position will update synchronous to the music. Additionally, there is the possibility to play individual parts of a score, or just a single note.
This list briefly describes the actions available in the FreeDots menu.
Open a MusicXML document.
Start playback of the whole score.
Export the currently opened MusicXML to a standard MIDI file.
Exit FreeDots
For your convenience, FreeDots ships with a few, freely distributable scores. This menu allows you to choose one of the prepackaged scores for transcription and/or playback.
A.1. General Information |
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A.1.1. |
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Yes. You will need to install Java 1.6. For proper accessibility support you will also need the Java-Access-Bridge installed. An installer for FreeDots on Windows™ is currently not available, but could be built. Volunteers for maintaining a Windows™ version of FreeDots are very welcome! |
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A.1.2. |
Why can't I read the default output of FreeDots on Linux™ with BRLTTY? |
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FreeDots uses Unicode by default to output braille and text such that sighted and blind users can read the output without major confusion. However, the Unicode braille row is only supported by the braille display driver BRLTTY on Linux since release 3.10. You will also need the braille fonts provided on http://brl.thefreecats.org/. |
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