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#CSUNATC18 Audio: The IBOS MusicXML Reader Translates Music Files into Braille


The IBOS MusicXML Reader is a new free software program that translates MusicXML files into both braille music notation and text, allowing for blind musicians to interpret these files using a computer or braille display. J.J. speaks with Bo Alstrup and Daniel Gartmann from the Danish Institute for The Blind and Visually impaired to learn more and get a live demo in this podcast.
Blind Bargains audio coverage of CSUN 2018 is generously sponsored by the American Foundation for the Blind.

Transcript

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Transcribed by Grecia Ramirez

Almost live from beautiful San Diego, it’s blindbargains.com coverage of CSUN 2018, featuring team coverage from across the Exhibit Hall and beyond, brought to you by the American Foundation for the Blind.
For the latest technology news and accessibility information on cell phones, mainstream and access technology, personal medical devices, office equipment, digital audio players, and web-based and app technologies, log onto AccessWorld, the American Foundation for the Blind’s monthly technology magazine, www.afb.org/AW.
Now, here’s J.J. Meddaugh.
J.J. MEDDAUGH: From the Blind Bargains suite, CSUN 2018. I’m here with Bo Alstrup and Daniel Gartmann from the Danish Institute of Technology. Did I get the name right?
BO ALSTRUP: For the Blind --
JM: For the Blind.
BA: -- and Partially Sighted.
JM: There we go. It’s all these long titles. We brought them up here because there’s some really cool stuff going on with braille music. Guys, welcome to the podcast.
BA: Thank you.
DANIEL GARTMANN: Thank you very much.
JM: So we were looking at turning music in a format – XML music format into braille. Tell us what’s going on here.
BA: Yeah. That’s right. It’s been a big problem for blind musicians to, kind of, getting hands-on music notes. Usually, they are, of course, printed, and, well, that’s not very feasible.
JM: No.
BA: So we have looked into the stuff after having put the question to us, and we, kind of, found out that there is actually no good solution to that easily available. Easily, meaning free or affordable.
JM: Sure.
BA: So we kind of decided to develop this little thing, and here we are, about two years later, after we started. And we are over here at CSUN to kind of, broaden it out to the wide public.
JM: Well, let’s explain with the demo. It’s more fun to do demos, isn’t it –
BA: Yeah. Sure.
JM: -- then to talk about things. So you have a computer in front of you, Daniel.
DG: Yeah. I do. And the computer I’m having is just a regular Windows 10 machine and it has – it’s running JAWS, because we have been doing most tests with JAWS, because that’s the screen reader that is being mostly used in Denmark. And then, we want to be screen reader agnostic though, but – so far anyway – we have been using JAWS most. And to that computer, we have connected – for this demonstration, we have a QWERTY keyboard, an external QWERTY keyboard. That’s not necessary. You can use your laptop keyboard if you want that.
JM: Sure.
DG: It’s all keyboard-driven. Everything can be used via the keyboard, because it’s written – it has been written specifically for screen reader users, because there are other programs for sighted people out there that can do the same. And I’ve attached a refreshable braille display, a 40-cell braille display. I think less cells -- if you go with 14, it’s too few cells to display music.
JM: You’re not going to get too many notes for music. Right.
DG: Exactly.
JM: Yeah. Of course.
DG: And because we also have the texture representation. I know we want to get to the demos now, but I have a bit of more explanation to do, because it has –
JM: Okay.
DG: Three modes of – three – yeah. Three kinds of representation. We’ve got the music braille possibility. And we have got, for those of us, including me, who are not that fluent in music braille, we have a textural verbiage representation that JAWS will read out. And if you don’t have speech enabled, you can read it in braille. It says Closed High-hat right here under my fingers, and it has the braille sign for it, I guess. And then, we have the possibility to play the music back by a MIDI. So that depends on what kind of SoundFont you’ve got on your computer.
JM: Sure.
DG: That’s –
JM: And the formats here – it’s one that’s been around for a few years, looks like. It’s a MusicXML --
DG: Yes.
JM: -- format.
DG: Yes. XML is an open standard. There’s been many different dialects of forms of XML. And there are tons of music scores available online in MusicXML form that you can download. But this will take – you use your Control+O and standard open commands to open the file. And should I just do this in the demo and then explain on the way what I do?
JM: Okay. Sure.
DG: I have a –
JM: Let’s do that.
DG: -- score open but I will just open the score with Control+O.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Control+O: Note list, 2 of 900. Open dialogue. File name, colon, edit combo. To set the values –
DG: I’ll mute that, because you know it already, probably. But I’ll do Shift+Tab a couple of times.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Shift+Tab. Shift+Tab: MusicXML downloads.
DG: And then move down to Samples.
JM: Okay.
DG: Down Arrow key.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Samples.
DG: Is this too fast, the speech rate?
JM: Nope. Perfect.
DG: That’s okay; right?
JM: Yup.
DG: Samples. Hit Enter.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Enter. Shell folder view. Items view, list box, read only. To move to an item –
DG: And I’ll mute that. And now, I’m in the normal – it’s a normal explorer window we have here.
JM: Of course. Yes.
DG: And then I’ll just say we did for the demonstration. Should we do the pillaging thing, Bo?
BA: It’s a big one, though.
DG: It’s a big one. Or should we do Hotel California?
BA: Yeah.
JM: Oh. There you go. Yes.
DG: Yeah. Should we do that?
JM: We should.
DG: Yeah. So how do we get there? Quickly?
JM: Probably H, I guess.
DG: Should we try that out?
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: H: Hotel, underline, California --
JM: There you go.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: -- underline –
DG: Wow. Looks like we practiced before. I’m kidding. We hit Enter.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Enter. Note list: Measure 1, pulse, colon, 4, dash, quarters key, colon, D major or D minor, G –
DG: I’ll mute that real quick. It played the first note in the score, and it starts reading the text. And it displays measure 1, pulse, et cetera, et cetera. And let us take – let’s see. The braille music is to the left on the display, roughly speaking, and the textural representation starts on the right. So you can kind of –
JM: So you don’t even have – if you know braille music, awesome. If you don’t know braille music, you still have another way.
DG: You got it.
BA: Right.
JM: -- forward with this.
DG: Yes. Exactly. That’s the idea.
JM: Is this mostly designed for viewing, or can you do editing as well?
DG: You cannot do editing at this time.
JM: Okay. So it’s a viewer for these particular files?
BA: Yeah.
DG: You can – yeah.
JM: So you have, of course, different hotkeys and ways to go, because you have multiple parts on this track –
DG: Yeah.
JM: -- or how does this work?
DG: Yeah. So if you want to go to the beginning -- we are there now.
JM: Yes.
DG: But I will move a bit further from the beginning, so we’re going to –
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Measure 2B4 –
DG: If you want to go to the beginning, what could be a logical way of doing this?
JM: Probably – what is that? Is that Home or Control+Home or –
DG: Yeah.
JM: Yeah.
DG: That’s Control –
JM: It’s all your standard Windows commands. Yeah.
DG: Yes. Exactly. That’s part of the – that’s the idea of making it as –
JM: Yup.
DG: -- familiar from other programs that we use all the time, you know, Microsoft Word being the prime example. So we have Control+Home to go to the beginning of the score, and we have got Control+End to go to the end of the score, and so on and so forth. So if we have the Right and Left Arrow key, the Right arrow key would move you one beat forward at a time. Now, as this is set up now by default, it’ll play back the note you land on, and JAWS will read the thing as well. So it’s a bit – I suppose, a bit – you might want to fine tune that a little bit. So what you can do, for example, is to – but you can do this. You can move one beat at a time with the Right Arrow key.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Beat 3-8, 2 of 171.
DG: And you can hear the speech there.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: T4-8, legato start, 3 of 171. T4-8, legato stopped, 4 of 171.
DG: What you might want to do though, I think -- should we show that, Bo? With the playback of the music? Would that be an idea to show that?
JM: Yeah. Sure.
DG: Yeah. So we go to the beginning again. And I won’t tell what I’m doing – using for a hotkey for that. You know that already. But I will switch off the JAWS speech by the regular standard JAWS speech command to turn off speech on demand.
JM: Yup.
DG: Insert+Space, followed by the S.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Speech on demand.
DG: And then I’ll start playback by hitting the spacebar.
JM: And there goes the braille display.
DG: Yeah. You hear that?
JM: It’s updating.
DG: Yes.
BA: Uh-huh.
JM: Can you control the tempo if you wanted to slow this down quite a bit and, kind of, –
BA: Nice question.
DG: That’s up to you, Bo. What –
BA: Yes. Of course you can. You press Control+N, N meaning a number. And when you press it, you just enter the percentage of the normal tempo.
DG: Do –
BA: Should we try something?
JM: So we have Measure 11 right now. It says that towards the right side. And towards the left, we have the notes for that measure --
BA: Should we try it in 50 percent tempo?
DG: Yeah. I just wanted to ask Jason if he wants to do the typing, or should I do the keyboard?
JM: Oh. No. It’s fine. Go for it. You know the software, so –
DG: Well, yeah. I hope so. So I hit Control+N. Oh. I have speech on demand on still so –
JM: Yes.
DG: Nice.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Full speech.
DG: I’ll just do it –
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Of normal tempo, edit combo.
DG: So I will hit in 50.
JM: Oh. Percentage of – yup.
DG: Oh. You see the – you have the braille display there?
JM: Oh. That too.
DG: Cool.
JM: Well, no. I just – obviously, that’s what you were after.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: 5, 0.
DG: 0.
JM: Yup.
DG: Hit Enter.
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: Enter. Note list. Measure 11 –
JM: And the reason I ask this is because as it’s doing this, as you want the verse, it’s playing each measure. And if you want to try to learn a song –
DG: Yup.
JM: -- and you want to do it slow enough to where you can read the braille as it’s going through, it would make a lot of sense. So now, when you hit play –
BA: Uh-huh.
DG: -- what happens then? How do --
JM: Obviously, it’s obnoxiously slow, but you can –
BA: Of course.
JM: So it does it one note at a time on here? It looks like that’s what it’s doing.
DG: It’s showing bits at a time of the piece, I guess.
JM: Sure.
DG: So you have –
JM: And you know – okay. If we stop this for a second. I mean, perhaps, if you’re learning a song, it almost makes sense to do, like, a manual advance; right?
DG: Yeah.
JM: Then to do it like this speed?
DG: And there – yes. And there, we have another -- you can use your arrow keys. You can also connect a foot switch. It’s difficult to –
JM: Oh.
DG: -- demo on a podcast, obviously. But what you can do is – there are devices out there that have pedals.
JM: To a computer or to your keyboard to a computer?
DG: To your computer by the USB port. And then, you can use your feet as you play. But you can also use the arrow keys. They simply – they can be configured to emulate the arrow keys. Is that a fair way of saying it, Bo? That –
BA: Yeah. That’s right. If you – usually, you use both hands for instrument playing, so –
JM: Is this format, this XML music format, maybe not as well known, but there’s lots of songs out there for it or –
BA: You have tons of them on the net. But you can export them from all music editors too. They all have that function.
DG: Programs like Sibelius, Finale, MuseScore – there are lots of music editors out there that people use. Sighted people -- everybody uses them, I mean –
JM: And it’s pretty much representing everything that would be, you know – you hear all the braille music signs and, you know, formats there to – are pretty close –
DG: The braille music representation is a work in progress.
JM: Okay.
DG: The MusicXML format in itself has all we need. We haven’t looked that much at non-Western music, unfortunately. That’s something that we would love to have feedback on, but – I mean, so far, Bo and I and the developer, we haven’t found limitations to what MusicXML can represent. Because it is used to exchange files between, you know, if one person is using Sibelius and the other is using MuseScore, you know, you have to be able to exchange. So it’s like saving it as a document. Example could be RTF or HTML – whatever format every word processor can use. But these music programs, they apparently play nicely with each other in that regard. So you can -- if you save it as MusicXML, you can import them into your own music program that you own.
JM: Cool. Any other features that we should mention?
DG: We’re recording. We should mention the possibility of analyzing different chords. Just mention them, Bo, just to –
BA: Yeah. Yeah. That – and maybe the loop sequence too.
JM: All right. Well go ahead and quickly tell us how that works.
DG: Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead, Bo.
BA: Yeah. Well, for hissing purposes, we have this little feature too, which you can, kind of, set up to repeat, say, two measures so that you can actually -- getting into the feeling of playing together with a computer and doing all these measures all over again until you have them right where they should be.
JM: Okay. And the chord analyzer? How does that one – what does that one work like?
DG: When you land on a chord, you could basically do – you can analyze the different notes in a chord by using your Down Arrow keys, I think. And then you can, you know, go through – because if you have a chord, like three or four notes at a time, you want to make out – analyze it. What key, what notes does it consist of? And go through it with the arrow keys.
JM: This is some really cool and fascinating stuff to see. I’m glad it was brought to our attention. Sometimes – you know, the best things at the conference often are not in the Exhibit Hall, so really cool to see this.
The software, is it available now? Can people go download it, or.
BA: Yes. And it is for free.
JM: It’s for free. And where can people get this?
DG: That’s IBOS.dk/musicxml.
JM: Awesome. And if people want to send you guys a message or have comments, how should they contact you?
DG: They can either – they can just go on to the webpage and find the contact – there’s contact info there. They can write to – let me see if I have it. We just got new mail addresses, so remember them correctly -- mine is DG@ibos.kk.dk.
JM: Thank you so much, both. Thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate it.
DG: Thanks.
BA: Thank you.
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Copyright 2018.

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J.J. Meddaugh is an experienced technology writer and computer enthusiast. He is a graduate of Western Michigan University with a major in telecommunications management and a minor in business. When not writing for Blind Bargains, he enjoys travel, playing the keyboard, and meeting new people.


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