Re: accessibility features

[Jean Abou Samra]

Le 28/07/2021 à 16:09, arsua@itu.edu.tr a écrit :
> To whom it may concern,
>
> I am contacting you to request information about the accessibility 
> features of your notation software for the visually impaired users.
> The information you may provide in regards to my research, will be 
> used to provide academical information in my PHD dissertation on blind 
> musicians’ access to music notation, both to compose and review scores 
> which are especially in the modern style that have been composed from 
> 1945 to the present.
> It is initially important for me to receive reasons from you if any, 
> some or all of the features of your product are unavailable for the 
> visually impaired users and the details for that.
>
> Thank you very much for your prospective contribution and 
> collaboration in advance.
>
> Çağlar Arsu
> Istanbul Technical University


Hello,

LilyPond is a text-based music notation software. This
means that the user interface is completely accessible
to visually impaired persons. You can use any text editor
you like (with decent accessibility features of course).
So LilyPond's accessibility is simply a principle of its
core design.

For someone seeking to compose music with peculiar
notation (as you mention modern music), LilyPond is
an ideal tool since you can program every element of
the score. The following examples come to mind.
If this is an important aspect for you, there are
several people on this list who use LilyPond for this
kind of tasks.

https://clairnote.org/
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2021-04/msg00047.html
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2013-04/msg00563.html
http://www.mikesolomon.org/scores/passeggiata.pdf

However, LilyPond does not (yet) export Braille music,
nor MusicXML. I've CCed someone who has been working on
conversion from MusicXML to Braille and might have insights.

A number of blind people have been supported by the
user list ("community forum"). You can find raw
feedback in the questions by searching the list
archives at

https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/

There is also a blind composer called Hu Haipeng who
was quite active at a time (although I have not seen
him recently). I don't have his email address, but
you could probably get in touch with him using this
contact form:

http://www.brailleorch.org/en/contact/

It's for the website of a Braille music project he
appears to have launched.

Best regards,
Jean