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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Here here! Very well written! All of my band and orchestra literature, as well as my solos for trumpet were read to me, and I transcribed them. Same way with my brass ensemble pieces. I guess some of us were born too early!<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Jeanne<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> Menvi-discuss <menvi-discuss-bounces@menvi.org> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Ella Yu via Menvi-discuss<br><b>Sent:</b> Sunday, March 3, 2024 10:13 PM<br><b>To:</b> Music Education Network for the Visually Impaired Mailing List <menvi-discuss@menvi.org><br><b>Cc:</b> Ella Yu <ellaxyu@gmail.com><br><b>Subject:</b> [Menvi-discuss] A Piece I Wrote: The Importance of Making Concert Band Music More Readily Available in Accessible Formats<o:p></o:p></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>Hi everyone,<o:p></o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>The following is going to be lengthy, but here me out.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal>In light of the recent discussion on creating some kind of repository to catalogue/store all accessible music materials that have been transcribed worldwide, I would like to share a piece I wrote that highlights the unique challenges of dealing with and accessing music for ensembles. <span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>The objective of this piece is to explain to the DAISY Consortium why the concert band world is a good target segment for their publishing outreach efforts in the event that they wish to focus in more on a specific target audience.</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Before I get to the main article, I would like to pose the following question. To those of you who have lots of first hand experience participating in ensembles, especially concert/wind band, do you feel that what I have said in this piece is accurate? Also, to anyone who plays or sings in a large ensemble, do you use websites like <a href="http://musescore.com" target="_blank">musescore.com</a> to get at least some of your performance parts in an accessible format? I would love to hear your input.</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Now to the main piece.</span><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><h1 style='mso-margin-top-alt:.25in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0in;break-after:avoid'><span style='font-size:20.0pt;font-family:"Aptos Display",sans-serif;color:#0F4761;font-weight:normal'>Introduction<o:p></o:p></span></h1><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Obtaining accessible sheet music, whether it be in braille, large print, or audio, is a constant challenge for all blind and visually impaired (BVI) musicians. This is especially true for performance parts for ensemble music, such as for orchestra, concert band, choir, and smaller chamber ensembles. This is because most libraries for the blind, which houses most of the world's accessible sheet music, is concentrated on literature for solo instruments, anthologies, and method books. Even if those libraries offer ensemble music in braille or large print, it may only offer the full score, or it may be a huge stack of full score + all performance parts, or worse yet, it may be something like just the first violin part of a string quartet and nothing else. This makes it quite challenging for BVI musicians to locate performance parts for their ensemble music. As a result, the vast majority of BVI musicians who play in band and orchestra or sing in a choir has to have someone constantly by their side transcribing their performance parts for them. Finding a transcriber to do this kind of work, even someone who is just typing up music in notation software, is not easy, which means that finding ways for ensemble directors or BVI musicians themselves to produce accessible sheet music using software tools becomes especially important.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>For the last several years, the <a href="http://daisy.org" target="_blank">DAISY Consortium</a> has been working on a project with various stakeholders from around the world that is intended to make more sheet music available in braille, large print, and other accessible formats. One of their key objectives is to make high quality MusicXML files suitable for conversion into accessible formats more readily available. In order to make this a reality, one critical step that is being taken is consulting with publishers, composers, arrangers, and engravers to find a way to make their materials available to a wider audience in accessible formats, including MusicXML. You can find out more about the DAISY music braille project <a href="http://daisy.org/musicbraille" target="_blank">here</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><h1 style='mso-margin-top-alt:.25in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0in;break-after:avoid'><span style='font-size:20.0pt;font-family:"Aptos Display",sans-serif;color:#0F4761;font-weight:normal'>Why target concert bands?<o:p></o:p></span></h1><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Blind and visually impaired (BVI) musicians participate in music making in all its shapes and forms, but one of the most common places for music students to be, at least in North America, is the school concert/marching band. Over 90% of American schools have a wind band program of some kind, which makes it one of the most common places for children and youth to receive their first exposure to playing an instrument. The other main musical ensembles in the typical American school is the string orchestra and the chorus. School choral programs are quite common, but choral participation is, to some degree, more doable without musical literacy than instrumental ensembles. Orchestral string programs are far less common in schools compared to wind band programs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Another issue is the musical literature. As a violinist and violist who regularly plays in a fairly high level community symphonic orchestra that performs standard orchestral literature by composers such as Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, etc, I am able to find a significant portion (though not all) of my orchestra music on <a href="http://musescore.com" target="_blank">musescore.com</a>, thanks to their public domain status and popularity. Sure, because everything on <a href="http://musescore.com" target="_blank">musescore.com</a> is user-created, quality does vary, and the music I have may not exactly match that of my section-mates in terms of markings and rehearsal letters/numbers, but it is still a significant help.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>On the other hand, the situation for concert bands is very different. Unlike symphony orchestras who have a long, established tradition spanning several hundred years, the concert band is a relatively new ensemble for which the majority of its standard literature has been written in the past 50-100 years, putting most of this music well under copyright. Also, composers continue to write relatively large quantities of music for concert band today. This means that it is very difficult to find performance parts for standard concert band literature in accessible formats without resorting to getting music individually transcribed by a braille music specialist or family/friend, unless the band director happens to have notation/MusicXML files of the music that is being learned and performed. Yes, <a href="http://musescore.com" target="_blank">musescore.com</a> has quite a bit of sheet music for concert band, but the bulk of that sheet music (and this applies to all of <a href="http://musescore.com" target="_blank">musescore.com</a>, really) consists of original compositions and arrangements done mainly by amateurs, which is not necessarily the material played by established ensembles.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Although many school, youth, and community orchestras play specially made modern arrangements and compositions for difficulty reasons, they still make up a significantly smaller segment than the wind band world. Although woodwind, brass, and percussion players do play in symphony orchestras, it is generally easier for string players to get into orchestras compared to wind and percussion players simply due to numbers, especially at the youth and amateur/community level, which is where the vast majority of musicians end up post high school. This means that the vast majority of amateur woodwind, brass, and percussion musicians end up in community concert bands, rather than symphonic orchestras.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>For all of these reasons, I feel that the DAISY Consortium should consider the concert band world to be one important target segment in its efforts to make music scores more available to BVI musicians. I must admit that I am by no means an expert in the wind band world. My main instruments are piano, violin, and viola, but I do have some first hand wind band experience, including one year of compulsory beginning band on flute, and one year of high school band playing flute and oboe parts on violin. I have also spent a lot of time in online communities where there is plenty of discussion on school bands, concert bands, and their literature. I have also perused several support groups for parents of blind and visually impaired children, and I found that school ensemble participation is a very common occurrence among BVI children who study music. For reference, here is a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm9675YTejs&pp=ygUkbWV0aG9kcyBmb3IgdGVhY2hpbmcgYmxpbmQgbXVzaWNpYW5z" target="_blank"><span style='color:#467886'>YouTube video</span></a> of a blind American teenage girl describing her experience participating in her high school’s band program. It is a pretty good representation of what goes on in the trenches so to speak.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><h1 style='mso-margin-top-alt:.25in;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0in;break-after:avoid'><span style='font-size:20.0pt;font-family:"Aptos Display",sans-serif;color:#0F4761;font-weight:normal'>Solutions and Challenges<o:p></o:p></span></h1><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><h2 style='mso-margin-top-alt:8.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0in;break-after:avoid'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Aptos Display",sans-serif;color:#0F4761;font-weight:normal'>1. Education and awareness<o:p></o:p></span></h2><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Most ensemble directors should be familiar with popular notation programs such as Finale, Sibelius, and MuseScore, as they use these programs for various reasons to produce material for their ensembles. If they understand that anything created in notation software can be easily used to create accessible music in some form, whether it is MusicXML files for conversion to braille, modified stave notation for partially sighted musicians, or MIDI audio tracks for those learning by ear, they can easily get accessible music out to their musicians. Large print music and audio tracks can generally be produced with just notation software alone, but the automated conversion of printed notation to braille requires an additional piece of specialized software. For many years, the <a href="https://www.dancingdots.com/main/goodfeel.htm" target="_blank">GOODFEEL suite byDancing Dots</a> has been the standard for converting print music to braille, but the rise of the newly created and high quality <a href="https://saomaicenter.org/en/smsoft/smb" target="_blank">Sao Mai Braille</a> means there is a far more economical (and ironically superior) solution out there.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><h2 style='mso-margin-top-alt:8.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0in;break-after:avoid'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Aptos Display",sans-serif;color:#0F4761;font-weight:normal'>2. The role of publishers, composers/arrangers, engravers, and distributors<o:p></o:p></span></h2><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Digital sheet music is on the rise. Given the relatively modern status of concert bands in particular, I suspect the vast majority of concert band literature is out there in a notation software file format of some kind. It's just that ensemble directors, who usually purchase the music from distributors or publishers, does not get access to those notation files. This is totally understandable given copyright concerns. However, with the DAISY Consortium working to engage more mainstream music publishers in getting MusicXML files out into the world, this issue needs to be discussed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>One possible solution would be to integrate Sao Mai's <a href="https://saomaicenter.org/en/smsoft/sm-music-braille" target="_blank">music braille translation library</a> into digital sheet music systems. This is likely difficult to implement technically, although the rise of AI could potentially help, but the end goal will be that whenever someone buys a piece of sheet music from a digital distributor, they will have the option of receiving an auto-generated braille music file of either the full score or specified performance parts. Although the output will be unproofed, I think this can still make a huge difference, though non-standard/complex notation will be a problem. These digital distributors should also offer a way to generate large print scores at the point of purchase, or incorporate magnification features into their interactive sheet music applications.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Also, Muse Group, who is the parent company of MuseScore, has acquired Hal Leonard, one of the world's largest music publishers, especially in the educational music space. For one, Hal Leonard has a large concert band division. I wonder if there is a meaningful way for <a href="http://musescore.com" target="_blank">musescore.com</a> and the Hal Leonard group to make their offerings accessible in a way that can enable ensemble directors and BVI musicians themselves to easily acquire accessible sheet music.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><h2 style='mso-margin-top-alt:8.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:4.0pt;margin-left:0in;break-after:avoid'><span style='font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Aptos Display",sans-serif;color:#0F4761;font-weight:normal'>3. The role of the braille music transcriber<o:p></o:p></span></h2><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>The other issue is the role of specially trained braille music transcribers. Most braille music transcribers spend most of their time transcribing music on request for specific individuals, which means that many may not be meaningfully contributing to the braille music that is readily available to the wider public. This becomes especially problematic for ensemble music, where most transcribers are working on individual performance parts for a scattering of pieces for specific people that ask and pay for it. (This is the main reason I find FMDG's <a href="https://fmdgmusicschool.org/digital-music-library" target="_blank">online accessible music library</a> to be less useful for a wider audience than it could be). Even if there was some sort of catalogue of every single thing that is available in braille worldwide, I, for one, would still find it very frustrating searching through a whole pile of available transcriptions trying to locate the flute 1 part for a particular concert band piece, only to discover that yes, the piece has been transcribed, but it's only the 2nd trumpet part. Another example is when I'm looking for the first violin part for a symphony, only to discover that yes, it exists in braille, but only a selection of measures have been transcribed, most likely for the purpose of orchestra seating auditions. (I will say that audition excerpts are kinda another unique situation, but at least if you know what measure(s) the excerpt was pulled from, assuming the whole piece is available in an accessible format, you may be able to work from the full copy without resorting to getting it transcribed just for you).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>In the mainstream music world, much effort is put into keeping all the parts and score of an ensemble work as close to each other as possible, and while I know this kind of parody is harder to achieve in the braille music world, I still find it a huge point of frustration. I just love being able to locate full scores of ensemble music in a format that lets me extract the performance parts I need on sites like <a href="http://musescore.com" target="_blank">musescore.com</a>, since I can rest easy knowing that, say, another BVI musician needs the same piece for their ensemble playing but they don't play the instrument I do, the score is available for them to extract their part from. I may be a little biased, but I just don't love seeing a loose collection of various performance parts for different pieces, and none of them have a full score or complete set of parts available. Transcribed excerpts and segments of method books and anthologies pose a similar problem, but the issues are somewhat different, so I won't go into it here. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:8.0pt'><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Also, most braille music transcribers continue to enter music by hand six-key entry style, which, in my opinion, is a huge disadvantage to making accessible ensemble music more available to a wider audience. If a transcriber goes the six-key entry route to transcribe the full score, they'll have the full score, but what if someone wants just the first flute part or the second violin part of that orchestra score that was transcribed entirely by hand? The transcriber then has to do a lot of extra additional work to provide the client with the single part score they want. If, on the other hand, the score is in notation software, it is easy to extract the part(s) that the client wants, use automated conversion to get a braille score, and the braille music specialist can then check it over and fix any problems that arise. With this approach, the transcriber can still transcribe the full score using automated tools and get a pretty usable result to edit further.<o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div></div></body></html>