2016-04-26 00:45:35

Hello there.

As provably you know (or not), i am an amateur music producer. That means that i produce just for miself, justo for the love of it and just to learn. That said i download a lot of simple libraries and virtual instruments etc etc etc... But the point of this question is this. Is it posible, is there any form of video or audio tutorial or something that actually descrives how those simbols are written in brailleform (for example, the time signature goes at x order, and is written using the dots , 1 , 5 and 6. ofcourse this might be not correct but is an example lol.

The reason for this question is because a teacher asked me to learn this thing in order to advance, to progress and you know, get alittle more knowledge.

After years, i finally changed my signature! But i don't know what to say :D

2016-04-26 02:51:52

Hi Gamecreator.
Well I don't think you can learn braille music without a braille display of some kind. If you live in the united states, library of congress has hard copy braille music books but if you live outside the US I don't think you can get them. There's really no easy way to get braille music in fact there's no way to get spacific braille music unless you can pay to have someone translate it for you or you are studying music in school. When I was in college I went to a guitar class and I got the book translated into braille but that was because I was in college. Without braille I don't know how else you would learn musical notes because all the music readers out there are for the sighted. I'm sorry I couldn't be more help but that's how things are with braille music.
Hth.

Guitarman.
What has been created in the laws of nature holds true in the laws of magic as well. Where there is light, there is darkness,  and where there is life, there is also death.
Aerodyne: first of the wizard order

2016-04-26 12:46:33

It is certainly possible to learn music braille without writing it in the stages of learning it, but you will need to find a source of writing it. Your knowledge of music theory may help you in learning it, but you must remember to tell your music teacher that some things are different between print music and braille music, e.g. braille music does not use a stave.

In terms of finding material, I thought that the company Dancing Dots sold some lessons in learning the code.

There are several companies that allow you to scan a printed score and have it converted to braille music notation; the most widely-used of these applications is available from Dancing Dots. Remember that you will need to find a way of getting the braille music that the program has generated onto paper. Some braille music transcribers just prefer to use the Perky Duck or Duxbury Braille Translator software, and then connect their computer to a braille embosser.

2016-04-26 15:44:02

I would recommend reviewing Hadley School for the Blind's braille music course.  I'm signing up for it this summer.  I'm a music major and need to read braille music in order to make life easier...
big_smile

If you are indeed outside of the U.S., I believe Hadley still ofers their course, but take that with a grain of salt.  Without a braille display, you'll obviously need hard copy, which isn't easy to obtain even in the U.S. from certain lenders.

I'm curious -- are you learning for sake of education, or recreation?  From what it sounds like, learning braille music notation will help further your understanding of how music is written and composed.

Another thing to consider is how comprehensive your knowledge of music theory is.  Notation will be pointless to learn if you aren't learning both simultaneously.  Note any course you take for reading braille music is simply that, reading it, not understanding the theory behind it.  Perhaps there are materials that can do both.

Luke

What game will hadi.gsf want to play next?

2016-04-27 11:49:49

The abovementioned Dancing Dots material teaches playing an instrument, music theory and braille music, though this may not be quite what gamecreator is after.

2018-06-02 22:50:37

and I know, moderators, there is a billion years gap from the last post and mine, but I hate those silly duplicated topics that serve no purpose. SO,
I come back up with the same question. There is free material on the web for this stuff, see
http://www.brl.org/music/

and so the problem I find is that the examples given on the text can be read just fine with screen readers, but they would be in the following form shown on the next two lines below:
     #C4
.N,<1NOPQH<K

so, deriving a bit, and from what I gather when you open an untranslated or a not back, translated,  brf file in notepad for example, I know that in computer braille, # is the numeric sign as in dots 3, 4, 5, 6 And the cappital C is the number 3 and the 4 is the lower d in braille, dots 2,5,6. So if you put this into imaginary braille form this should be a number sign, followed by the number 3, then the lowered number 4, which indicates a fraction, or 3/4 time in braille music notation. The dot is dots 4-6, so its a fifth octave sign, and the n is of course dots 1, 3,4, 5, so its apparently a c half note. Then follows a comma, or a dot six, for the very last octave, and a flat sign indication after that.. and... well, you get the idea.

But then I wonder how we can have this into understandable form. For example, the old version of braille music editor did take this as things you could have pasted into its edit box and it said the dots out loud for you and described the symbols. But now the second and latest version of B M E, does use a totally different system. So when I copy just that first line, meaning the 3/4 fraction, it outputs,
530344

So I am not sure what the heck kind of table they are using if any, or how could I import this .. but if I could make this, reading that manual I just pasted above can be just what we are looking for!
If anyone could suggest a simple braille program to try or a translator or whatever, and explain how braille tables would work I would be too immensely grateful for it.

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…

2018-06-05 03:29:59 (edited by UltraLeetJ 2018-06-27 22:36:24)

Okay! so I am sort of answering my own question because apparently, either it was too confusing or  no one knows about how braille tables work and I definitely wish I knew more.

Its not the best or perfect solution, but it works.

if you look at the tables on the link I just posted above, then look at this, using it as a reference and sort of cross check, you will get really interesting but more importantly, functional, answers. For example, in the examples of the table 2, the clef signs,  found at
http://www.brl.org/music/manual/tables/table02.html
are described as follows:
G clef; treble: > / l
G clef in the left hand part: > / k

if you look at this other reference which comes from the pack mate manual, (so so thankful they bothered to post it up online) you search for the literal sign, like >
and will find that you write that in computer braille as: DOTS 3-4-5

so putting this all together, the sign that represents the g clef is thus
dots 3-4-5, 3-4, and the letter l which are dots 1 2 and 3. For the other one, the g clef in the left hand part, its the same but it ends with dots 1 3 instead of 1 2 3. and so on. the spaces are not necessary when writing in music braille, they are used only for dividing bars and or separating the initial global signs from notes . Follow the link for the reference.
http://www.nmsbvi.k12.nm.us/WEB/ATRC/In … erence.htm



edit: two weeks later (27 june 2018):

I was really successful in printing a music braille sheet! it was a fun, two part rhythmic exercise I had pulled from one of the university method books for giving a class to teens that wanted to learn music braille with me. Just to be clear, I do  not have an embosser, I had to take this to a place where one was very generously put to my service, so if you do have one, you probably do not even need to read this.

granted, the process was not all that easy, but then again I found a way that works reliably. So, you need either:

1. Braille music editor (which honestly is not really worth its price just yet even though many things improved in latest version) or,
2. The free BrailleZephyr from APH, at https://brailleblaster.org/braillezephyr.php .. this is assuming you know your notation very well
3. An editor like EdSharp (too bad its been just pulled offline but I do have the installer available or I think its been uploaded on this forum too)
So, braille music editor sort of helps you learn syntax and (somewhat) correct usage for symbols, because it is a way for you to hear the braille you are writing, (symbols are musically described too, such as c quarter note,d eight,ETC) but then BrailleZephyr  gives you more accuracy (more about this in a minute)

The process is pretty much the same. Oddly enough, braille music editor does not have some features that BrailleZephyr  has (you of course will not get notes played back or symbol descriptions), and vice versa (explained in a bit).

I typed my music into B.m.e. and was able to check it, hear it and then came the tricky part. Exporting to text format. It has 3 tables. Italian, French and generic, which works perfect for English uncontracted text. I guess the Italian and french do use different capital letter symbols (in french it shows apostrophe or dot 3 for caps, and Italian I totally forget which one it is)
Since I use Spanish for text I had to edit the file using edSharp and has to put a dot, . (which is dots 4-6) where i wanted the caps to go. Lamentably B.M.E. just went ahead and totally disregarded the formatting choices I had made when exporting, (like leaving some white spaces in the top line, to center the title) it all went to the trash.

So, if you use BrailleZephyr , it has a nice thing. What you get into the exported file is pretty much what you typed, and you can just send the file without any translation ¿or any of the fancy special processing that people like duxbury brag about to justify their infinitely expensive product do. This is why it is more accurate. Just send it to the braille embosser using the generic driver, opening the file in notepad and pressing print. No translation, no margins, no nothing, because BrailleZephyr does have indicators and limits for configurable things like lines per page (its 27 for letter size paper and 29 for the legal, a4 one) and characters per line (30 for letter, 40 for a4), even with a bell sound that you can also configure to alert you when you are going to go over the limit. I think you can directly print from it as well, its a really nice and almost, portable tool. I am sure you can run it from a USB stick even, but it does leave a couple files behind in the user configuration (application data/roaming directory) . Given that most computers nowadays have java runTime installed, this program should be universally available for use.
B.m.e. in the other hand has got their own part extraction ting which lets you specify these, just characters per line and will output to separate text files, which makes it all more cumbersome, in my opinion plus you still have to find out your equivalents if the table is not there or you would have to make your own.

So after joining the two text files into one, I set to do my formatting and beautification in EdSharp. I centered the top title line, I added the equivalents for the caps signs in my language, and made sure to count, and number the bars at the beginning of each line, making sure that the numbering would not cause the characters per line limit I had set to slip or go over it. EdSharp in its status bar line thankfully tells you which character you are on, and its in this case, the biggest selling point for it (kidding, program has always been free). This is probably the most tedious and attention demanding part of printing or transcribing things into music braille, BME surprisingly for is hefty price lacks such a basic and simple feature.

So, to conclude this very messy and confusing rambling, I found that:

1. Uppercase letters and lowercase letters in a notepad or edSharp plain text file are printed the same so it does not matter which ones you use.
2. numbers always show up as lowered digits just like Nemeth code uses them. So if you want a numeral sign, you have to type literally this:
#A for numberic sign and one, #B for numeric sign and two, ETC
the rest of the symbols you find in the link I posted above, like slash being dots 3-4 or at symbol being dot 5.
3. The files are to be saved in .brf or text formats, and if you use the overpriced Duxbury, or any other braille software the file should be sent without any kind of translation, so disable that in your embosser as well if you happen to have it enabled in a preset you normally use.
I hope this has helped someone.

A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station…