Braille Music Notator

Braille Music Notator is a free online tool for creating braille music scores. While there are tools available which can translate traditional notation into braille music notation, they suffer the same problems as other automatic translation engines: the resulting translations are often unpolished and inefficient, and can sometimes be inaccurate or even illegible.

 

In Braille Music Notator, the entire process of creating or editing a score is done in braille music notation, but the braille characters are translated into traditional musical symbols automatically. Thus, the score can be designed with the braille reader in mind, resulting in elegant, legible scores which promote sight-reading and accuracy.

 

         

 

Though the primary goal of Braille Music Notator is to produce high-quality scores for musicians who rely on braille for reading music, the utility is designed to be used by sighted musicians, teachers, and engravers.

 

Dr. Toby W. Rush teaches music theory, aural skills, and music technology at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio. A long time computer programmer and interface designer, he has been researching methods for improving education for visually impaired music students since 2012. He maintains a web site and blog at tobyrush.com.