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By Ben Challis - November 2002
Ben Challis reports on a non-visual approach to presenting music notation for blind music learners. Weasel is an audio-tactile approach to addressing common problems associated with conventional non-visual notations like Braille music and vocally annotated scores.
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When confronted with an unfamiliar piece of printed music, a learner will sometimes opt to commit the entire score to memory. This is often the case for professional musicians; not needing to look at the sheet-music allows them to focus more on the aesthetics of the performance. Learning to play a piece of music this way is a demanding task, so demanding that many musicians prefer to have the music available to refer to during performance or, in some cases, to ‘sight-read’ directly from the score. To a blind learner, sight-reading is not an option; learning to play an entire piece from memory will always be a fundamental task. Traditionally, printed music has been transcribed into Braille music and more recently spoken descriptions such as Talking Scores [1] and Spoken Music [2] have become available. Of course, there are also those who prefer learning to play ‘by ear’ but that in itself is a daunting task, particularly if an accurate performance is to be achieved.
There are a number of problems with Braille music but possibly the most significant is the relatively small number of blind people who read Braille. The second most obvious problem is that Braille music is effectively a serial transcription of information that is normally perceived in parallel. Large amounts of information need to be transcribed even though the reader may not wish to read everything that is present in the score (this is often true). This same problem of ‘bulk’ is also present in vocally annotated music. With Braille music, a single item of common music notation (CMN) often leads to more than one symbol when transcribed such that the total number of symbols produced increases noticeably. This particular issue is not likely to disappear easily so the question that needs to be asked is whether there is a more effective way of organising the presentation of all the transcribed musical information? In essence, this was the aim of the Weasel project.
A prototype system for the non-visual delivery of music notation was developed in the Department of Computer Science at the University of York. The system, called Weasel [3], passed through two developmental stages although the basic approach adopted remained the same each time. Tactile overlays were used in conjunction with a resistive touchpad such that a user could interact with a high level tactile representation of a page of music. The tactile components represented structural elements such as a number of bars-to-a-line, lines-to-a-page, repeat marks, first and second time bars and dynamic markings but nothing else; no notes, accents, slurs or other CMN symbols. Using this approach, the tactile aspect was kept simple; exploring a tactile diagram is not as easy as it might seem, so it was important to keep any tactile graphics easy to explore and simple to understand.
The remaining information from the score was still available, to access it a user simply needed to press onto a bar on the overlay, the information associated with that bar would be displayed to the user. The level of information retrieved was controlled by the user as was the format in which it was presented. The display options in Weasel I and II were audio playback (music), speech (using a speech synthesiser) and audio and speech (speech in rhythm with music). Different parts of the score could be turned ‘on’ or ‘off’ within the presentation depending on the nature of the task the user was attempting. For example, a typical task is to learn the notes in correct playing order but with little concern for how long each note should be sounded - the rhythm can be added to the pitches at a later point. In Weasel, aspects such as duration, pitch, fingering and other performance descriptors could be added in or removed using a simple auditory-tactile menuing system. This was controlled using buttons for the index, middle and ring finger of each hand; these were arranged as two groups of three buttons at the bottom of the overlay.
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| Figure 1: Weasel I |
The overlays on Weasel I were designed to look similar to the structural components of printed music. During initial testing it became clear that this approach of a direct visual-to-tactile mapping is likely to produce problems [4]. Weasel II used overlays that were more efficient in terms of tactual exploration keeping the amount of unguided exploration required by the user to a minimum. Effectively, the user follows a raised horizontal strip, with all tactile components included somewhere along the strip.
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| Figure 2: Weasel II |
Testing of Weasel showed the system to be highly promising. There were a number of limitations but these were essentially due to the experimental nature of the prototypes. In particular, the overlays had been produced using vacuum-formed PVC and these were laborious to produce. PVC had been chosen in preference to swell paper as it can produce a higher resolution of diagram and offers different levels of height. However, the benefits offered were outweighed by the associated complexity and production time.
Weasel is now entering a third developmental stage. The aim is relatively simple – to turn Weasel into a fully working system that allows users to import music, produce tactile overlays and interact with them but with a minimum requirement of specialist equipment. It would be desirable for Weasel to work with hardware and software components that are typically available within a special needs educational environment or that can at least be considered as easily available. Time allowing, it would also be desirable to adapt Weasel so that it can be used to write as well as read music.
Weasel was originally designed to provide a non-traditional approach to music notation that would benefit blind people who prefer not to read Braille music. However, there are people, sighted and blind, who prefer not to ‘read’ music at all, they prefer to play ‘by ear’. Weasel provides a structured approach to music learning for these people also. With this in mind, it could be beneficial to think in terms of Weasel as being a non-traditional approach to reading music – one that just happens to suit blind people.
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Ben Challis
Senior Lecturer
School of Engineering
Leeds Metropolitan University
Leeds
LS1 3HE
United Kingdom
Email: b.challis@lmu.ac.uk
Phone: +44 113 2832600 ext. 5873
Ben Challis is a Senior Lecturer at the Leeds Metropolitan University teaching on music technology-related courses within the School of Engineering. His main research interest is in improving access to music for people with disabilities.
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For citation purposes:
Challis, B. "Weasel: Access to Music Notation for Blind People", Cultivate Interactive, issue
8, 15 November 2002
URL: <http://www.cultivate-int.org/issue8/weasel/>
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