Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Discuss how to promote using FLOSS to make music.

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Basslint
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Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by Basslint »

Hello,

Music is for the ears, and I don't see why eyes should be a requirements for its making.

I feel like most efforts toward bringing better music-making software doesn't fully take in consideration blind users. I am guilty of that as well and I'd like to learn more about this topic.

My questions are:
1) What is the current situation for blind music-making software in general?
2) What about FLOSS?
3) Do you think a text-based solution would be better than using a screen reader over a DAW?
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Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by Basslint »

bitsnpcs wrote: Sat May 09, 2020 10:06 am "For screen reader users interested in creating music scores, we're working on a series of short tutorials for using Musescore with NVDA." << Quote Royal National Institute of Blind People.
Musescore is Open Source and has a Linux App Image for download.

https://musescore.org/en
This is already great news! NVDA is also FLOSS and from what I've heard it's the best screen reader out there. The only problem is that it is Windows-only, and it uses extensively proprietary Microsoft APIs. So, while it is a step forward for blind computer users, it doesn't help GNU/Linux users much.
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Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by tavasti »

Ecasound would work for handling audio, but what would be tool for handling midi in text ui?

MMA is one possible tool to generate midi with writing text, but is someone would want to make own beats etc, then it may not be right thing. In case you aren't happy with GM midi instrument with pretty traditional sounds, I don't know how to handle feeding that generated midi to wanted synth plugins.

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Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by Basslint »

tavasti wrote: Sat May 09, 2020 10:21 am Ecasound would work for handling audio, but what would be tool for handling midi in text ui?

MMA is one possible tool to generate midi with writing text, but is someone would want to make own beats etc, then it may not be right thing. In case you aren't happy with GM midi instrument with pretty traditional sounds, I don't know how to handle feeding that generated midi to wanted synth plugins.
One possibility is music programming languages such as SuperCollider or Overtone. Some might argue that it makes music-making harder, but I think that being entirely text-based, it's the most friendly way because it puts all users on the same level, unlike traditional DAWs which are clearly designed for users with good vision.

The same for automation. Maybe blind users can't see an automation curve but if they know basic maths, a function call could describe it much better than human vision.

LV2 as a standard is very friendly to blind users, because each plugin specifies inputs and outputs and it's only a matter of patching them up. I don't know if a good "glue" CLI program exists to achieve this, though. Does anybody know one?
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Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by folderol »

I know a blind musician who uses Nama and a braille reader/writer. She has helped us get the command line interface for Yoshimi as accessible as possible.

For any of this to work the entire chain of control needs to be compatible with the needs of disabled people. A similar issue exists for those with motor control difficulties such as cerebral palsy. Most modern control system are out of reach of such people, but a solid large button key matrix works, so they can then 'type' in command names and numbers.
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Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by sysrqer »

I would imagine that modular would be good for blind people if it's electronic music they want to make, it's very tactile. It would be possible to build a fun system with modules that have their code open sourced - mutible instruments is one manufacturer that comes to mind.
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Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by Basslint »

folderol wrote: Sat May 09, 2020 9:41 pm I know a blind musician who uses Nama and a braille reader/writer. She has helped us get the command line interface for Yoshimi as accessible as possible.

For any of this to work the entire chain of control needs to be compatible with the needs of disabled people. A similar issue exists for those with motor control difficulties such as cerebral palsy. Most modern control system are out of reach of such people, but a solid large button key matrix works, so they can then 'type' in command names and numbers.
Did you ask her why Nama instead of Ecasound. Or can you please tell her about this thread? We'd benefit from some first-hand insights, what works and what doesn't, what can be done, what are the various possibilities for software and hardware, etc.
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Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by folderol »

I don't know much about either Nama or Ecasound. I'll refer her to this thread.
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Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by milo »

Is this Jeanette C. you refer to? http://juliencoder.de/nama/music.html. Her music is fantastic! I love her piece for Yoshimi's 10th anniversary.

Also check out the studio tour with photos. She has a braille display, and no monitor. Lots of cool synths.

I also wondered why she uses Nama and not just Ecasound. Maybe Nama ties things together better, so that she doesn't have to type in long and detailed terminal commands.
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Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by folderol »

Yes it is. She's trying to join but is having problems with the captcha - hopefully it will be sorted out soon.

{edit}
Command length is one of the things we've really gone to town on. as an example, at start up the terminal will report something like:

Yoshimi 1.7.1 M
Clientname: yoshimi
Audio: jack -> 'default'
Midi: alsa -> 'Komplete Audio 6:0, Hua Xing:0'
Oscilsize: 512
Samplerate: 48000
Period size: 32

Found 3845 instruments in 108 banks
Root 5. Bank set to 105 "Will_Godfrey_Collection"
yoshimi>

Then entering:
s p 2 on ins 30

results in:
Main Part Number 2
Part 2 Enable - on
Main Part 2 loaded 0030-Bright Synth Time 2mS
yoshimi Part 2+>

The fact you are editing part two is added to the prompt.
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Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by Basslint »

folderol wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 7:18 pm Yes it is. She's trying to join but is having problems with the captcha - hopefully it will be sorted out soon.
@raboof can something be done about it?
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Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by raboof »

Basslint wrote: Tue May 12, 2020 1:16 pm
folderol wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 7:18 pm Yes it is. She's trying to join but is having problems with the captcha - hopefully it will be sorted out soon.
@raboof can something be done about it?
Sure, mail me at arnout@linuxmusicians.com with the desired username and password and I'll create the account.

(I would like to be more welcoming, but removing the captcha is not really an option due to spam registrations...)
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Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by jeanette_c »

Hey hey,
Replying to the original message.

1) What is the current situation for blind music-making software in general?
Speaking as a blind musician myself: most blind professional musicians appear to use mac these days. It is possible to work in the industry. It takes some dedication. Let's drop names: Logic is quite accessible, including most of the synthesizers that come with it. Though they aren't necessarily pretty. :) ProTools requires knowing keyboard commands to make good use of it. Even better use can be had by installing a package of further keyboard macros.
Effect plugins go every which way. Some are plainly not accessible, for others installation procedures aren't accessible. Some companies are aware of that and offer practical help though (remote installation). There are many however which are accessible through the computer keyboard or an external control surface.
Synth plugins: the same applies, but... There is the Komplete infrastructure which sort of guarantees soime accessibility. This requires a user to also have one of the hardware control keyboards sold by NI. Through eight knobs and page buttons parameters can be accessed, if they are mapped to their protocol. This mostly means up to 16, sometimes still up to 64 parameters, very rarely more, if at all. That can be enough for some instruments, but even a medium synth would have more than 64-128 parameters. So in most cases you have to live with tweaking presets or even just using macro performance controls. Not the sound designer's dream. :)
N.b.: yes Reaper is accessible too, certainly on windows, never tried it myself, though it might be interesting on the Linux machine.
In short: professional and efficient work is possible with some restrictions and a lot of room for further improvement.

2) What about FLOSS?
Ardour is not accessible and probably won't be in the foreseeable future. The basic widget(s) aren't accessible and would require a complete rewrite of the GUI parts. Seeing that Around had a complete overhaul of the engine, it might come to this one day. I _THINK_ many of the graphical tools in Linux - in particular - are not accessible. Audacity works - certainly to a degree.
However, some applications come with commandline interfaces. Yoshimi is exemplary these days, allowing to edit every last parameter and thus open the full potential of sound design. Other applications might have a CLI (commandline interface) to allow performing and borwsing presets: e.g. Aeolus and Hexter.
There are pure commandline tools like Nama (based on Ecasound) for audio recording, processing and mixing. There are MIDI applications too. Midish is a feature rich sequencer. But in that ready-made category, there's no fully fledged DAW that would bring audio and MIDI together in a way like Ardour or its commercial brethren.
There are also the big synthesizers like Csound, which comes with its own programming language, editable anywhere, and so many input/output mechanisms for performances and other live-tweaking.
It looks to me like most commandline users (not only blind) end up by building themselves an environment from a few tools, scripts and maybe small self-written programs. When these solutions cover the workflow completely, they may end up being highly efficient and powerful. But some parts are simply lacking.
Summary: I personally don't know blind professional musicians working on Linux. I know a few that tried and either gave up or changed system. I don't see a competetive fully-featured solution for a studio. Sound generation is another matter. As is everything experimental, academic...

3) Do you think a text-based solution would be better than using a screen reader over a DAW?
Not necessarily. When a user has a braille display and knows the commandline, a text-based solution can be quite effective. But for a user fit with a screenreader so can be a GUI tool. I _THINK_ that a graphic solution is also more general. Using either the newer QT, GTK or even Java should work. When you begin a project, being aware of these toolkit's accessibility infrastructure, it shouldn't take a lot of extra work. A lot is in labelling, staying away from some widgets for functional elements, maybe making a call or two to enable stuff. A GUI solution can work for all and thus won't require coding a complete secondary interface.
GUI toolkit developers are aware of accessibility issues and have developed features both in the libraries and - when applicable - in development tools like IDEs to help you. There are also guides to show how little work it can take. I know QT has such material online. Other, commercial system, have guidelines, specific APIs and also some demos.

One thing which neither commercial products nor FLOSS has successfully mastered is score writing and exchanging scores. There are tools to create and read scores, but in a world of cooperation and exchange none really satisfies after a certain point.

I hope this helps, even though it might be a lot of information. I find it difficult to balance between too much and not enough.

Best wishes,

Jeanette
--
distro: ArchLinux, DAW: Nama, MIDI sequencer: Midish
All my latest music on https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMS4rf ... 7jhC1Jnv7g
Albums, patches and Csound on http://juliencoder.de
studio32

Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by studio32 »

something
Last edited by studio32 on Mon Jul 27, 2020 4:25 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Blindness and FLOSS music-making

Post by Basslint »

Hello @jeanette_c I am OP, thank you for your reply!

I help maintain a repository of FLOSS music software for openSUSE. I'd like to make a spin of it which only contains accessible music software, and maybe establish a complete workflow. What do you think about this idea?

Also, what would you recommend developers to focus on? What is the hardest thing to do, except for scoring?

As for scoring, what do you think is lacking? What would you consider a good workflow? I know there are MusicXML to Braille Music exporters, maybe they can be a starting point?
The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. [Acts 4:32]

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