Meeting minutes
<janina> Date 24 Jan 2025
Welcome, Scribe, Etc
janina: Do we want to keep 2 week cadence? There are a couple of things I'd like to get into the minutes
janina: Thinking about what we want to focus on. Trying to corroborate all the ideas.
janina: Stuff I'm worried about: scores, practicing for next sonatas, etc.
matatk: We got a lot of interest last time, but now there's less engagement on this call [4 at time of scribing]. Key thing to keep people engaged would be to table ideas they're interested in. Can continue in item 3
<janina> q/
Overivew of related work -- Janina
Music CG at W3C
<janina> https://
janina: Will need to stay in touch with the above group, at least for the work I'm primarily interested in.
janina: The group maintains MusicXML. They are looking to create a successor to MusicXML that will do some things better. They are the people who print the scores, that's who's on this group. I'd like us to give attention to this group
janina: What I see as actionable is to provide use cases for what's required to make a very useful MusicXML score for a user sitting to learn Beethoven, etc. I've seen a lot of junk online. How do we get access to the quality scores published by renowned publishers
Fredrik: I know that Concord [sp?] does this kind of work as well.
janina: I can comfortably cover what a pianist needs, but for example, guitar is not something I'm as familiar with. How do guitarists learn their scores?
janina: If we can get that level of quality in an electronic file (as quality as conductor's score, for exmaple), then we can think about how to get user agents interacting with that kind of material.
janina: Must be some kind of device to allow someone to control the movement through a score when the hands are occupied on an instrument?
janina: There must be something we can customize to allow for additional navigation when otherwise occupied
matatk: I do have some experience with a device that you're speaking of, Janina. It's a custom keyboard that emulates foot pedals. There isn't standardization to get it to work, that's why it works with anything. Up to the software to customize. Setting the bounds of the loop of what you want to learn could possibly be implemented
mike_beganyi: When growing up I played a lot of video games. There was a game on the N64 for which a team worked on a text translation of the game. I recently saw movement controls in a Mario game on Nintendo console mapped to piano.
… When navigating my DAW, I use hardware buttons on the MIDI keyboard.
mike_beganyi: I think MIDI has evolved in ways that will allow us to support more accessibility use cases.
<janina> https://
janina: DAISY Braille Music Project. I'm keen to learn more about what they're doing and their scope. This project goal was to try to cover for the fact that there are fewer and fewer Braille transcribers able to do Braille output for music in a quality manner
janina: They're pushing for MusicXML scores from publishers to be available in libraries to be distributed to blind musicians worldwide.
janina: My concern is that, while giving Braille is good, there would be some in-between to act as a stepping stone to that finished product. Why not try to publish that also?
<janina> https://
janina: The developers they have been working with are at the previous link.
janina: Vietnamese developers under contact by DAISY. They also have interesting apps that run particularly on Android. They are interfacing with MIDI to allow interaction with BPM and other aspects of the score. This contract with DAISY is coming to an end. In terms of finding developers who could help, this could work
Agencies Engaged
<janina> https://
<mike_beganyi5> janina: Hoping to come in a couple days early. Some of us might need to listen to the above to get a sense of who we can interact with.
<DavidSwallow> Apologies, had to drop.
Around the table for next steps
mike_beganyi: You asked about guitar players, how we read the tablature etc.. I used to have enlarged music (physically larger sheets). I relied a lot on my memory. Would learn chords from a chart, and then remember them. I'm not learning by reading the notes.
janina: Enlarging the music sometimes doesn't work as it gets very large and complex very quickly.
mike_beganyi: I'm mainly curious about interfacing hardware and software. Keyboard shortcuts that have to be memorized. How do we get to a place where you can pick up the hardware and practice? More new MIDI stuff coming to facilitate this.
mike_beganyi: There are frameworks for building plugins - we need to make those accessible. Also people who are hard of hearing need to be supported (e.g. mixing engineers who mixed at high volumes). How can we make a hard of hearing friendly UI?
… Could we use visual or tactile feedback in the UI to show e.g. there's too much power level in this recording?
… I do a lot of composition, mixing, mastering.
… All DAWs have general MIDI support; should be able to get a generic set-up where the hardware can be used as part of the UI, and get to practice ASAP.
Stepping back to prior art for a bit... some novel musical instruments (and the companies that make them, which I wonder may be receptive to differentiating themselves through accessibility, if they are not already):
Orba: https://
Orba user request for accessibility features: https://
The "Pocket Operator" tracker/synth by Teenage Engineering (they do other instruments/kit too - and their MO is to make kit with constraints, which could also make it easier to use, and/or to make accessible in some ways): https://
matatk: They partner with other companies on various things. It's a simpler concept so would be cool to incorporate accessibility into the phase. Consult the links for more info
matatk: More on use cases: Always had large-print scores in school. Living in a flat now makes clarinet very difficult. I more so look at chords now and not predicting the use of guitar tabs, so this combination of tablet and scoring software is sufficient for now. I can modify the font size and spacing to suit what I'm reading.
matatk: The more professional use cases like live performance classically trained and composition are very valuable. I'd also support the idea of making DJing accessible.
matatk: I think the challenge we have is how to get people interested enough to commit. Good idea to circulate the use cases we have so people can be interested in.
matatk: There's no way I can contribute until the second half of this year, admittedly.
matatk: Let's worry about starting a document that people can asynchronously visit and get involved with if they have ideas. Let's see how that goes then set a deadline about next steps.
Be done
Next steps
janina: I will pull out various use cases and circulate via list for now. We will do more with that.
janina: We need a formal path out of community groups and into APA. We need to get sign off from W3C management about another task force within APA. It requires a document that will pose our position. I will circulate this in early February latest.
janina: W3C deliverables are good to have for future
janina: To review: first a circulation to keep interest regarding use cases. Community group for a work that will happen and get pushed up through the music tech TF
janina: Noting that the Music XML work is in a community group
janina: Open to another call in a few weeks to reconvene
matatk: There's an idea about a TF which is different to this in my mind. I think the most important thing to do is to write down some use cases and see if the same participants from last time are interested in contributing.
matatk: However we do it, documenting use cases is paramount
<janina> janina's recital on youtube: https://