Duet turns music into braille and braille back into music, so a blind
child and a sighted teacher can work from the same page. Everything runs
on this machine: no music, and no typing, is ever sent anywhere.
Music to braille
For the teacher who has a score and needs it in braille.
- Load a MusicXML file exported from Sibelius, MuseScore, Finale
or Dorico — or paste it into the box. The score appears engraved
across the top of the page. Load also opens braille files (eBraille,
BRF or Unicode braille): the kind of file chooses the direction, and
the app says which one it switched to.
- The braille appears beside it as the child will meet it, with any
lyrics translated too.
- Each part plays with its own instrument, and the score's is used
wherever the file names one. Sound under the score plays every
part as written, or all of them on one instrument you choose;
per part opens a picker for each part, and a part not playing what
the score says names that beside its picker, so a change is never a
mystery. Your change lasts until you load something else.
- Source, beside the play controls, shows the MusicXML the braille
is written from, to correct it as text; press it again for the score.
Edit notes shows the buttons that change the note you have
selected — the arrow keys, #, n, b, plus and
minus work on a selected note without them.
- Save keeps the braille output as eBraille or BRF (in braille
to music it can also save the music as MusicXML, converted from the
braille);
Emboss writes the BRF an embosser reads; Print puts the
score and the braille on one sheet for the teacher.
- Click a note, a rest, a bar line or a word on the score and the
braille for it lights, with what it is in the bar at the foot of the
page; click a word and its notes play. The bar shows the BANA section
the sign comes from, and Ctrl+Shift+D (⌘⇧D on a
Mac) says the rule in plain words. The score and the braille scroll
together by the bar; the bars to review badge, the
Ctrl+Shift+, / Ctrl+Shift+. keys and the Go to bar
box work here as they do for braille in.
Braille to music
For the child writing braille music, and for anyone checking what braille
already written actually says.
- Type with six-key entry — S D F and J K L for the
six dots, space for a bar line — or paste braille cells in.
- As you type, the music appears on the stave, the notes appear as words,
and you can hear it: ▶ for the whole piece, bar for the
one you are on, from here to the end. Speed can be dropped to
three quarters or half for practice.
- Step from bar to bar with Ctrl and the comma or full stop keys
— the ones marked < and >. The arrow keys are left entirely
to your braille display and your screen reader.
- Anything unclear is listed under things to check — a
missing octave sign, a bar that does not add up — so a mistake is
pointed out rather than passed over in silence.
- A lyric line typed above the music is treated as sung text. Put the
cursor on a word and the note it is sung on lights in both panes;
click the word and all its notes play.
- Wherever the cursor is, the bar at the foot of the page says what
the cell is and which BANA section it comes from; Ctrl+Shift+D
(⌘⇧D on a Mac) says the rule behind it in plain
words — only when you ask, never on every move.
- The braille and the score scroll together by the bar, and the cursor
is kept in view in both. Bars with something to check are underlined
and counted in the bars to review badge: click it for the first,
press Ctrl+Shift+, or Ctrl+Shift+. for the previous or the
next, or type a number into Go to bar and press Enter. Hover a
cell or a note for its bar.
Instruments
Under Settings there is one instrument for the braille you type.
A loaded score is different: it can name an instrument for every part, and
where it does, that is what you hear.
- Load a score and its own instruments are used. Whatever you picked for
the last piece is dropped, so a marimba chosen once does not go on
playing the next piece's violin.
- Change any part you like — a score is often careless about this,
and two different sounds can be the easiest way to follow two hands by
ear. The pane says as written: violin beside your choice.
- Your change lasts until you load something else.
- Where a file names nothing, the instrument in Settings is used.
Getting back
Home in the title bar returns to the choice of direction. Your work
is kept as you go and is still there when you come back.
Braille music follows the BANA Music Braille Code
(2015); words and lyrics follow UEB.
Under Settings, Layout format starts on BANA in the
United States and on UK (UKAAF) in the United Kingdom; everywhere else it starts
on BANA for now, and more places may be added later. Lyrics start uncontracted
under BANA and International and contracted under UK (UKAAF). Choose a format or
a lyrics grade yourself and your choice is kept.
Braille shown in APH Braille Shadows, used by permission of
the American Printing House for the Blind.
