Braille music
[1] The world's largest collection of the notation is at the Library of Congress in the United States.
Because blind musicians may need both hands to play their instrument, braille music is designed to ease the memorization of a score.
Some aspects of the system are therefore more logical or simplified compared to print music; for example, identifying Middle C requires simply reading the written note rather than understanding where it falls on a staff.
Most such software automatically converts print notation (sheet music) into braille.
[10] For instance, the following moves upward continuously, ending in octave 5: The rule for 4ths and 5ths is more conservative.
Musical indications like diminuendo, crescendo, or ritardando are inserted inline with the note and rhythm notation and, to differentiate them from note, octave, and other musical signs, always preceded by the "word sign" (dots 3,4,5).
Musical signs such as staccato or tenuto are generally placed before the note or chord they affect.
[12] Fingering marks are shown in the table below: Braille music tends to be rather bulky.
Therefore, certain conventions must be used to indicate contrapuntal lines and chords (where more than one note is played simultaneously within a staff).
[14] Independent contrapuntal lines within a staff are indicated via whole- or part-measure in-accords.
For instance, in most piano music the left hand specifies the bottom note and intervals go bottom-up while the right hand specifies the top note and intervals go top-down.
Standard choral work uses this mainly where they do not cross or four where they do, as for string quartet music (the most common added clefs are alto and/or tenor).
Because of the linear nature of braille music and the fact that the blind musician can typically read only one staff at a time, multiple staves are handled in several ways depending on the complexity of the music and other considerations.
As a rule these take up less space on the page but require more of the musician in working out how to fit the staves together.
However, with many older and more complex scores the format must be determined by examination of the music and context.
An international effort to standardize the braille music code culminated in updates summarized in the Music Braille Code 1997[18] and detailed in New International Manual of Braille Music Notation (1997)[19] However, users should be aware that they will encounter divergences when ordering scores from printing houses and libraries because these are often older and from various countries.
