A tool for converting between braille music, MusicXML, and LilyPond (bidirectional)

Hi all,

I read about the 2022 thread "Blind and visually impaired users learning 
LilyPond," and the earlier 2011/2013 discussions on bringing braille 
music support to LilyPond, and wanted to share a project that speaks 
directly to that history: DottedNotes (www.dottednotes.net), a free, 
open-source tool for converting between braille music, MusicXML, and 
LilyPond.

Those earlier threads debated an architectural question that's still 
relevant: should braille conversion go through MusicXML as an 
intermediate, or map LilyPond's elements to braille more directly? 
DottedNotes takes a third approach — it parses braille, MusicXML, or 
LilyPond input into a shared internal representation (Score, Note, and 
other musical objects, in Python), then renders that representation out 
to whichever format you need. So braille→LilyPond doesn't route through 
MusicXML's limitations, and any of the three formats can convert to any 
other, including round-tripping.

Since DottedNotes bundles LilyPond itself, it can also compile straight 
to PDF and MIDI from any input format — so a blind composer can write a 
score in braille and get a fully engraved, publication-quality score and 
audio playback out the other end, without leaving the tool.

I built this because I don't think composing music should cost blind 
musicians more time or money than it costs sighted composers — braille 
transcription is typically $4-12/page and covers only a fraction of 
what's on a printed page, and the leading dedicated braille music 
software runs into the hundreds of dollars. DottedNotes is free, and 
will stay that way.

It's still actively developing, and I'm one person building it, so bug 
reports and feedback are genuinely valuable. The code is on GitHub at:
https://github.com/judithhinlung/DottedNotes
if anyone wants to look at the internals or contribute — I'd be glad to 
talk through the architecture in more depth here if there's interest, 
given how much prior thought this list has put into the problem.

You can try it at www.dottednotes.net.
Judith
Judith