Sao Mai Vocational and Assistive Technology Center for the Blind is a nonprofit organization founded in 2001. One of their main missions is to “empower the blind by using and developing assistive technology in education, employment, and daily living activities.” This nonprofit developed SM Music Reader, an app that allows users – with or without sight – to read scores written in MusicXML format.
According to its description on AppleVis, SM Music Reader is a “free and fully accessible app” that supports drawing music scores, as well as playing and reading them. It’s fully accessible via VoiceOver, so both “sighted and blind users can exchange the same score at the same time.”
Overview of SM Music Reader:
- Users can read music files written in MusicXML format
- They can also draw sheet music for exchanging scores among persons with or without visual impairments
- Ability to play MIDI files:
- Play all, by part, staff, current measure, and by a highlighted passage
- Forward, rewind, and loop playback
- Adjust the tempo, customize metronome options, volume, and select instruments’ voices for each part
- Supports reading with screen readers like VoiceOver where users can:
- View the whole part or selected staff
- Speak note by note and bar by bar
- Speak in order of by voice (horizontally) and by timestamp (vertically)
- Navigate to a certain bar or line
- Access thousands of songs in the Sao Mai music sharing library
- And more
Check it out on the App Store or Google Play to learn more!