Hello all the KVR Audio readers,
On Wednesday, March 5th, 2024), we had MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen, (WG Chair), Athan Billias (the MASSIG WG Scribe), Vanessa Faschi (Backup Chair) from Audio Modeling), Roli from Yamaha Welfare Center, Peter Jonas from Musescore Limited, Paul Bacon and also Jay Pocknell, a Music Support Officer of the Media, Culture and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB present at the meeting. We discussed about the importance of user roles, our resource's status (the Google Sheets document where they're in) and other important key aspects of the standard. The resources Google Sheets document has got some important accessibility-related content, such as websites of plugins and screen readers. Stay tuned for more information!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
Music Accessibility Standard (MAS)
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Hello all KVR readers,
Yesterday (Wednesday, March 20th, 2024) we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen, the MASSIG Chair, Vanessa Faschi (MASSIG Backup Chair from Audio Modeling), Michael Strickland from Florida State University, Samuel Prouse, a PHD (Doctor of Philosophy) from the University of Sportsmouth United Kingdom (UK), Brian, Paul Janoski, a consultant/software developer and a musician and Jay Pocknell, a Music Support Officer of the Media, Culture and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB and the founder of Sound Without Sight, present on the meeting. First off, we introduced the way of working in the MASSIG for our new members (Samuel, Paul and Brian) who had their first meeting. Also, we talked more about user stories and especially the importance of the focus order (ie. the order in which the User Interface (UI) elements are focused when a computer keyboard (with or without a screen reader) is used for moving between the User Interface elements), such as between the items of a track panel (ie between different tracks). I am looking forward to hearing more updates from our proggress in our next meeting held in Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
Yesterday (Wednesday, March 20th, 2024) we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen, the MASSIG Chair, Vanessa Faschi (MASSIG Backup Chair from Audio Modeling), Michael Strickland from Florida State University, Samuel Prouse, a PHD (Doctor of Philosophy) from the University of Sportsmouth United Kingdom (UK), Brian, Paul Janoski, a consultant/software developer and a musician and Jay Pocknell, a Music Support Officer of the Media, Culture and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB and the founder of Sound Without Sight, present on the meeting. First off, we introduced the way of working in the MASSIG for our new members (Samuel, Paul and Brian) who had their first meeting. Also, we talked more about user stories and especially the importance of the focus order (ie. the order in which the User Interface (UI) elements are focused when a computer keyboard (with or without a screen reader) is used for moving between the User Interface elements), such as between the items of a track panel (ie between different tracks). I am looking forward to hearing more updates from our proggress in our next meeting held in Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Hello all KVR Forum Topic Readers,
on Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024, we had a Music Accessibility Standerd Special Interest Group (MASSIG) meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair), Vanessa Faschi (the WG Backup Chair) from Audio Modeling, Athan Billias, the President of The MIDI Association, Mike Kent from AmeNote, Inc and Brian from Riban ltd present on the meeting. At this time, we discussed the May is MIDI Month Webinar plans for the Music Accessibility Standard. We also started creating a document where people can put their presentation ideas for the Music Accessibility Standard Webinar. Finally, there also was little discussion regarding the user stories we have been creating in past few weeks. All in all, it was very nice to meet passionate and motivated people on the meeting and I am looking forward to meeting my MASSIG peers in two weeks! Stay tuned for more information!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
on Wednesday, April 3rd, 2024, we had a Music Accessibility Standerd Special Interest Group (MASSIG) meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair), Vanessa Faschi (the WG Backup Chair) from Audio Modeling, Athan Billias, the President of The MIDI Association, Mike Kent from AmeNote, Inc and Brian from Riban ltd present on the meeting. At this time, we discussed the May is MIDI Month Webinar plans for the Music Accessibility Standard. We also started creating a document where people can put their presentation ideas for the Music Accessibility Standard Webinar. Finally, there also was little discussion regarding the user stories we have been creating in past few weeks. All in all, it was very nice to meet passionate and motivated people on the meeting and I am looking forward to meeting my MASSIG peers in two weeks! Stay tuned for more information!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Hello All KVR Audio Forum Thread Readers,
On Wednesday, April 17th, 2024, we had a Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group (MASSIG) meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair), Vanessa Faschi (WG Backup Chair), Athan Billias (The President of The MIDI Association and Scribe), Michael Stricklan, Mike Kent from AmeNote, Samuel Sprouse (a pHD from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom), Brian Walton from Riban ltd, Dice Naito from FSK Audio and Jay Pocknell, a Music Support Officer of the Media, Culture and Immersive Technologies Team of the RNIB present there. We continued deepening to the topic of the user stories from different points of view. Furthermore, we also discussed the plans for a Music Accessibility Standard Webinar which is scheduled to be held on Saturday, May 25th, 2024 at 10 AM Pacific Time (note: 1 PM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), 18.00 UTC 8 PM UK time) and 8 PM Finnish Time (Eastern Europe Summer Time, EEST). We also discussed how we could gather user stories using technologies for capturing audio, video and in written (textual) form. Now, we encourage the whole KVR Audio community to send the user stories in those formats (ie either as an audiofile like an .mp3 or an .ogg file or as a text file such as .txt or .docx) to info@midi.org. I am looking forward to meeting the MASSIG people on May 29!
Kind Regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
On Wednesday, April 17th, 2024, we had a Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group (MASSIG) meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair), Vanessa Faschi (WG Backup Chair), Athan Billias (The President of The MIDI Association and Scribe), Michael Stricklan, Mike Kent from AmeNote, Samuel Sprouse (a pHD from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom), Brian Walton from Riban ltd, Dice Naito from FSK Audio and Jay Pocknell, a Music Support Officer of the Media, Culture and Immersive Technologies Team of the RNIB present there. We continued deepening to the topic of the user stories from different points of view. Furthermore, we also discussed the plans for a Music Accessibility Standard Webinar which is scheduled to be held on Saturday, May 25th, 2024 at 10 AM Pacific Time (note: 1 PM Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), 18.00 UTC 8 PM UK time) and 8 PM Finnish Time (Eastern Europe Summer Time, EEST). We also discussed how we could gather user stories using technologies for capturing audio, video and in written (textual) form. Now, we encourage the whole KVR Audio community to send the user stories in those formats (ie either as an audiofile like an .mp3 or an .ogg file or as a text file such as .txt or .docx) to info@midi.org. I am looking forward to meeting the MASSIG people on May 29!
Kind Regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Hello all KVR Audio Members,
On Wednesday (May 1st, 2024) we had a massig meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board), Samuel Prouse, a
pHD from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom, Brian Walton from Riban Ltd, Mike Kent from Amenote and Jay Pocknell, a Music Support Officer of the Media, Culture and Immersive Technologies Team of the RNIB present there. First off, we discussed how to collect user stories from interested people (audio software and hardware users and developers). The purpose of these user stories is to provide clarification on the wants and needs of users in a variety of contexts where a standardized mechanism for Accessibility is used.
User Roles
These are functional roles assumed by a person or entity using MIDI data. The following roles are not clearly defined yet, but can help us begin collecting user stories based on an intuitive understanding of the terms. User roles are not distinct people. A single person can occupy multiple roles in the same User Story. Nor are these personas; a fictional character created to represent a user type. A wide variety of personas may match a role. For example a child learning Accessibility, and a university student studying orchestration are both students (ST) for our purposes here. Visual (e.g., color blindness) Motor/mobility (e.g., wheelchair-user concerns)
Auditory (hearing difficulties) Seizures (especially photosensitive epilepsy) Learning/cognitive (e.g., dyslexia)
There are also roles for different companies. For example, a use case could be something like " I am a developer of plugins who uses Juce and I know that Juce has accessibility features, but I want to know how best to use those features to achieve the best accessibility possible. The answer for that user story could be as simple as this.
Please watch this video from the Accessibility Workshop at ADC 2024.
Two of us (Samuel and I) tested the SpeakPipe page with the MIDI Association-related text on it, encouraging users to post their user stories through SpeakPipe. The test results showed that the user site with one button ("Start/Stop Recording") and the text was fully
accessible with both NVDA screen reader (tested on the latest consumer versions of Firefox and Chrome with NVDA version 2023.3.3) and JAWS (tested on the
latest consumer versions of Firefox and Chrome with JAWS 2024.2403.3) on a Windows 11 Professional 64 bit version. Samuel tested the page on Mac OS with VoiceOver and it worked fine for him. Here is a link to leave your user stories as an audio file (https://www.speakpipe.com/MusicAccessibilityUserStories).
If you want to submit your accessibility user story another way, just send an email (which can include attachments for example Word Doc or PDF) to info@midi.org. Also, we discussed about the accessibility issues around the JUCE audio application and plugin development framework and Surge XT which is a free and open source synthesizer build (or made) with the JUCE development framework (nb: a framework is a set of tools to develop audio plugins and software like a toolbox with a hammer, nails and a screwer).
I am looking forward to meeting the MASSIG group on May 15th which our last meeting before the MASSIG webinar on Saturday, May 25th at 10 AM Pacific Time (8 pm Finnish Time (EET))!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
On Wednesday (May 1st, 2024) we had a massig meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board), Samuel Prouse, a
pHD from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom, Brian Walton from Riban Ltd, Mike Kent from Amenote and Jay Pocknell, a Music Support Officer of the Media, Culture and Immersive Technologies Team of the RNIB present there. First off, we discussed how to collect user stories from interested people (audio software and hardware users and developers). The purpose of these user stories is to provide clarification on the wants and needs of users in a variety of contexts where a standardized mechanism for Accessibility is used.
User Roles
These are functional roles assumed by a person or entity using MIDI data. The following roles are not clearly defined yet, but can help us begin collecting user stories based on an intuitive understanding of the terms. User roles are not distinct people. A single person can occupy multiple roles in the same User Story. Nor are these personas; a fictional character created to represent a user type. A wide variety of personas may match a role. For example a child learning Accessibility, and a university student studying orchestration are both students (ST) for our purposes here. Visual (e.g., color blindness) Motor/mobility (e.g., wheelchair-user concerns)
Auditory (hearing difficulties) Seizures (especially photosensitive epilepsy) Learning/cognitive (e.g., dyslexia)
There are also roles for different companies. For example, a use case could be something like " I am a developer of plugins who uses Juce and I know that Juce has accessibility features, but I want to know how best to use those features to achieve the best accessibility possible. The answer for that user story could be as simple as this.
Please watch this video from the Accessibility Workshop at ADC 2024.
Two of us (Samuel and I) tested the SpeakPipe page with the MIDI Association-related text on it, encouraging users to post their user stories through SpeakPipe. The test results showed that the user site with one button ("Start/Stop Recording") and the text was fully
accessible with both NVDA screen reader (tested on the latest consumer versions of Firefox and Chrome with NVDA version 2023.3.3) and JAWS (tested on the
latest consumer versions of Firefox and Chrome with JAWS 2024.2403.3) on a Windows 11 Professional 64 bit version. Samuel tested the page on Mac OS with VoiceOver and it worked fine for him. Here is a link to leave your user stories as an audio file (https://www.speakpipe.com/MusicAccessibilityUserStories).
If you want to submit your accessibility user story another way, just send an email (which can include attachments for example Word Doc or PDF) to info@midi.org. Also, we discussed about the accessibility issues around the JUCE audio application and plugin development framework and Surge XT which is a free and open source synthesizer build (or made) with the JUCE development framework (nb: a framework is a set of tools to develop audio plugins and software like a toolbox with a hammer, nails and a screwer).
I am looking forward to meeting the MASSIG group on May 15th which our last meeting before the MASSIG webinar on Saturday, May 25th at 10 AM Pacific Time (8 pm Finnish Time (EET))!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Hello all KVR Audio Readers,
On Wednesday, May 29th, 2024, we had a meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair), Vanessa Faschi (WG backup Chair), Athan Billias (Scribe and The MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Samuel Prouse from the University of portsmouth, United Kingdom, Michael Strickland, Mike Kent from Amenote, Brian Waldon from Riban Ltd and Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments present on the meeting. We discussed our progress in creating the user stories as well as the role of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the MASSIG and the accessible way of creating music where we would be able to use AI as an advanced screen reader. In another words, in the context of the music creation, this would mean that we would, eg, in the far future have an AI which would ask us how we would create a song, and then it would create a song from textual or other input such as the speech. I am looking forward to meeting the MASSIG members again, and am thankful for the great discussion ve had got!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
On Wednesday, May 29th, 2024, we had a meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair), Vanessa Faschi (WG backup Chair), Athan Billias (Scribe and The MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Samuel Prouse from the University of portsmouth, United Kingdom, Michael Strickland, Mike Kent from Amenote, Brian Waldon from Riban Ltd and Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments present on the meeting. We discussed our progress in creating the user stories as well as the role of AI (Artificial Intelligence) in the MASSIG and the accessible way of creating music where we would be able to use AI as an advanced screen reader. In another words, in the context of the music creation, this would mean that we would, eg, in the far future have an AI which would ask us how we would create a song, and then it would create a song from textual or other input such as the speech. I am looking forward to meeting the MASSIG members again, and am thankful for the great discussion ve had got!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Dear KVR Audio Forum Thread Readers,
Today (Wednesday 26th, 2024), we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen (Working Group Chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Samuel Prouse (a pHD student from the University of Sportsmouth, United Kingdom, Michael Strickland, Brian Waldon from Riban Ltd, Mike Kent from Amenote, Thomas Reuben from JUCE and Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments present on the meeting. We continued our discussion with artificial intelligence (Chat GPT) and how we could develop interesting demos and materials using it, and agreed some plans going forward. I am interested in seeing the results of this work ansd sharing them when they are ready with the KVR folks in this message thread. I am looking forward to seeing my MASSIG peers in two weeks!
PS: On our last meeting on Wednesday, June 12th, 2024, we had two new members - Jason Barnes and Matt Bankston from Cybernetic - on the meeting, and we started the AI discussion by discussing the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to use a camera so that it could see what's pn the screen and interpret (or translate) that into text-to-speech and combining this technology with the voice recocnition. In another words, the June 12th meeting dealth with the combination of the AI/camera and the voice recognition to be applied to the worl od Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) in addition to Samuel and Haim demonstrating some demos for the future ideas on the voice/text recognition in the digital audio workstations.
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
Today (Wednesday 26th, 2024), we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen (Working Group Chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Samuel Prouse (a pHD student from the University of Sportsmouth, United Kingdom, Michael Strickland, Brian Waldon from Riban Ltd, Mike Kent from Amenote, Thomas Reuben from JUCE and Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments present on the meeting. We continued our discussion with artificial intelligence (Chat GPT) and how we could develop interesting demos and materials using it, and agreed some plans going forward. I am interested in seeing the results of this work ansd sharing them when they are ready with the KVR folks in this message thread. I am looking forward to seeing my MASSIG peers in two weeks!
PS: On our last meeting on Wednesday, June 12th, 2024, we had two new members - Jason Barnes and Matt Bankston from Cybernetic - on the meeting, and we started the AI discussion by discussing the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to use a camera so that it could see what's pn the screen and interpret (or translate) that into text-to-speech and combining this technology with the voice recocnition. In another words, the June 12th meeting dealth with the combination of the AI/camera and the voice recognition to be applied to the worl od Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) in addition to Samuel and Haim demonstrating some demos for the future ideas on the voice/text recognition in the digital audio workstations.
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Dear KVR Audio Members,
On Wednesday, July 10th, 2024, we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomaien (WG chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Vanessa
Faschi (Backup Chair and Scribe) from Audio Modeling, Daisuke "Dice" Naito from FSK Audio, Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments, Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Tam of RNIB, Michael Strickland, Mike Kent from AmeNote and Samuel Prouse, a pHD Student from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom present in the meeting. We discussed the concrete plans on going on with the testing of Chat GPT AI, with a decision to form a Chat GPT Teams Team focusing especially on that topic. We also talked about the GitHub private repository of sending code and examples there. Furthermore, we also continued discussion on our accessibility resources (a document containing YouTube videos, links and names of the accessibility people). We also decided on writing at least one article a month for the midi.org website (the website of the MIDI, hosted by The Midi Association). We also briefly discussed about our plans on creating content for our future events coming in 2024 and 2025, and I will share more information here when it becomes available.
The other positive news is that several members of the MIDI Accessibility Special Interest Group had accessible focused products that were selected as finalists in the MIDI Innovation Awards. I am looking forward to meeting the MASSIG peers again in two weeks!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
On Wednesday, July 10th, 2024, we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomaien (WG chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Vanessa
Faschi (Backup Chair and Scribe) from Audio Modeling, Daisuke "Dice" Naito from FSK Audio, Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments, Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Tam of RNIB, Michael Strickland, Mike Kent from AmeNote and Samuel Prouse, a pHD Student from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom present in the meeting. We discussed the concrete plans on going on with the testing of Chat GPT AI, with a decision to form a Chat GPT Teams Team focusing especially on that topic. We also talked about the GitHub private repository of sending code and examples there. Furthermore, we also continued discussion on our accessibility resources (a document containing YouTube videos, links and names of the accessibility people). We also decided on writing at least one article a month for the midi.org website (the website of the MIDI, hosted by The Midi Association). We also briefly discussed about our plans on creating content for our future events coming in 2024 and 2025, and I will share more information here when it becomes available.
The other positive news is that several members of the MIDI Accessibility Special Interest Group had accessible focused products that were selected as finalists in the MIDI Innovation Awards. I am looking forward to meeting the MASSIG peers again in two weeks!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Dear KVR Audio Forum Topic Readers,
On Wednesday, July 24thth, 2024, we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomaien (WG chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Vanessa Faschi (Backup Chair and Scribe) from Audio Modeling, Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments, Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB, Michael Strickland, Brian Waldon from Riban Ltd and Samuel Prouse, a pHD Student from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom present in the meeting. We talked about the future events (like the Music China and the Audio Developers Conference (ADC) in October 2024) and a plan of developing a Music Accessibility Standard Manifesto where core principles of accessibility would be publicly available for music software and hardware developers and any interested people. We also talked more on our goal of making an article on the IDI.org website, and ideas and a schedule for the article writing, also accepting the first writer of some of the articles. We also discussed creating some promotional materials for the Music Accessibility Standard (MAS) that would be used in events like those listed above (ie in the ADC). I am looking forward to the meeting with my MASSIG peers in two weeks!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
On Wednesday, July 24thth, 2024, we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomaien (WG chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Vanessa Faschi (Backup Chair and Scribe) from Audio Modeling, Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments, Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB, Michael Strickland, Brian Waldon from Riban Ltd and Samuel Prouse, a pHD Student from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom present in the meeting. We talked about the future events (like the Music China and the Audio Developers Conference (ADC) in October 2024) and a plan of developing a Music Accessibility Standard Manifesto where core principles of accessibility would be publicly available for music software and hardware developers and any interested people. We also talked more on our goal of making an article on the IDI.org website, and ideas and a schedule for the article writing, also accepting the first writer of some of the articles. We also discussed creating some promotional materials for the Music Accessibility Standard (MAS) that would be used in events like those listed above (ie in the ADC). I am looking forward to the meeting with my MASSIG peers in two weeks!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Hello KVR Audio Readers,
On Wednesday, August 7th, 2024, we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Vanessa Faschi (Backup Chair and Scribe) from Audio Modeling, Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments, Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB, Michael Strickland, Brian Walton from Riban Ltd and Samuel Prouse, a pHD Student from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom present in the meeting. We continued the discussion for plans of creating assets/material to Music China and NAMM. In addition, Haim Khairy shared his experiences with Arcana Strum development (which is one of the MIDI Innovation Awards finalists). We also talked the work that the MIDI in Music Education Special Interest Group had done with the MIDI 1.0 and MIDI 2.0 Curriculum. We lso briefly talked about Accessible Music Tech (an accessibility-and-technology-related music event) and the Audio Developer's Conference (ADC). We had a very good meeting today and I am looking forward to meeting my MASSIG peer in two weeeks!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
On Wednesday, August 7th, 2024, we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Vanessa Faschi (Backup Chair and Scribe) from Audio Modeling, Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments, Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB, Michael Strickland, Brian Walton from Riban Ltd and Samuel Prouse, a pHD Student from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom present in the meeting. We continued the discussion for plans of creating assets/material to Music China and NAMM. In addition, Haim Khairy shared his experiences with Arcana Strum development (which is one of the MIDI Innovation Awards finalists). We also talked the work that the MIDI in Music Education Special Interest Group had done with the MIDI 1.0 and MIDI 2.0 Curriculum. We lso briefly talked about Accessible Music Tech (an accessibility-and-technology-related music event) and the Audio Developer's Conference (ADC). We had a very good meeting today and I am looking forward to meeting my MASSIG peer in two weeeks!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Hello KVR Audio Forum Topic Readers,
On Wednesday, August 21st, 2024, we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Vanessa Faschi (Backup Chair and Scribe) and Emanuele "Lele" Paravicini from Audio Modeling, Mike Kent (MIDI 2.0 Working Group Chair) from Amenote Inc, Daisuke "Dice" Naito from FSK Audio, Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments, Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB, Michael Strickland, Brian Walton from Riban Ltd and Samuel Prouse, a pHD Student from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom present in the meeting. We talked about the presentation of the Music Accessibility Standard at the Music China and writing articles to . In addition to this, I also shared my progress on an article which I am working on but which is not only related to the MASSIG, but audio. Finally, we decided to write short articles introducing the people in the MASSIG for the midi.org website so that every member of the MASSIG could present themselves and explain whay they are passionate about music accessibility. This meeting was one of our most powerful and effective from all of our meetings, and it was a pleasure to be a part of it!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
On Wednesday, August 21st, 2024, we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Vanessa Faschi (Backup Chair and Scribe) and Emanuele "Lele" Paravicini from Audio Modeling, Mike Kent (MIDI 2.0 Working Group Chair) from Amenote Inc, Daisuke "Dice" Naito from FSK Audio, Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments, Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB, Michael Strickland, Brian Walton from Riban Ltd and Samuel Prouse, a pHD Student from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom present in the meeting. We talked about the presentation of the Music Accessibility Standard at the Music China and writing articles to . In addition to this, I also shared my progress on an article which I am working on but which is not only related to the MASSIG, but audio. Finally, we decided to write short articles introducing the people in the MASSIG for the midi.org website so that every member of the MASSIG could present themselves and explain whay they are passionate about music accessibility. This meeting was one of our most powerful and effective from all of our meetings, and it was a pleasure to be a part of it!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Hello all KVR Audio Forum Topic Readers,
On Wednesday, September 4th, 2024, we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair and Master Student of Computer Science from the University of Eastern Finland), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Vanessa Faschi (Backup Chair and Scribe) from Audio Modeling, Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments, Samuel Prouse, a PHD Student from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom, Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB and Akiva Shapiro from Chord Board LLC present in the meeting. Akiva presented himself and has been doing some music software development through his Company (Chord Board LLC). He also presented his public beta of Chord Board, a software allowing a user to play many chords with one or more fingers in sequence. In addition to these topics, we also talked about the progress of our presentation in the Music China 2024 and the NAMM show in 2025 and the other projects we're working on. Furthermore, Haim talked about the new public beta of Apple iOS and iPadOS feature that includes the eye tracking with no need to use a pointing device like a mouth pointing device and suggested that this feature would be used in the future in music software using MIDI Protocol. Finally, we also briefly talked about the differences between MIDI 1.0 and MIDI 2.0. It is also worth mentioning that Sam Prouse, one of the MASSIG members, has a YouTube channel Alien Instruments where he shares experiences on how the blind and visually impaired screen reader users can use music software. This knowledge can, however, be applied to all screen reader users. Please watch the following videos to get more information about this topic:
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
On Wednesday, September 4th, 2024, we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair and Master Student of Computer Science from the University of Eastern Finland), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Vanessa Faschi (Backup Chair and Scribe) from Audio Modeling, Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments, Samuel Prouse, a PHD Student from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom, Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB and Akiva Shapiro from Chord Board LLC present in the meeting. Akiva presented himself and has been doing some music software development through his Company (Chord Board LLC). He also presented his public beta of Chord Board, a software allowing a user to play many chords with one or more fingers in sequence. In addition to these topics, we also talked about the progress of our presentation in the Music China 2024 and the NAMM show in 2025 and the other projects we're working on. Furthermore, Haim talked about the new public beta of Apple iOS and iPadOS feature that includes the eye tracking with no need to use a pointing device like a mouth pointing device and suggested that this feature would be used in the future in music software using MIDI Protocol. Finally, we also briefly talked about the differences between MIDI 1.0 and MIDI 2.0. It is also worth mentioning that Sam Prouse, one of the MASSIG members, has a YouTube channel Alien Instruments where he shares experiences on how the blind and visually impaired screen reader users can use music software. This knowledge can, however, be applied to all screen reader users. Please watch the following videos to get more information about this topic:
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Hello all KVR Audio Forum Topic Readers,
Yesterday (Wednesday, October 2nd, 2024), we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair and Master Student of Computer Science from the University of Eastern Finland), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Brian Waldon from Riban Ltd, Samuel Prouse, a PHD Student from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom and Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB present there. We discussed our plans in Music China, and ADC. In the former, we will have a presentation of Music Accessibility translated into Chinese for the attendees at Music China. In ADC (Audio Developer's Conference 2024), there will be our group members Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments, and Emmanuele Paravicini and Vanessa Faschi from Audio Modeling promoting their products with the accessibility-related features in them. In addition to this topic, Samuel Prouse also told the progress of colour-blindness filters (ie. ways for people with difficulties in separating or recognising different colours) in his accessibility-related project. He also explained how his PHD work will be connected to the MASSIG work. We also briefly discussed a possibility to discuss the funding in 2025. Furthermore, we also agreed that we would not meet on Wednesday, October 16th (because ADC is approaching!) so our next meeting will be on October 30th, 2024. Util then, have relaxing days - but best of all: the MASIG will return to regular meetings at the end of this month (October)!"
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
Yesterday (Wednesday, October 2nd, 2024), we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair and Master Student of Computer Science from the University of Eastern Finland), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Brian Waldon from Riban Ltd, Samuel Prouse, a PHD Student from the University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom and Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB present there. We discussed our plans in Music China, and ADC. In the former, we will have a presentation of Music Accessibility translated into Chinese for the attendees at Music China. In ADC (Audio Developer's Conference 2024), there will be our group members Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments, and Emmanuele Paravicini and Vanessa Faschi from Audio Modeling promoting their products with the accessibility-related features in them. In addition to this topic, Samuel Prouse also told the progress of colour-blindness filters (ie. ways for people with difficulties in separating or recognising different colours) in his accessibility-related project. He also explained how his PHD work will be connected to the MASSIG work. We also briefly discussed a possibility to discuss the funding in 2025. Furthermore, we also agreed that we would not meet on Wednesday, October 16th (because ADC is approaching!) so our next meeting will be on October 30th, 2024. Util then, have relaxing days - but best of all: the MASIG will return to regular meetings at the end of this month (October)!"
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
-
- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Hello all KVR Audio Forum Topic Readers,
On Wednesday, October 30th, 2024 we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair and Master Student of Computer Science from the University of Eastern Finland), Vanessa Faschi (WG Backup Chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Brian Waldon from Riban Ltd, Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments and Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB present there. We talked about the successful presentations at Music China 2024. An interesting fact was that there were a lot of Chinese speakers this time in the presentation interested in hearing information about the Music Accessibility Standard (MAS). There were about 75 people in the audience of the MAS presentation. In addition to the MAS presentation, we also had a MIDI Innovation Awards presentation, featuring MASSIG products UniMIDI Hub from Audio Modeling and Arcana Strum from Arcana Instruments there. We also briefly discussed the Sound Without Sight's MuseScore Workshop (an online event in October 17th, 2024 featuring a blind screen reader user of MuseScore demonstrating his skills to use the free and open source music notation software on a monthly meet-up session of Sound Without Sight). Furthermore, we also discussed the plans for ADC (Audio Developers Conference), coming in two weeks in Bristol, UK (from November 11th to 13th, 2024). You can read more about it by going to https://audio.dev/conference/.
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
On Wednesday, October 30th, 2024 we had a MASSIG meeting with Juho Tuomainen (WG Chair and Master Student of Computer Science from the University of Eastern Finland), Vanessa Faschi (WG Backup Chair), Athan Billias (MIDI Association Executive Board Member), Brian Waldon from Riban Ltd, Haim Kairy from Arcana Instruments and Jay Pocknell, the Music Support Officer from the Culture, Media and Immersive Technologies Team of RNIB present there. We talked about the successful presentations at Music China 2024. An interesting fact was that there were a lot of Chinese speakers this time in the presentation interested in hearing information about the Music Accessibility Standard (MAS). There were about 75 people in the audience of the MAS presentation. In addition to the MAS presentation, we also had a MIDI Innovation Awards presentation, featuring MASSIG products UniMIDI Hub from Audio Modeling and Arcana Strum from Arcana Instruments there. We also briefly discussed the Sound Without Sight's MuseScore Workshop (an online event in October 17th, 2024 featuring a blind screen reader user of MuseScore demonstrating his skills to use the free and open source music notation software on a monthly meet-up session of Sound Without Sight). Furthermore, we also discussed the plans for ADC (Audio Developers Conference), coming in two weeks in Bristol, UK (from November 11th to 13th, 2024). You can read more about it by going to https://audio.dev/conference/.
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
Last edited by BlindMusician on Fri Nov 15, 2024 6:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRist
- Topic Starter
- 97 posts since 30 Dec, 2014
Hello all KVR Audio Readers,
The following is a copy of the description of the Accessibility Workshop hosted in this year's Audio Developer's Conference (ADC) in Bristol UK/online from November 11th to 13th, 2024 where some of our members (listed below) will be present. The text below also includes the outline (ie. the programme) of the workshop.
WORKSHOP: INCLUSIVE DESIGN WITHIN AUDIO PRODUCTS
What, Why, How?
14:00 - 17:00 UTC | Monday 11th November 2024 | Empire
BEGINNER
INTERMEDIATE
ADVANCED
Following the success of last year’s ‘’, we are delighted to be presenting a follow up this year. The session will promote the work happening across the audio industry to support accessibility and inclusive design. We will focus on providing practical design principles for attendees to take away, backed up by engaging lived experience insights and demonstrations.In particular, we will showcase the practices of two companies who have been making big waves within accessible music in the last year: Ableton and Arcana Instruments. Jay Pocknell and Tim Yates will be exploring how these companies involved the disabled musician community throughout the design of their products, as well as sharing accessibility top tips for attendees to take away, along with insights from musicians Elizabeth J. Birch and Andre Louis.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
As the audio industry seeks to improve diversity within its workforce, and the music industry seeks to widen the diversity of artists creating music, it is essential that inclusion becomes woven into the design of the tools available.But what do terms such as accessibility and inclusive design actually mean? How might developers begin to adopt inclusive design practices so that their software becomes accessible to a wider audience? What are some of the big-name audio companies doing to support accessibility and how can you learn from their experience?These are the kind of questions that this workshop seeks to answer.
PANELLISTS
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair
The following is a copy of the description of the Accessibility Workshop hosted in this year's Audio Developer's Conference (ADC) in Bristol UK/online from November 11th to 13th, 2024 where some of our members (listed below) will be present. The text below also includes the outline (ie. the programme) of the workshop.
WORKSHOP: INCLUSIVE DESIGN WITHIN AUDIO PRODUCTS
What, Why, How?
14:00 - 17:00 UTC | Monday 11th November 2024 | Empire
BEGINNER
INTERMEDIATE
ADVANCED
Following the success of last year’s ‘’, we are delighted to be presenting a follow up this year. The session will promote the work happening across the audio industry to support accessibility and inclusive design. We will focus on providing practical design principles for attendees to take away, backed up by engaging lived experience insights and demonstrations.In particular, we will showcase the practices of two companies who have been making big waves within accessible music in the last year: Ableton and Arcana Instruments. Jay Pocknell and Tim Yates will be exploring how these companies involved the disabled musician community throughout the design of their products, as well as sharing accessibility top tips for attendees to take away, along with insights from musicians Elizabeth J. Birch and Andre Louis.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
As the audio industry seeks to improve diversity within its workforce, and the music industry seeks to widen the diversity of artists creating music, it is essential that inclusion becomes woven into the design of the tools available.But what do terms such as accessibility and inclusive design actually mean? How might developers begin to adopt inclusive design practices so that their software becomes accessible to a wider audience? What are some of the big-name audio companies doing to support accessibility and how can you learn from their experience?These are the kind of questions that this workshop seeks to answer.
PANELLISTS
- Chair - Jay Pocknell (RNIB / Sound Without Sight)
- Tim Yates (Drake Music)
- Elizabeth J. Birch (Musician / Accessibility Consultant)
- (Musician / Accessibility Consultant)
- Adi Dickens (Ableton)
- Haim Kairy (Arcana)
- Introductions from all panellists. 10 mins.
- Overview of the social model of disability. 10 mins.
- Why design inclusively? The importance of accessibility in mainstream audio technology. 10 mins.
- Inclusive design principles and best practice guidelines for music-making and audio products, including examples from products already on the market. 40 mins.
[Break. 10 mins.] - Case study – Developing with the community: what Ableton have learnt since investing in accessibility and connecting with their user community during the development of Live 12, Note, and Move. Andre Louis will also demonstrate the accessibility features of Ableton Move. 30 mins.
- Case study – From the ground up: how Arcana built a company around inclusive design and developed their first instrument, the Arcana Strum, for all. 30 mins.
- Panel Q&A. All panellists. 30 mins.
- Call to action. How to learn more, further resources to explore. 5 mins.
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen, WG Chair