The BrailleOrch and Open Braille Music is a set of non-profit projects founded by Hu Haipeng, a Chinese blind musician. The Open Braille Music project is dedicated to transcribe music scores into braille, mostly done by Hu Haipeng. The project provides free braille music scores and accessible music information, to benefit all blind musicians around the world.

Unlike other braille music projects, Open Braille Music mainly transcribes scores that are difficult to find in other places, mainly advanced categories like chamber and orchestral music. The project also provides some easier instrumental and vocal repertoires to fulfill different levels of requirements.

The BrailleOrch project, on the other hand, is a software plan. It will enhance the current automated braille music transcription by creating a new-concepted software, and make braille music transcription more accurate and flexible, building a bridge between mainstream music publishers and braille music transcribers. I have written a comprehensive 7-chapter framework, but since I’m not a programmer, I need help from people with related software development experiences. Now this framework becomes a reference for the development of both a professional and a user-interactive tool in DAISY Music Braille Project.

Note: The Framework provided here is copyrighted by BrailleOrch and Open Braille Music Project, and can be adapted as either open source or commercial software development, or as a reference of the existing software’s development.

How The Open Braille Music Project Works?

The Open Braille Music Project contains all braille music scores transcribed by me, Hu Haipeng. The transcription task is a complicated work. The sources of the scores are mainly from well-engraved notation files (Finale, Sibelius and Musescore) from either engravers or publishers. The files are converted into Musicxml, and processed in various braille music transcription tools such as Goodfeel, BrailleMUSE and MakeBraille, and then I edit them in a braille device or using a braille display connected to the computer. The original notation files are extremely important, they are used to retrieve information which is unable to be exported to Musicxml. So my transcriptions are very accurate and complete. My goal is to use the best source to produce best materials for all blind musicians.

Note: For copyright and permission information, please see this page.

About The Project Founder Hu Haipeng

I’m a Chinese blind musician. During my music learning in the past, I felt it was very difficult to find music scores in braille, especially when learning composition, it was impossible to find many important chamber and orchestral scores to read. Due to my motion coordination problem caused by a hypophysoma discovered only until 2022, my piano learning was full of pain. Although I gained some prizes in competitions, I was quite unhappy. However, my ideal of being a composer was also impossible because of the braille score shortage problem, which prevented me from being a composition major during my learning period. I felt my youth was completely buried, and I thought I must do something to prevent my tragedy performed upon other blind musicians like me. This is the main reason why I launched this project in 2017-2018. These five years, I have transcribed about 30,000 print pages of music into braille using my ability, and this is several times faster than a sighted transcriber. I’m now working with engravers, living composers and music publishers to have more wonderful scores transcribed. I also have the plan of software, which will largely enhance the production of braille music. Now I’m taking part in various activities about braille music transcription technology, being a technique consultant of the DAISY Music Braille Project, discussing my proposal with other experts around the world. I hope one day blind musicians can get music scores as convenient as sighted people.

Among my small amount of compositions, there are two best pieces: Jasmine FLower, an arrangement of two Chinese folksongs into one piece in 2011, and Dance Of Heart, an overture for symphony orchestra in 2013. I use Lilypond to write music, and Sonar to sequence them into realistic audio samples. Now I use Sibelius and Musescore, because they are also accessible. Currently, I dedicate myself completely to the braille music transcription and the software project, producing as many scores as I can, to pave a way for my followers.

Here’s also an English report from China Daily about me and this project.