A music accessibility app for iOS
Technology can enable some people to reach their goals, and in particular people with low vision. We worked with a gifted trumpet player who cannot read traditional musical scores while playing, due to a macular degeneration. His old approach was to photograph the music with his phone and then enlarge the music to be able to see a few notes at a time. This scheme would not him to read and perform the music unless he memorized all or most of the score. Using ZoomMusic on his iPhone, he can read and play scores without memorization. He can even "sight read" music now, using ZoomMusic.
Please check the App Store for the ZoomMusic application. Available on iPhone and iPad.
ZOOMMUSIC
ZoomMusic opens to the user's song list. Select a song to perform the music. Click the add button to create a new song. Slide a song title to the left to access the delete button.
Privacy Policy: ZoomMusic does not share any information, about the user or what they do. Also, ZoomMusic cannot transfer music or anything to other iOS devices.
NEW SONGS
Enter the name of the song and press return. Select Add Page to include images from the Photos app as pages of the song. The number of pages will be automatically adjusted. Press Save to store the song, or hit the back button to cancel.
Note that entering a name that matches an existing song will overwrite the existing song. Also, images should be adjusted for brightness, contrast, etc. before including them in a song.
PLAY THE MUSIC
ZoomMusic presents images as they are marked up by the user. ZoomMusic program does not "read" music. A new song must first be edited (see below) to define the lines of the music and the sequence to display. The user sets the start and end point of each line on the score in the order that they want displayed. Repeats and alternate endings need to be specified by the user.
The user controls the flow of the music, either by manually swiping on the display or by using a MIDI expression controller.
Manual swiping to scroll through the music can be right to left, or bottom to top. When holding the phone in one hand and playing with the other hand, scrolling from bottom to top has been found to be effective.
Note: MIDI expression pedals can be connected to the iPhone or iPad used to control the speed of scrolling.
To quickly reposition the music on the play mode, double-tap with two fingers. The "page and line number" display in the lower left corner will change to white text on red. Use manual scrolling to move to move forward or backwards in the song. Double-tap with two fingers to return to the normal mode.
EDITING
Mark the lines of music for the app to display on the play screen. The interface is designed for users who need to enlarge the music for visibility.
Position the starting point for each line, in the order or performance, under the crosshairs, and press Mark. Reposition the music at the end of the line and press Mark again. The new line will be shown by a magenta line with the line number. Add additional lines in the order needed to perform the piece. After starting the first line on a page, just tap the screen and ZoomMusic will try to reposition the display for the music.
Note: Mark the lines in the order that is desired to play the music. Repeats must be marked with multiple lines, to follow the score.
The Clear button deletes the last line.
The Edit button changes the operating mode to allow individual lines to be adjusted or deleted, and it allows new lines to be inserted before existing lines.
To adjust the end of an existing line, press the Move button with the line endpoint under the crosshairs. Pan the music to the place on the score where the endpoint should be and press Accept.
To delete an existing line, press the Delete button with the line endpoint under the crosshairs.
To insert a new line, press the Insert button with the line endpoint under the crosshairs. The new line will be inserted before the line selected. The first two buttons will change to Mark and Clear. Press Mark with the start of the new line under the crosshairs, pan to the end of the new line and press Mark again. Press Clear to cancel inserting a line.
Note: After marking the lines, hit Save. Pressing Clear deletes the last line. Hit Play to go back and perform the song.