Access Beyond the Score: Understanding Notation Needs and Workflows of Low Vision Musicians
William Christopher Payne, Yu Lee An · 2025 · ASSETS 2025: 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3663547.3746322
Summary
This paper investigates how musicians with low vision acquire, adapt, and use music notation, an area that has received far less research attention than Braille Music for blind musicians. Through semi-structured interviews with 16 low vision musicians and 2 sighted Teachers of the Visually Impaired (TVIs) from the US, UK, Canada, and New Zealand, the authors explore the highly individualized strategies these musicians employ to access printed and digital scores. The study introduces an important distinction between large print music (simple enlargement of standard scores) and Modified Stave Notation (MSN), a more comprehensive approach that tailors notation to individual needs by adjusting note spacing, staff line thickness, font sizes, and the positioning or removal of musical elements like dynamic markings and bar numbers. Participants represented a wide range of vision abilities, ages, instruments, genres, and career stages, from amateur enthusiasts to professional orchestral musicians and educators. The researchers group notation workflows by the degree of transformation applied to original scores and the level of specialized knowledge required, finding that most low vision musicians rely on mainstream music-reading apps like forScore and MobileSheets rather than specialized MSN tools, largely because MSN creation is extremely labor-intensive and requires access to musicXML source files that are rarely available. The paper identifies extrinsic factors beyond the page itself that significantly impact notation accessibility, including instrument choice, musical genre, performance lighting, sight-reading demands, conductor visibility, and the social dynamics of disclosing vision loss in professional settings.
Key findings
No single notation solution works for all low vision musicians; accessibility depends on the interaction between vision ability, instrument, genre, and performance context. Most participants use mainstream score-reading apps (particularly forScore) on tablets rather than specialized MSN tools, adapting standard PDFs through pinch-to-zoom, contrast adjustment, and color annotation. Seven of 18 participants actively use forScore, with one describing it as a "game-changer" for its Reflow feature that reformats sheet music into a continuous scrollable line. Creating true MSN is extremely laborious — one semi-professional musician spends 10-15 hours per week organizing and proofreading transcribed scores, at an estimated cost of £600-800 per concert. Instrument choice significantly affects notation accessibility: high-pitched woodwinds like B-flat soprano clarinet present denser, more complex visual layouts, leading some musicians to switch to lower-pitched instruments. Performance lighting is a major barrier, with some musicians needing bright light while others are light-sensitive, and digital screens in dark orchestral pits causing glare issues. Several participants made major career pivots due to notation access barriers — one violinist transitioned to opera singing to avoid sharing a music stand. Participants consistently reported that genres rooted in aural traditions (jazz, folk, pop) are more accessible than notation-dependent classical music. The social pressure to conform to sighted norms discourages some musicians, particularly young learners, from requesting accommodations.
Relevance
This research fills a critical gap by centering the experiences of low vision musicians who fall between sighted print readers and Braille Music users — a population that may actually be larger than either group but has been largely overlooked in accessibility research. For accessibility practitioners, the findings demonstrate how access barriers extend far beyond the document itself into physical environments, social dynamics, and institutional practices. The study's interdependence framework — emphasizing the web of relationships between musicians, teachers, transcribers, technology, and institutions — offers a model applicable to many accessibility contexts. The prevalence of DIY workarounds using mainstream apps rather than specialized tools highlights a recurring pattern in assistive technology: users often prefer flexible general-purpose tools they can adapt over purpose-built solutions with steep learning curves. The paper's recommendations for musicXML adoption, customizable score-reading interfaces, and improved Optical Music Recognition have direct implications for developers building music technology. The emphasis on ability-based hierarchies and disclosure dynamics in professional music settings also speaks to broader workplace accessibility concerns.
Tags: low vision · music accessibility · notation · Modified Stave Notation · Braille Music · assistive technology · qualitative research · musicXML · interdependence · DIY workflows
Standards referenced: WCAG