How Louis Braille’s musical notation system remains relevant 200 years after its invention.

Extract from ABC News

• By Ria Andriani

• ABC Classic

• Topic:Music

4 hours ago

Louis Braille's raised-dot system includes letters, numbers and musical notation. (ABC News: Margaret Burin )

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You might notice tactile braille signs on lifts, trains and other public places. 

For people who are blind or have low vision, including myself, these tactile signs are essential to finding information.

When Louis Braille devised his raised-dot system in the 1820s, he was still in his mid-teens. 

Today, these letters, numbers and musical notation still bear Braille's name.

Braille revolutionised how blind people could read and write by placing a huge amount of information under our fingertips.

I use braille music to learn my repertoire and perform complex pieces of music with choirs in Sydney. Along the way, I also worked with print scores and learned to transcribe music.

With the invention of braille, being able to read and write opened opportunities for education and employment for blind people. 

In Paris, generations of blind musicians held posts in the city's most prestigious churches.

Louis Braille was born on January 4, 1809. Since 2019, the United Nations has marked the date as World Braille Day.

How Louis Braille invented so many symbols with just six dots

Louis Braille wasn't the first person who invented a read-by-touch system.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, there were many raised alphabets developed in England and France by philanthropists and entrepreneurs.

These alphabets were large, expensive to produce and not particularly easy to read.

"[As a blind person], Louis Braille understood that you can deliver information with the least amount of dots underneath the fingertip," says Jordie Howell, a soprano and braille music transcriber.

He laid out the idea to transcribe words and music using the same combination of dots to convey different information in different contexts.

"One braille character can mean so many things," Howell explains. "It can mean a musical note and tell you how to sing that note."

"[Or it can mean] a math symbol, a letter or a whole word," Howell says.

For example, the symbol for "the" is the same as the note A in semibreve and A semiquaver.

Soprano Ria Andriani demonstrates how braille music is read horizontally, as opposed to the print score where the notes and parts are arranged vertically (Matthew Lorenzon)

It's braille's greatest strength and weakness. Having the same symbol with different meanings in different contexts can be confusing for many learners.

But once learners get their head around this concept, braille can be life-changing.

How Louis Braille enabled blind musicians to pursue careers in music

One of the most significant opportunities Louis Braille has enabled is within the music world.

Louis Braille was educated and later taught at the Institut National Des Jeunes Aveugles [National Institute for blind children] in Paris.

It's regarded as the oldest school for the blind in the world, and is still open today.

Its founder, Valentin Haüy, started the school after witnessing a group of blind children who were forced to play instruments in ridiculous costumes at a Paris fare.

Music education has been an important part of the school since its inception in the 1780s.

"Louis was a proficient cellist, organist [and pianist], so he had a great understanding of music," Howell says.

Until a few decades ago, many of the organist posts in Paris were held by blind musicians, including Louis Vierne, Jean Langlais, Gaston Litaize and André Marchal.

Vierne was a composer and organist at Notre Dame Cathedral from 1900 until 1937. He died at the cathedral's organ console during a recital.

Marchal was an influential organ teacher, recitalist and improviser. He toured internationally, even visiting Australia in 1953.

During this tour, Marchal improvised on music by Australian composers including Alfred Hill and Margaret Sutherland.

Meet the choral director who uses braille music to conduct

Conductor Julee-anne Bell uses braille music to teach singers how to sing their parts. 

He also gave an impromptu recital for 2,000 school students at the Sydney Town Hall.

Langlais, who died in 1991, was a composer as well as an organist and teacher.

Many of his compositions, such as Messe Solennelle, are regularly performed in churches, including here in Australia.

Around the world, other blind musicians are also using braille music to learn songs, compose and arrange music, conduct choirs and perform with bands and orchestras.

How braille music is different to print scores

In the classical music world where being able to read music scores is important, braille music is widely used by blind musicians to learn repertoire or parts.

However, even with music notation and digital braille technology, there is no way for braille users to get instant access to print scores.

It takes a skilled transcriber like Howell to convert print music to braille because braille music is fundamentally different to print notation.

"While a print score is arranged vertically, a braille score is set horizontally," Howell says.

Producing braille music takes time, especially for complex scores with a large number of notes and multiple parts.

To simplify the process, most blind musicians who sing in a choir or play in an orchestra opt to only get the part they have to sing or play.

"You only get a limited view of the score," Howell says.

This can disadvantage blind musicians because in professional situations, most musicians are expected to get information from the whole score.

In the 200 years since Braille devised his system, composers have also invented new ways to communicate through what they write.

"There are signs and graphical notations contemporary composers are devising that need [explanatory] notes," Howell says.

"It makes [the transcription process] challenging because there aren't specific [braille] signs to represent them."

To ensure that braille music remains fit for purpose, Howell has been involved in the International Council on English Braille.

The group comprises braille music users who aim to standardise the code worldwide.

Converting music scores with technology

Nowadays, there is software and other initiatives to speed up the conversion process from print to braille music and vice versa.

Free music notation software like MuseScore has incorporated a braille music feature into their program.

"It's still in the elementary stages of development, but their aim is to have a way of editing in braille and [enable] translation into print," Howell says.

The process uses a file type called music xml, which is a feature that can be used by most notation software.

You can then use other software or a plugin with a refreshable braille device to access the notes.

The technology has enabled some blind composers to share music with their sighted peers.

Blind pianist Jann Rutherford blazed a trail for other women in jazz

From a small town in New Zealand to playing in Sydney’s jazz clubs, Jann Rutherford was a pioneer and role model for many.

But the challenge to make sheet music accessible is broader than mastering the braille music codes and speeding up the process with technology.

There isn't a standardised way to produce print scores in the community and across music publishers.

So, transcribers and braille music users also developed a guideline to make the music engraving process more accessible.

Blind musicians, like Howell and me, hope there will be more collaboration between performers, composers, educators and music publishers to keep the music world accessible.