Music Accessibility Standard (MAS)

[ScottChesworth]

Thanks for the update Athan, great to hear that regular comms are happening. I do a lot of training here, am constantly rustling up resources for the REAPER accessibility community and I contribute to a few open source efforts. Will definitely be keen to join the interest group.

[The MIDI Association]

Hi,

Just got back from a trip to Japan where Apple, Google and Microsoft met with other MIDI Association companies and AMEI members (Yamaha, Roland, Korg and Kawai) about MIDI 2.0 APIs and what we are going to show at April NAMM.

We have officially established a Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group (MASSIG) and are inviting companies that make products as well as individuals who are interested to participate.

The steps are pretty simple.

Here is a link to a form to indicate your interest in different MIDI Association initiatives with the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group at the very top.

You can indicate your interest in as many initiatives as you like.

MIDI Initiatives

Before NAMM we will send out an email to all of the people who signed up for the the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group to join a forum category on the MIDI Association corporate member forum (not the public forum on MIDI.org).

There is already interest from a number of MIDI Association companies including Arturia, Audio Modeling and Native Instruments in joining the MASSIG.

Many thanks to Juho for getting this all started.

[BlindMusician]

Dear KVR Members,
I would want to thank Athan for posting the ifnormation about joining to the MASSIG! I would want to inform you that I also have sent an email to Mr. Michael Cooper, an accessibility specialist at W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) (website: https://www.w3.org/), informing him about the standard and am looking forward to getting his answer! When I have something reasonable to post here, I would want to tell you that I would do so, so stay tuned!

A bit off-topic to this thread, but definitely worth mentioning, is the fact that KVRDC (or KVR Developer Challenge) 2023, a ninth free-for-all (KVR Developer Account Members) competition on developing a free sample library, software or music application, benefitting the community at large, is now live (meaning that the possible development teams are being formed). I discussed there on the topic called "Wish list for DC 2023" (viewtopic.php?p=8648032&utm_source=my_l ... nt=8648032) about a plugin, software aplication or sample library which would be accessible (meaning that at least one of the KVR Developer Challenge 2023 entries would be accessible). However, my ideal dream and hope would be that all of them would be accessible for the disabled users (such as the screen reader users). I would want to conclude you that I am looking forward to seeing the plugins in order to try them at least, but would hope that a team would pick me as a beta tester to their team who could test the plugin (or other free product stated above) privately before it is being downloaded to the KVR server so that it will be available for voting for KVR Members (developers and non-developers) from July 1st, 2023 onwards. At least, I have decided to participate in the voting process, but being a part of a KVRDC team as a beta tester would also benefit my later life as one of my dreams is to test the accessibility in sample libraries, music hardware and software. Furthermore, all this would also benefit the creation of the Music Accessibility Standard since we would have at least one more free plugin whose accessibility would have been tested from a screen reader users' point of view and, eventually, this would also benefit all the other members on the development team especially if they wished to pursute on a professional career of making virtual instruments or plugins because they would already know how to do them accessibly (or in an accessible way).
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen
PS: The KVR Developer Challenge thread, which also has got the link to the KVR Developer Challenge 2023, can be found at https://www.kvraudio.com/kvr-developer-challenge/.

[BlindMusician]

Hello dear KVR Members,
I got recently an answer to my message from Michael Cooper, an Accessibility Specialist from the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). He replied that the W3C primarily will develop products that are web-based, and that some of the products I mentioned where belonging to the categry of non-web applications. Therefore, he suggested that a more hardware-oriented consortium would first develop its own APIs (in this case, I would suppose, to the Music Accessibility Standard) and then W3C would potentially join to the work of Music Accessibility Standard. In addition to this, he provided two interesting links which I am going to share with you here which would be of some interest. The Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group (APA WG, website at https://www.w3.org/WAI/APA/) maintains, develops and ezxplores new technologies and develops specifications for their accessibility. Their work includes, for example, the inspection of W3C standards and specifications for their accessibility status. Another way the W3C works is throug Community Groups, which are more informal compared to the Working Groups but are, nevertheless, great ways of networking and sharing ideas. One such Community Group Cooper saw interesting would be the Music Notation Community Group (https://www.w3.org/community/music-notation/), maintaininga and updating the MusicXML and SMuFL (Standard Music Font Layout) specifications and is currently proposing a new standard which would have got the possibility of getting the instrument data to a machine-readable form. The Community Group's scope does not only limit to using the music notation on the web; they also have made the MusicXML and SMuFL standards available for desktop and mobile platforms. Because of the facts stated above, I would see it very interesting if we could discuss with the Music Notation Community Group on possible cooperation with the Music Accessibility Standard Working Group which is not yet officially formed but whose work is started by the MASSIG (Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group). The work of the Music Notation Working Group also well overlaps the Music Accessibility Standard, because the documents of the working group woudl be used as a base material in addition, for example, the functional performance standard documents (which are generally used in ICT) and WCAG2ICT document. Also, the MAS would have a requirement that all the deliverables of the product(s) (for example, the music notation of the music notation software) has to be accessible for people with disabilities, including the screen reader users.

Finally, I would also want to inform you that Mr. Cooper also sent the information about this KVR Audio discussion to the general leadership (or chair) address of the Accessible Platform Architectures Working Group (APA WG) so that if they would choose to participate in the Music Accessibility Standard, they would then express their interest. However, like The MIDI Association, the W3C also is a voluntary-based organisation, meaning that nothing would not happen if the members did not voluntarily choose to participate in any project. However, that being said, the web-side of the music software and hardware industry is constantly growing (and, at the same time, luckily, the desktop-side music hardware and software combinations are also developed). I would personally see it very important that the cooperation with the W3C in one way or another would take place since there already are applications which use cloud technologies such as cloud-based mastering services (which are, to my understanding, yet inaccessible for the screen reader users) as well as web-based music creation tools (again, these most likely are inaccessible because of the lack of the standard for music software and hardware).
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen

[The MIDI Association]

Hi,

Just to let everyone know, the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group of the MIDI Association has been meeting regularly every two weeks.

[The MIDI Association]

We are also planning a webinar for next Saturday, May 27 at 10 am Pacific Time.

[The MIDI Association]

Apologize for the multiple short posts, but I needed to get to a certain number of posts before links would work correctly on the KVR forum.

Here is a link to a form to indicate your interest in different MIDI Association initiatives with the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group at the very top.

You can indicate your interest in as many initiatives as you like.

https://midi.activehosted.com/f/37

We have had several meetings and the group is really taking shape.

Juho Tomanien, Jason Dasent, and Scott Chesworth have all attended, and we have also had participation from a number of MIDI Association companies including Arturia, Audio Modeling, Native Instruments, Steinberg, Roland, Yamaha and many others.

We are holding a MASSIG Youtube Live webinar on Saturday, May 27 and we encourage everyone to attend.

Here is a link to where the event will be streamed and you choose to get a reminder if you like.

https://youtube.com/live/PRjvOY9_X28?feature=share

[BlindMusician]

Apologize for the multiple short posts, but I needed to get to a certain number of posts before links would work correctly on the KVR forum.

Here is a link to a form to indicate your interest in different MIDI Association initiatives with the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group at the very top.

You can indicate your interest in as many initiatives as you like.

https://midi.activehosted.com/f/37

We have had several meetings and the group is really taking shape.

Juho Tomanien, Jason Dasent, and Scott Chesworth have all attended, and we have also had participation from a number of MIDI Association companies including Arturia, Audio Modeling, Native Instruments, Steinberg, Roland, Yamaha and many others.

We are holding a MASSIG Youtube Live webinar on Saturday, May 27 and we encourage everyone to attend.

Here is a link to where the event will be streamed and you choose to get a reminder if you like.

https://youtube.com/live/PRjvOY9_X28?feature=share

Hello Athan (and other KVR members reading this thread),
I would also want to confirm you that we have been meeting now every other week, and that it has been pa pleasure to discuss with researchers, members from different MIDI software and hardware companies (such as Arturia, Native Instruments and Steinberg) as well as passionate individuals wishing to improve accessibility (such as Scott Chesworth from the OSARA team which develops the OSARA add-on for REAPER DAW, enabling blind and other screen reader users to use REAPER as efficiently as their sighted colleagues). Actually, one of the OSARA's main developers is James "Jamie" Teh, the co-founder of NV Access Limited, the non-profit organisation developing the free and open source screen reader for Windows called Non-Visual Desktop Access (NVDA for short). I would also want to say you that I am very satisfied and delighted to see the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group (MASSIG) to realise and that it has already started its work through the discussion to pave the way for the long-term goal of releasing the first stable version of MAS (MIDI Software and Hardware Part) through The MIDI Association. I would hope that you would find the Music Accessibility Standard Webinar interesting and tune in on May 27th, 2023 at 10 a.m. Pacific Time (CST) which is 11.00 a.m. EDT and 20.00 (i.e. 8.00 p.m.) Finnish time (which is part of the Eastern Europe Time timezone EET) and 7.00 p.m. CET (Central Europe Time).
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen

[BlindMusician]

Hello all KVR members and thread readers,
The Music Accessibility Standard Webinar was amazing! I would like to thank everyone who presented their material there (Pierre Pfister and Jason Dasent from Arturia, Audio Modeling, Markus Ruh and Scott Chesworth) and Athan Billias, the president of The MIDI Association, for working as the presenter and organiser of the event! There also was going to be an Arturia video in the event (by Jason Dasent and Pierre Pfister), but unfortunately, there was no time to watch it, and therefore, I would hope that Athan would send the relevant link to the video (or a link to the resource page where the video is located) to this KVR forum thread. If you were not watching the livestream (or want to re-watch it), you can do so by going to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRjvOY9_X28.
Please note that the KVR Forum platform does not allow the video to be played through KVR, so when you click the link or press Enter or Space on it after moving to it with the screen reader, please then klick or press Enter or Space on the link "Whatch on YouTube" (in the English-language world) and "Katso YouTubessa" (when using a Finnish version of YouTube and Mozilla Firefox) to play the video. Personally, it was such a pleasure and really important for me to be a part of this webinar and to be a first person doing the presentation because I have dreamed about the Music Accessibility Standard for years and now the project really has started! Have a nice day, and I would hope that we would have these kinds of webinars also later.
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen

[BlindMusician]

Hello KVR Members,
The MASSIG (Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group) had its third meeting on May 31st, 2023, and because of the fact that a reminder was not send to the MASSIG members, we could not do the things people like I and Athan had considered. However, with few of us (4 person total, including Scott Chesworth, Me and Athan), there was good discussion about accessibility, and our next meeting is scheduled to happen on June 14th, 2023, and I would want to say you that I am looking forward to being there!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen

[BlindMusician]

Hello all thread readers,
We had a meeting last Wednesday (June 14th, 2023) with few people in our meeting (Simone Capitani from Audio Modeling, Scott Chesworth from the OSARA team, me, Mr. Athan Billias, the president of The MIDI Association, Stephen Penny from Soundwide (now Native Instruments GmbH) and, Jason Dasent working for Arturia S.A.). Generally speaking, we talked about accessibility in the music software and hardware field, and our discussions were really interesting! Next Wednesday (June 28th, 2023) we are going to choose the important people in our working group (such as people such as the chair (leader of the group), backup chair, secretary and secondary secretary). I am looking forward to meeting the MASSIG colleagues then on the MIDIable platform, which has seen important accessibility improvements and is already now very usable with the screen reader!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen

[BlindMusician]

Hello all forum post readers,
We had several people, including Athan and myself, today at our important MASSIG (Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group) meeting. I would want to tell you that regardless of the fact that not everyone was present, we chose the important people: me (Juho Tuomainen) as the chair (i.e. the leader of the MASSIG in meetings and outside), Vanessa from Audio Modeling as the backup chair (i.e. backup leader) and Athan Billias as the scribe (i.e. a pirerson writing down the notes, sending meeting invites to the MA of the MASSIG,s members and writing summaries). I am very happy to be the chair of the MASSIG and am now on holiday in July from the MASSIG grou but will return back in Augustp, so Vanessa will take the chair's responsibility in the next two meetings.
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen

[BlindMusician]

Dear KVR Audio Readers,
I am back from my holiday again as the chair of the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group, wow! Even though we have not posted anything here, we're been meeting regularly every other week (i.e. biweekly). Today, we had a meeting with me, Vanessa (back-up chair), Athan (scribe), Stephen Penny from Native Instruments, Paul McCabe from Roland and Jason Dasent working for Arturia. We talked about both the Audio Developer Conference (ADC) and the NAMM Show next year, and are very excited about them! For example, at this year's Audio Developer Conference in London, we will have an informal meeting about the Music Accessibility Standard (MAS) for people interested in it. Stay tuned for more interesting updates!
Kind regards,
Juho Tuomainen

[The MIDI Association]

Yes, today's meeting was very good. Just to be really clear on people's roles, Juho is the chair of the special interest group and an independent musician, Vanessa from Audio Modeling is the back-up chair, Stephen Penny is from Native Instruments, Paul McCabe is from Roland and Jason Dasent is an independent musician/producer who has working for Arturia. So the group has a good mix of people with different accessibility challenges and companies committed to improving accessibility for everyone.

[surreal]

But what is this really about?