Music Accessibility for Faculty & Students

Understanding Diverse Learner Needs

Students with disabilities have always participated in music — as performers, composers, theorists, educators, and scholars. However, the systems, materials, and technologies used in music higher education were largely designed without their needs in mind. Understanding the range of access needs is the first step toward inclusive teaching and learning.

Visual Disabilities

Students who are blind, have low vision, or have print disabilities (such as dyslexia) face some of the most significant barriers in music education, because Western music notation is an almost entirely visual system. A blind student cannot read a printed score, a projected slide of notation, or a PDF article with embedded score images. Low-vision students may read notation with magnification, but standard engraving sizes are often too small, and enlarged photocopies degrade quality. Faculty should understand that "blindness" is a spectrum — some students have no usable vision while others can read large-print or high-contrast materials. The best approach is always to ask what works.

Auditory Disabilities

Deaf and hard-of-hearing students participate in music more often than many people expect. Some deaf musicians rely on vibrotactile feedback, visual representations of sound, or residual hearing through hearing aids or cochlear implants. Hard-of-hearing students may miss certain frequency ranges. In classrooms, barriers include uncaptioned audio/video, spoken-only instructions during rehearsals, and listening exams that lack visual or tactile alternatives. The WCAG guidelines provide a useful framework for thinking about multimedia accessibility.

Motor and Physical Disabilities

Students with motor disabilities may face challenges playing traditional instruments, navigating software with a mouse, turning pages, or writing on staff paper. Adaptive instruments, switch-based MIDI controllers, and accessible software interfaces can help — but faculty and students need to know these options exist.

Cognitive and Neurodivergent Needs

Students with ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, or acquired brain injuries may process music differently. Some may excel in aural skills but struggle with notation reading; others may find the sensory environment of ensemble rehearsal overwhelming. Flexibility in assignment format, clear course structure, and willingness to discuss individual needs are essential.

Foundational Assistive Technologies for Music

Music Braille

Braille music notation is a tactile system for encoding Western music developed in the 19th century. Unlike print notation, which represents pitch spatially on a staff, braille music is linear — it encodes pitch, rhythm, octave, and other elements sequentially using raised dots. The National Library Service Music Section at the Library of Congress maintains an extensive collection of braille scores available for loan.

Key facts about music braille:

• It is a complete system capable of representing virtually any element of Western music, including complex polyphony, dynamics, articulations, and expression markings.
• Because it is linear, braille readers process music differently than sighted readers — more like reading a verbal description. This often develops exceptionally strong aural memory.
• Relatively few people read music braille fluently today, partly because learning it requires specialized instruction that many schools do not offer.
• Software tools like GoodFeel are making braille music production faster and more practical (see below).

Screen Readers

Screen readers convert on-screen text and interface elements into synthesized speech or braille output. The major screen readers are JAWS (Windows), NVDA (Windows, free and open-source), and VoiceOver (built into macOS and iOS). They are essential for blind and many low-vision users.

However, screen readers face significant challenges with music:

• Image-based scores are invisible. If a score is a scanned image or embedded picture, a screen reader sees nothing — or announces "image" with no further information.
• Notation software varies widely. Some programs (like MuseScore) have made real progress in screen reader support; others remain essentially unusable.
• Music-specific symbols are difficult. Even accessible text documents may not handle figured bass, Roman numerals, or other specialized notation well.

GoodFeel by Dancing Dots

GoodFeel is specialized software that converts digital music notation files into braille music. It accepts MusicXML input (exported from notation software) and produces formatted braille that can be embossed on a braille printer or read on a refreshable braille display. Founded by blind musician Bill McCann, Dancing Dots also develops Lime (an accessible music notation editor) and Lime Lighter (a large-note display tool for low-vision musicians).

Talking Scores

Talking Scores is a UK-based project that creates audio-described introductions to musical works — narrated guides that walk listeners through the structure, themes, instrumentation, and emotional trajectory of a piece before or while they listen. Originally designed for blind and partially sighted audiences, Talking Scores resources benefit anyone approaching unfamiliar music. Faculty can use them as models for creating their own audio-described score guides, and students can use them as study aids for analytical listening.

Key Organizations and Resources

• NFB
  National Federation of the Blind

  Advocacy, resources, and community for blind individuals. Hosts annual conferences with music-specific sessions and maintains resources for blind musicians.
• RNIB
  RNIB Music Services

  UK-based. Provides braille music transcription, an accessible music library, and consultation services for musicians and educators.
• DAISY
  DAISY Consortium

  International organization promoting accessible publishing standards. Their work on accessible digital formats is foundational to music accessibility.
• W3C
  MusicXML.com

  The official MusicXML resource site with documentation, tutorials, and links to the MusicXML 4.0 specification.
• DD
  Dancing Dots

  Developers of GoodFeel, Lime, and Lime Lighter. Founded by blind musician and software developer Bill McCann. Provides consulting and training.
• NAfME
  National Association for Music Education

  Publishes position statements and resources on inclusive music education for K-12 and higher education.
• TS
  Talking Scores

  Audio-described introductions to musical works for blind and partially sighted listeners. An excellent model for faculty creating their own audio guides.

Writing Effective Alt Text for Musical Images

Alternative text (alt text) is a textual description attached to an image that screen readers announce in place of the visual content. Every image in a digital document — Word file, PDF, web page, PowerPoint — should have alt text. For music, this includes score excerpts, chord charts, diagrams, tablature, and performance photos.

The guiding question is: What information does this image convey that someone needs to understand the surrounding material?

Decision Framework

1. Decorative images (a stock photo on a syllabus): Mark as decorative. No description needed.
2. Simple informational images (a chord diagram, a single-measure pattern): Write concise alt text. Example: "C major triad in root position, quarter notes on C4, E4, and G4."
3. Complex analytical images (a four-bar excerpt used in analysis): Alt text alone is not enough. Provide a longer description or a full alternative format.
4. Score excerpts central to an assignment: You need the music itself in an accessible format — MusicXML is recommended, along with a detailed audio walkthrough or verbal description.

Examples of Good Alt Text for Music

For detailed step-by-step instructions on adding alt text in Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat Pro, see Lesson 3, which includes a complete remediation guide.

Audio Recordings as Supplements

Audio recordings can serve as powerful supplements to — and sometimes replacements for — visual materials. This benefits blind and print-disabled users first, but improves learning for everyone. Tools like Talking Scores provide excellent models of narrated musical guides.

Types of audio supplements you can create:

• Score read-throughs: Narrated recordings describing a score measure by measure. Time-consuming but invaluable for blind students studying specific passages.
• Analytical narrations: Audio that walks through an observation: "Listen to how the oboe melody outlines a diminished seventh — B, D, F, A-flat — before resolving down to G major."
• Audio-described performances: Narration of visual information in a video: conductor gestures, technique demonstrations, stage movement. See the W3C guide to accessible audio and video.

Writing Music Analysis Accessibly

Much academic writing about music assumes the reader is simultaneously looking at a score. Phrases like "the passage circled in Example 3" or "see the beam groupings below" are meaningless to someone who cannot see the excerpt. Accessible analytical writing encodes the musical information in the prose itself.

Techniques

• Name everything. Specify pitches, rhythms, measure numbers, instruments, and registers explicitly.
• Describe relationships verbally. Replace visual annotations (brackets, arrows, circles) with words: "The opening motive (G-A-B) returns in inversion (G-F-E-flat) in the cello at m. 45."
• Use standard reference systems. Rehearsal numbers, measure numbers, and beat positions — not spatial locations ("top of page 3").

Alternative Documents to Deep Score Study

Some assignments require intensive work with printed scores. For students who cannot read print notation (or read it very slowly), the solution is not exemption but alternative pathways to the same learning objectives:

• Annotated listening guides: Timestamps from a specific recording paired with analytical observations. Talking Scores provides professional models of this format.
• Structured verbal analysis templates: Worksheets asking students to describe what they hear at specific time points.
• Guided aural analysis: Recorded prompts directing attention: "Start at 2:15. Listen for the key change. What key does the music move to?"
• Tactile representations: Raised-line diagrams of melodic contour, phrase structure, or form charts.

Why Traditional Scores Are Inaccessible

Standard Western notation encodes information spatially: pitch by vertical position, duration by notehead shape, simultaneous events by vertical alignment. This spatial encoding is inherently visual and has no built-in textual or auditory equivalent.

• Photocopied paper scores are completely inaccessible to screen readers.
• Scanned PDF scores are photographs of pages — no machine-readable musical data.
• Publisher PDFs may contain text layers for titles and lyrics, but notation itself is typically vector graphics, equally opaque to assistive technology.
• Digital notation files (from MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale, Dorico) are the most promising because they contain actual musical data that can be exported to accessible formats.

Accessible Score Formats

Score Conversion Workflows

Scenario 1: You Have the Notation File

1. Open in your notation software (MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale, Dorico).
2. Export as MusicXML (File > Export > MusicXML). Every major program supports this.
3. The MusicXML file can now be imported into GoodFeel for braille, opened in another program at larger size for large print, or processed by other tools.
4. Also export an audio rendering (MIDI or audio file) as a supplement.

Scenario 2: You Have Only a PDF or Paper Score

1. If paper, scan at 300+ DPI, grayscale or black-and-white.
2. Run through OMR software: Audiveris (free, open-source), SmartScore, or PhotoScore.
3. OMR output will contain errors — proofread and correct in a notation editor.
4. Once corrected, export MusicXML and audio.

Scenario 3: Renaissance and Early Music

Renaissance and early music scores present special challenges because modern critical editions are often protected by copyright and available only as image-based PDFs. However, several digital scholarship projects provide machine-readable alternatives:

• The Josquin Research Project (Stanford University) offers a large corpus of Renaissance polyphony in multiple accessible formats including MusicXML, MIDI, Humdrum, MEI, and audio. If you teach music from Josquin, Ockeghem, La Rue, or their contemporaries, this is an essential resource — scores can be viewed in the browser, transposed, searched by interval patterns, and downloaded in formats that assistive technology can process.
• IMSLP hosts out-of-copyright editions. Most are scanned PDFs (not machine-readable), but an increasing number of works have user-contributed digital editions.
• OpenScore creates free, open, machine-readable digital editions using MuseScore. Editions are downloadable as MuseScore files and MusicXML.

How to Add Alt Text to Musical Examples in Microsoft Word

Every musical image embedded in a Word document must have alt text so that screen readers can describe the content. Word makes this straightforward.

Word 365 / Word 2019+

1. Right-click the image and select "View Alt Text..." (or "Edit Alt Text").
2. The Alt Text pane opens. Write a concise, musically specific description. Do not begin with "Image of" — screen readers already announce the element type. Go straight to the content.
3. For decorative images only: Check "Mark as decorative." Never mark a musical example as decorative.
4. Close the pane — alt text saves automatically.

Word 2016 and Earlier

1. Right-click the image > "Format Picture..."
2. Click the "Layout & Properties" tab.
3. Expand "Alt Text." Use the Description field (not Title) for your text.
4. Click OK.

When Alt Text Isn't Enough

Short alt text works for simple images. For complex excerpts (a 16-bar orchestral passage, a detailed harmonic analysis), write a brief identifying alt text plus a detailed verbal description in the body text and/or provide the music in an accessible format (MusicXML, audio).

Use the Accessibility Checker

Go to Review > Check Accessibility. Word will flag every image missing alt text, plus other issues (missing headings, table problems, contrast). Fix everything before distributing.

How to Add Alt Text to Musical Examples in Adobe Acrobat

PDFs are the most common distribution format for academic materials and among the most problematic for accessibility. Adobe Acrobat Pro (not Reader) provides the tools to remediate them.

PDF Tag Structure

An accessible PDF contains a hidden tag tree — a hierarchy of elements (headings, paragraphs, images, tables) that tells screen readers the reading order and role of each element. Many music PDFs — especially from notation software or scanners — are completely untagged. Before adding alt text, ensure the PDF has tags:

1. Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro.
2. Go to Tools > Accessibility > "Autotag Document."
3. For music notation PDFs, results will be imperfect but provide a starting structure to refine.

Method 1: Set Alternate Text Tool (Simplest)

1. Tools > Accessibility > "Set Alternate Text."
2. Acrobat cycles through each image. Write your description for each musical example.
3. Check "Decorative figure" only for non-content images.
4. Save the PDF.

Method 2: Tags Panel (More Control)

1. Open the Tags panel (View > Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Tags).
2. Find the <Figure> tag for your image. Use "Find Tag from Selection" — click the image, then locate it in the tag tree.
3. Right-click the <Figure> tag > "Properties" > enter text in "Alternate Text."

Method 3: Reading Order Tool

1. Tools > Accessibility > "Reading Order."
2. Click a musical image, then click "Figure" in the dialog to tag it.
3. Right-click the numbered region > "Edit Alternate Text."

Alt Text Examples by Musical Example Type

Run the Accessibility Checker

Tools > Accessibility > "Accessibility Check." The report flags missing alt text, document title, language, reading order, and more. Right-click any failure to jump to it and fix. Address every issue.

End-to-End Workflow: From Creation to Accessible PDF

1. Author in Word with proper headings, alt text on all images, and descriptive prose.
2. Run Word's Accessibility Checker (Review > Check Accessibility).
3. Save as PDF via File > Save As > PDF. In Options, check "Document structure tags for accessibility." (Do not use "Print to PDF" — it strips tags.)
4. Open in Acrobat Pro and run the Accessibility Check. Fix issues.
5. Distribute both the PDF and the source Word file (plus MusicXML for any score examples) so people can choose the format that works with their assistive technology.

Working With Disability Services

Your campus disability services office is a critical partner. Many offices have limited experience with music notation. Help by providing materials early, supplying digital notation files (not just PDFs), explaining the unique challenges, sharing information about GoodFeel, and being flexible with deadlines.

MusicXML: The Recommended Interchange Format

MusicXML is an open, XML-based standard for representing Western music notation, maintained by the W3C Music Notation Community Group. It has become the most widely supported interchange format — virtually every major notation program can import and export it.

We recommend MusicXML as the go-to accessibility format because:

• It stores musical semantics — pitches, durations, voices, dynamics, lyrics — not just visual layout.
• One MusicXML file can generate braille (via GoodFeel), large print, audio playback, transpositions, and screen-reader-compatible output.
• It is plain text (XML), future-proof, and not locked to any vendor.
• It is easy to export: File > Export > MusicXML in MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale, and Dorico.

Getting in the habit of saving a MusicXML version alongside every score you create takes seconds and dramatically expands who can use it.

Other Digital Formats

Recordings as Accessible Alternatives

• MIDI playback from notation software — quick to produce, allows hearing every part.
• Measure-by-measure audio walkthroughs — narrated guided listening. Talking Scores provides professional-quality models to learn from and share with students.
• Commercial recordings + annotated listening guides — pair a performance with time-stamped commentary.
• Student-created recordings — assign recorded verbal analysis as an alternative to written score annotation.

Visual Alternatives

For students who are deaf or hard of hearing, or who process visual information differently:

• Graphic notation: Shapes, colors, and spatial layout conveying contour, density, and form.
• Color-coded notation: Systems like Figurenotes that assign colors to pitches.
• Sonification displays: Spectrograms, waveforms, and pitch trackers. Sonic Visualiser and Chrome Music Lab's Spectrogram are excellent free tools.
• Piano-roll visualization: The MIDI piano roll in any DAW represents pitch and time in a way some learners find more intuitive than staff notation.

Haptic and Tactile Tools

• Vibrotactile wearables: Devices converting audio into vibration patterns — letting deaf individuals feel music through their body.
• Tactile score displays: Refreshable tactile graphic displays presenting music in raised-pin form.
• 3D-printed music: Physical objects representing notation, contour maps, or form diagrams that blind students explore by touch.

What Makes Music "Machine-Readable"?

Music is machine-readable when its content — pitches, rhythms, dynamics, lyrics, structure — is stored in a format software can parse and transform. Consider two files of Beethoven's Fifth:

• A scanned PDF: Pixels arranged to look like notation. To a computer, it is a picture — software cannot extract that the first note is G or that the rhythm is three eighths and a half note.
• A MusicXML file: Structured data: "pitch: G4, duration: eighth, dynamic: ff." Software can convert it to braille, play it, transpose it, or render it in large print — automatically.

The Accessibility Pipeline

One machine-readable source file can generate:

• Braille music via GoodFeel
• Large-print scores by re-rendering at larger sizes
• Audio playback (MIDI or synthesized)
• Screen-reader-compatible output (emerging tools verbalize from MusicXML)
• Transposed parts for students who need different keys or clefs
• Simplified reductions isolating individual voices

None of this is possible from an image. The pipeline starts with machine readability. Databases like the Josquin Research Project and OpenScore are doing the work of creating machine-readable editions of important repertoire — take advantage of them.

Legal Context

• ADA — prohibits disability discrimination in federally funded programs.
• Section 504 — requires equal access in funded programs.
• Section 508 — requires accessible electronic information technology.
• WCAG — the international web accessibility standard increasingly referenced in institutional policies.

These laws apply to music departments. If course scores are inaccessible, the institution may be out of compliance.

Advocacy Strategies

• With publishers: Ask whether MusicXML is available for score examples. The more people ask, the more publishers provide.
• With your department: Propose that new scores be delivered in machine-readable formats alongside print/PDF.
• With your library: Ask about machine-readable holdings. Advocate for databases that offer MusicXML.
• In your own work: Make it a habit to export MusicXML for every score you create. It takes seconds.

Universal Design for Learning in Music

UDL encourages designing instruction to be flexible from the beginning:

• Multiple means of engagement: Let students choose from classical, jazz, world, or popular traditions. Offer written reflections, audio diaries, or creative projects.
• Multiple means of representation: Combine recordings, video, captioned media, tactile materials, and interactive tools like Chrome Music Lab. Provide transcripts for audio, audio descriptions for video.
• Multiple means of expression: Instead of requiring essays, offer alternatives: recorded oral analysis, visual presentations, multimedia projects, or composition responses.

Accessible Listening Activities

• Deaf/hard-of-hearing students: Vibrotactile alternatives, visual sound representations via Sonic Visualiser or Chrome Music Lab, captioned videos describing textures and dynamics (not just lyrics), and written listening guides. Talking Scores provides models for narrated guides that can be adapted for visual descriptions.
• Blind students: Screen-reader-compatible text for all visual listening materials. Provide audio walkthroughs instead of score-following assignments.
• Attention/processing differences: Break listening into shorter segments with guided questions. Provide timestamps and structured guides.
• All students: Use accessible media players compatible with screen readers and keyboard navigation.

Captioning Music Content

Auto-captions (YouTube, Zoom) handle speech but fail with music. Effective music captioning requires instrumental descriptions ("[Soft piano melody begins]"), dynamic cues ("[Music builds in intensity]"), lyrics with speaker identification, and environmental sounds. The W3C guide to accessible media provides detailed standards.

Choosing Accessible Resources

When selecting textbooks, OER, and streaming platforms:

• Test the ebook with a screen reader before adopting.
• Check whether embedded audio/video is captioned.
• Verify keyboard navigability of companion websites.
• Ask publishers for music examples in accessible formats (MusicXML is recommended).
• Consider OER, which can be more easily remediated for accessibility.

Applied Lessons, Ensembles, and Performance

Score and Part Preparation

Parts must be available in the student's preferred format well before rehearsals. For a blind player this means braille parts or memorized audio walkthroughs (see Talking Scores for models) — requiring significant lead time. For a low-vision percussionist, large-print parts on a tablet with zoom. Work backward from the first rehearsal and build in time for conversion using tools like GoodFeel or MuseScore.

Rehearsal and Performance

Pair verbal descriptions with every gesture. Provide marked-up scores in advance. Use non-traditional cueing when needed. Think through the full performance experience: stage access, page-turning accommodations, accessible program notes.

Music Theory and Aural Skills

• Staff-paper alternatives: Allow notation software submissions or text-based analysis (typed Roman numerals). MuseScore is free and increasingly screen-reader-compatible.
• Accessible theory software: Verify screen reader and keyboard compatibility before assigning. Flat.io and Noteflight offer web-based alternatives.
• Adapted aural skills exams: Allow singing back, verbal dictation, or software entry.

Graduate and Doctoral Study

Musicology and Ethnomusicology

Dense scholarly materials, archival sources, and field recordings require accessible alternatives. For early music research, the Josquin Research Project provides Renaissance polyphony in machine-readable formats. The Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) supports scholarly digital editions with rich editorial markup.

Composition, Conducting, and Doctoral Research

A blind composer needs accessible notation software (see Lesson 8). A blind conductor may memorize from audio and braille. Accept scores in whatever format the student can produce; provide conversion support for department requirements. Build accessibility training into TA preparation.

What to Evaluate

• Screen reader compatibility: Can a blind user navigate, enter notes, and read back music?
• Keyboard navigation: Every function accessible without a mouse?
• Display customization: Adjustable staff size, color, contrast for low vision?
• MusicXML support: Reliable import and export?
• Audio playback: Quality rendering for verification without visual reference?

MuseScore

MuseScore is free, open-source, and cross-platform. It is currently the most accessible general-purpose notation editor, with active screen reader development, full keyboard shortcut coverage, robust MusicXML support, and customizable display. Its open-source nature means accessibility issues can be reported and fixed by the community.

Sibelius, Finale, and Dorico

Specialized Accessible Tools

• Lime / Lime Lighter: Lime is an accessible editor for screen reader users. Lime Lighter displays large-print notation in real time for low-vision performers.
• GoodFeel: Converts MusicXML to braille music.
• Braille Music Editor (ONCE, Spain): Free tool for creating and editing braille music directly.

Web-Based Alternatives

• Flat.io — good keyboard navigation, some screen reader support. Reasonable for accessible browser-based notation.
• Noteflight — widely used in education; keyboard navigation available but screen reader support inconsistent.

Reaper: The Accessibility Leader

Reaper combined with OSARA (Open Source Accessibility for the REAPER Application) is the most accessible DAW available. OSARA provides screen reader support for JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver — enabling blind users to record, edit, mix, and master entirely via keyboard.

• Spoken feedback for track navigation, transport, recording, editing, mixing
• Full keyboard shortcut coverage
• Plugin parameter control via screen reader
• Active community of blind audio professionals
• Affordable ($60 personal license) — OSARA is free

If your department teaches music technology, Reaper with OSARA should be available as an accessible alternative regardless of primary teaching platform.

Other DAWs

• Logic Pro / GarageBand: Some VoiceOver support via macOS. Basic navigation works; visual-heavy tasks remain challenging. GarageBand is simpler and reasonable for introductory courses.
• Ableton Live, Pro Tools, FL Studio: Limited to no screen reader support. If your program mandates Pro Tools, consider what this means for a blind student — build flexibility to accept equivalent work in Reaper.

Web-Based Music Tools

• Soundtrap — cloud-based DAW with some accessibility features
• BandLab — free, web-based DAW focused on collaboration
• Chrome Music Lab — designed for accessibility from the start; excellent for introductory courses
• Flat.io — web-based notation with good keyboard navigation

Organizations and Communities

• DAISY
  DAISY Consortium

  International standards body for accessible publishing. Foundational to music accessibility.
• W3C
  MusicXML.com

  Official MusicXML resource hub with documentation, tools, and the full MusicXML 4.0 specification.
• NLS
  NLS Music Section (Library of Congress)

  Braille and large-print music for free loan to eligible individuals.
• RNIB
  RNIB Music Services

  Braille transcription, accessible library, consultation (UK).
• DD
  Dancing Dots

  GoodFeel, Lime, Lime Lighter. Consulting and training. Founded by blind musician Bill McCann.
• TS
  Talking Scores

  Audio-described introductions to musical works for blind and partially sighted listeners.
• NFB
  National Federation of the Blind

  Advocacy, resources, and community for blind individuals including musicians.

Research Journals and Conferences

• Journal of Music, Technology & Education — accessible music technology research
• Music Perception — perception research including by deaf/hard-of-hearing individuals
• NIME — New Interfaces for Musical Expression; adaptive and inclusive tools
• ISMIR — music information retrieval with growing accessibility focus
• CSUN Assistive Technology Conference — largest AT conference; includes music sessions

Free and Open-Source Tools

Accessible Score Repositories

• Josquin Research Project: Renaissance polyphony in MusicXML, MIDI, Humdrum, MEI, and audio. Essential for early music courses.
• OpenScore: Free, machine-readable editions in MuseScore and MusicXML format.
• MuseScore Community Library: Thousands of user-created scores in machine-readable format.
• IMSLP: Largest free score library. Mostly scanned PDFs, but growing digital editions.
• NLS Music Collection: Braille and large-print music by mail (free to eligible borrowers).

Standards and Guidelines

• MusicXML 4.0 — the recommended interchange format for accessible music
• MEI — Music Encoding Initiative for scholarly digital editions
• W3C WAI — Web Accessibility Initiative
• WCAG — Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
• ABC Notation — text-based music representation

Funding and Grants

• Institutional disability services budgets — often have funds for assistive technology.
• Teaching and learning center grants — internal university grants for course redesign.
• National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) — funds projects increasing access to the arts.
• Technology company grants — Apple, Google, Microsoft fund accessibility in education.
• Foundation support — NFB, American Foundation for the Blind, and others.