GOODFEEL, a new software programme to enable blind and visually impaired people to access musical scores, developed by American Company Dancing Dots is coming to Ireland this month. Dancing Dots has been heralded as ‘the regeneration/renaissance of Braille music’ for its groundbreaking work in adaptive musical software by Chief Executive of the National Council for the Blind of Ireland, Des Kenny.

For decades, the only way to get sheet music for blind musicians was to send it to a transcriber, many of whom were overworked and overwhelmed by requests, thus necessitating long waiting periods for Braille sheet music. The advent of Dancing Dots GOODFEEL Braille Music Translator software enables Braille literate musicians and their instructors to automatically convert sheet or recorded music into Braille instantly without either needing to be a Braille music specialist. Now using an integrated suite of software tools from Dancing Dots musicians who are blind can independently record, edit, orchestrate and notate music in print and Braille and can create audio recordings for use in radio, television and other commercial recordings.

GOODFEEL works by reading files created by sequencers (MIDI) or the Lime notation programme, and translating their contents into the equivalent music Braille. The user decides which parts to Braille, can ignore any individual track or voice, or group two or more parts together.

"Dancing Dots is about fostering independence, creating literacy and self-determination" said Bill McCann, President and Founder of Dancing Dots. " We give the blind the same information intended for sighted people at the same time. That's really rewarding". McCann, himself a blind musician and programmer, developed the Dancing Dots software to meet the extremely strong, largely unmet demand for music Braille.

Dancing Dots’ Bill McCann will demonstrate his software at a workshop in the National Council for the Blind of Ireland Training Centre, Whitworth Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9 on Monday 23 July from 10:00am …#8220; 4:00pm. All are welcome to attend.

"Through our work, we want to honour the memory of Louis Braille and his great gift to the blind. We want to give the literate blind musician the unfiltered written message of the composer." Bill McCann