Fast Company on Music Accessibility

Written by Athan Billias on February 10, 2024. Posted in Music Accessibility Standard. No Comments on Fast Company on Music Accessibility

Fast Company recently contacted The MIDI Association about the Music Accessibility Standard.

Janko Roettgers from Fast Company reached out to us and we arranged some interviews with members of the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group (MASSIG).

It really seems like this Music Accessibility initiative is gaining more and more traction.

The MASSIG meets every other Wednesday at 8 am Pacific to accommodate the many EU based members.

You can join The MIDI Association’s Music Accessibility Standard by registering on the site and indicating Music Accessibility as one of your interests or send an email to info@midi.org and we can get you set up.

Here are some quotes from the article.

The MIDI Association’s work in this field includes an effort to create a technical standard that could help vision-impaired musicians to more easily control their recording and production gear by loading accessibility settings whenever they plug one of their devices into another. The nonprofit also plans to help spread the word about accessibility, and potentially steward open source software efforts in the field.

For Chesworth, the biggest thing music tech companies can do to further accessibility is to actually listen to blind and vision-impaired people. “ The best people to write a screen reader user experience are screen reader users,” he says. Chesworth believes that companies would ideally hire blind developers to work on accessibility, and he even taught himself programming to contribute to the Reaper accessibility extension.

Written for Fast Company by Janko Roettgers, a San Francisco-based reporter who has written for Variety, Protocol, and Gigaom, among other publications.

BTW, the image for this article was generated by AI with the simple prompt ” Futuristic Music Production Studio for people with accessibility challenges”.

Read The Whole Article On Fast Company

The Music Accessibility Standard starts to take shape

Written by Athan Billias on February 2, 2024. Posted in Developers, MIDI 2.0, MIDI Association Event List, MIDI News, Music Accessibility Standard. No Comments on The Music Accessibility Standard starts to take shape

This is all that Ellis and Stevie see every day

Juho Tomanien is a student from Finland who had a vision for a Music Accessibility Standard. Just because you are blind, doesn’t mean that you can’t have a vision. Take Stevie Wonder whose Inner Visions album is considered one of the greatest records of all time.

Juho reached out to the MIDI Association after someone of KVR Audio suggested that perhaps The MIDI Association might be a good place to start up a conversation about Accessibility. It turned out that there were already a number of MIDI Association member companies who had been working with accessibility consultants like UK producers/recording engineers Scott Chesworth and Jason Dasent and had already been adding accessibility features to their products. Juce which runs the Audio Developer Conference was also already onboard and had been hosting accessibility workshops at ADC for several years.

In 2023 at the ADC conference Jay Pocknell from the Royal Institute for the Blind hosted a packed session of developers trying to learn how to use Juce to add accessibility features to their products.

MIDI Association members from Audio Modeling, Arturia, Native Instruments, Roland and more have joined together with The Royal Institute for the Blind and visually impaired producers and musicians like Juho, Scott Chesworth Jason Dasent and more to discuss how MIDI 2.0 might enable Music Accessibility and make making music accessible to everyone.

Music Accessibility Standard Meeting at NAMM Booth 10302 Friday, January 26 at 3:00 PM

Jay Pocknell from
the Royal Institute of Blind People / Sound Without Sight

At Winter NAMM 2024, we had a meeting of the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group and discussed the next steps in creating a standard. Audio Modeling who has been working on a reserach project into this area for several years now outlined their vision of what a music accessibility standard could bring to people.

Audio Modeling’s visions for a music accessibility standard for everyone

MIDI Association NAMM 2024 Booth Schedule

Written by The MIDI Association on January 2, 2024. Posted in Artists, Developers, MIDI 2.0, MIDI Association Event List, MIDI In Music Education, MIDI Innovation Awards, MIDI News, MIDI Polyphonic Expression (MPE), Music Accessibility Standard. No Comments on MIDI Association NAMM 2024 Booth Schedule

Four Days Showcasing MIDI

The MIDI Association booth (Booth 10302 at the front of Hall A) at Winter NAMM 2024 is very different than our booths in years past.

It is larger with a 30′ by 30′ footprint. A 10′ by 30′ area will be divided into thirds with displays of MIDI 2.0 products, a MIDI Showcase stage for presentations/performances and an area focused on our MIDI In Music Education, Music Accessibility Standard and Interactive Audio Special Interest Groups. But 75% of the booth is dedicated to 50 seats each with a set of wireless headphones so people can come and comfortably watch and listen to presentations and performances.

We also have Booth 10604 which is a 10′ by 10′ booth shared between Intuitive Instruments who won the Commercial Hardware category in The MIDI Innovation Awards in 2023 and the other MIDI Innovation Award winners

Audio Modeling- Camelot Pro
Hitar- augmented guitar for percussive fingerstyle
Netz-an immersive mixed reality musical instrument
Sound Sculpture-an interactive musical instrument comprised of 25 location-aware cubes

Studio 108 is a small meeting space for private meetings during the show.

We are being helped again this year by Jennifer Amaya, Associate Professor of Music at the Riverside City College Coil School for the Arts and member of The MIDI In Music Education Special Interest Group.

We will have 70 students helping with all aspects of the booth including running the Yamaha TF3 digital mixer.

We have put together over 20 different presentations and performances highlighting the innovative power of creating music and art with MIDI.

Below is a listing of all the presentations we have planned. The list starts with a Youtube video summary of the each day’s events and then includes the details of each individual event.

Each day ends with a solo performance by one of the artists who performed in our MIDI@40 celebration at the April 2023 NAMM show on the Yamaha Grand Plaza stage.

Thursday, January 25

Friday, January 26

Saturday, January 27

Sunday, January 28

Full Four Day Schedule (3 minutes and 38 seconds)

MIDI Association Companies at NAMM

37 MIDI Association companies will have booths at the 2024 Winter NAMM show.

Many are in the MIDI showcase area, but there are plenty who are spread around the show in different areas including some of the larger companies like Avid, Steinway and Yamaha.

Here is an alphabetical list of The MIDI Association companies at the 2024 Winter NAMM show with their booth numbers.

Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group Youtube event

Written by The MIDI Association on May 27, 2023. Posted in MIDI Association Event List, MIDI News, Music Accessibility Standard. No Comments on Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group Youtube event

Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group kicks off with a Youtube Live Stream

Members of the Music Accessibility Standard Special Interest Group (MAS SIG) outlined their vision for the future of Music Accessibility in a Youtube Live event on the MIDI Association Youtube channel.

Musicians and producers who face accessibility challenges including Juho Toumainen, Jason Dasent and Scott Chesworth joined developers and representatives from companies like Arturia, Audio Modeling, Native Instruments and Roland who are participating in the MAS SIG. The group meets every two weeks.

Juho Toumainen’s Vision for the MASSIG

The NAMM Foundation and the MIDI Association announce the Launch of The MIDI Fund

Written by The MIDI Association on June 11, 2022. Posted in MIDI Association Event List, MIDI In Music Education, MIDI News, Music Accessibility Standard. No Comments on The NAMM Foundation and the MIDI Association announce the Launch of The MIDI Fund

Los Angeles, CA – June 2, 2022

The NAMM Foundation and the MIDI Association are pleased to announce the MIDI Fund, a new donor-advised fund in The NAMM Foundation.

The MIDI Fund will support projects and programs that advance engagement in music-making and the varied and unique options to make, create and explore music made possible by MIDI, the Musical Instrument Digital Interface that allows musical instruments to connect to computers, tablets, cell phones, and each other.

For the past several years, the MIDI Association has delivered programs for the public benefit. Between 2020 and 2021, the MIDI Association raised $50,000 and donated that money to the Children’s Music Fund, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that provides music therapy programs to children affected by chronic conditions or life-altering illnesses, to help them on their journey towards a better quality of life. The MIDI Association had planned to create its own 501(c)3 to focus on these and other projects for the public benefit.

However, at the recommendation of NAMM President and CEO Joe Lamond, and with the help of NAMM Foundation Executive Director Mary Luehrsen, establishing a new donor-advised fund enables the MIDI Association to avail itself of the considerable experience and administrative resources of the NAMM Foundation.

The first major project the MIDI Fund is focusing on is the development of a MIDI curriculum and certification program to raise awareness about MIDI in education at secondary and post-secondary schools, and for manufacturer and reseller staff members.

Current work includes: Establishment of standardized, readily/publicly available MIDI education content Creation, launch, and active management of a MIDI certification program

For more information about the MIDI Fund and to donate, please visit https://www.nammfoundation.org/donate.

We support MIDI In Music Education. Do you?

The MIDI Association Executive Board committed to funding the MIDI Fund with $25,000 and matching any donations made to the fund before June 30, 2022.

Ed Cannon, CEO of Zivix, makers of the Jamstick MIDI Guitars has pledged $5000 from the Cannon Family Foundation.

Roland has committed $3000 as a Platinum sponsor.

Steinberg has committed $1500 as a Gold Sponsor.

Casio and IK Multimedia have both pledged $750as Silver sponsors.

That is $11,000 in sponsor pledges matched by another $11,000 in matching funds from the MIDI Association bringing the current total funding of the MIDI Fund to $47,000.

But we are not done yet.

You can fill out the form below to commit to a founding MIDI Fund sponsorship and we will continue to promote your company and your products as we promote the MIDI Fund for years to come.

It’s easy for individuals to donate as well.

Go here. https://www.nammfoundation.org/donate

Click on the donate button. Enter an amount.

Right under the amount, you select where you want the donation to go.

Select the MIDI Fund.

The MIDI Association will match this donation one to one until June 30, 2022 and you will receive a receipt for your tax deductible donation.