> > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: "이정민" <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Cc: > Bcc: > Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2025 16:22:39 +0900 > Subject: Introduction — Jungmin Lee (blind composer from Korea) / Request > for Korean-speaking help > Hello LilyPond Users, > > My name is Jungmin Lee. I am a blind musician from South Korea, born in > 2002. I have been studying composition since 2021. > > In Korea there are very few places that teach DAW or notation software to > blind users. As a result, I have mainly worked at the idea/recording sketch > level in Logic Pro and often rely on sighted assistants to make final > scores. I want to become more independent and learn to produce and edit > scores on my own. > > I was introduced to Hwaen Chu-Qi, a blind composer who uses LilyPond + > Emacs + Emacspeak. I attended a few masterclass sessions with them, and > their workflow inspired me to learn LilyPond. However, my English is > limited, which makes direct communication difficult. > > I have a few requests/questions: > > 1. Are there any LilyPond users here who can help or provide > interpretation in Korean? > — While I plan to study English long-term, Korean assistance would > greatly lower the initial entry barrier for a beginner. > > 2. Could anyone share practical accessibility tips for VoiceOver and macOS > (installation, permission issues, Emacs setup, Emacspeak usage, etc.)? > — My current setup: Mac (macOS 26.1) with VoiceOver. I have tried > installing the default Emacs and enabling LilyPond mode, but the process is > complex and macOS security/permission settings often block execution. > > 3. I would appreciate experiences or recommended workflows regarding > Frescobaldi, Emacs, and Emacspeak—especially what works best for blind > users. > — I understand Frescobaldi is GUI-based and may be less accessible, and > that Emacs + Emacspeak may be preferable. I’d love to hear real user > experiences. > > 4. If anyone knows Korean manuals, video tutorials, or step-by-step > installation guides for macOS (including how to handle permission/security > issues), please share links or files. > > My goal here is to learn LilyPond so I can produce and edit scores > independently without relying on sighted helpers. I’m grateful for any > help, links, or advice—big or small. > > Thank you for your time and support. > > Best regards, > Jungmin Lee > VoiceOver user on macOS > Email: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) > >
Thanks for reaching out, and welcome to the lilypond community. I cannot speak to most of your questions as I do not speak Korean. However, I can share some general opinions about development environments and possibly offer to help in the future with scripting workflows. I do not use Frescobaldi for any part of my workflow, so it is certainly not necessary, and I would assume you will not need it. You certainly don't benefit from the reason most people use it, which is to visualize the work. Speaking as a professional software developer who used Emacs exclusively for the first 30 years of my coding career, I can appreciate many of its aspects. However, for the last 10 years I have moved to other IDEs and do not miss it. Within the last 5 years or so I would say that VSCode is the most well supported and professional IDE, and if you are looking into building a workflow from scratch, I would suggest you investigate if it has the support you need on the accessibility side. I would be surprised if it were not state of the art. I can confirm that I have successfully used VSCode's voice-to-text to generate prompts. If VSCode is not good enough on the accessibility side, I would suggest determining which IDE does have the best support, and start your workflow from there. I will now step into the realm of potential devisiveness. Your IDE should integrate with AI. VSCode does integrate with both the shell, and AI agents. So you can use voice-to-text to generate prompts that describe the code you want it to generate, update your files to include or replace the code, create the lilypond invocation, run the lilypond command in the shell, and assuming you also have set up to output to MIDI, it could then convert that to sound and play it. This advice to start using AI agents to assist in development workflows I would give to any developer, this is not specific to accessibility issues. But I do feel like this kind of workflow seems like it might eventually be able to meet your needs. VSCode does have a workflow where, in the process of integrating AI code suggestions, it will show you diffs and let you approve/reject each one. However, I do not know to what extent that workflow is accessible. AI actually solves the biggest problem with lilypond documentation. Lilypond documentation is great in some ways because it is very accurate and very nearly complete. It is not so great in other ways because the way it is organized often does not mesh with the use case you have, so sometimes you can only find part of the solution, or the solution for a somewhat different construct that does not immediately work in your case. Most questions asked to the lilypond list can be answered by referencing the docs, but it often takes a village to help users get to the info they need. Whereas, AI has already read all the docs. You can ask it for specific examples, or to explain a concept, or to compare and contrast different approaches to the same problem. If you prompt it well enough, you can often find the info you need. This is not to say that you will always get correct feedback, so you do need to develop skills to evaluate the results. But it is an iterative process that usually converges to a good result. Perhaps the most directly useful thing I can offer is to help you write scripts to automate aspects of your workflow involving generating output from lilypond, or help with ideas about how to organize files to structure for re-use or other goals specific to your workflow. If you have any such needs or interest in discussion, please let me know. Elaine Alt 415 . 341 .4954 "*Confusion is highly underrated*" [email protected] Producer ~ Composer ~ Instrumentalist ~ Educator -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
