Blind Musician's Metronome

What is it?

A metronome for blind musicians who use a screen reader to read the screen.

What can you do?

You can play all the rhythms of Bounce Metronome Pro and apply all the same sound effects.

It has text versions of all the important graphics in the program, for instance to adjust timing of individual beats in the rhythm etc.

Has convenient keyboard methods for adjusting all the parameters. For example, with Page up and Page down, or Ctrl + Page up and Page down you can adjust any number in the program upwards or downwards with a single key press.

Also quick keyboard shortcuts for the most important controls in each window.

Leaves out the bounce visuals of course. I have plans for future for "pitch bounces" for blind musicians however - and if that works out, you'll have aural equivalents of the visual bounces as well.

Where is it?
Example sound files
For the future
Screenreaders

Where is it?

Where do I find it in Bounce Metronome:

Get the program from the download page.

After you install it, it should start up as the blind musician's metronome straight away - it will do that automatically if you have a screenreader installed.

If that doesn't work for whatever reason, just click on the first button in the main window to set it up.

This is a button which is almost invisible to sighted users but it's the first thing you notice if you visit the sighted user's version of the program with a screen reader.

You can buy it right away

Buy with confidence, you have a no quibbles Money-back Guarantee

Buy now for $29.99 for Bounce Metronome Pro, or $9.99 for Bounce Metronome Basic which has many of the same capabilities but leaves out swing, polyrhythms and the more advanced rhythms and features.

With discounts for education, under 18, retired, unemployed, or if your income is very low when it is converted into US dollars.

Buy FAQ

Or download your free test drive, and free taster, yours to keep

Or download your 30 day Free Test Drive - including your free taster bounce metronome

Mac and other users - please see the Mac, Mobile and Multi-Platform FAQs.

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Example sound files

Here are some of the rhythms it can play:

I will add audio clips for the videos to all the video pages on this site as well - check back soon.

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For the future

Do contact me if especially keen to see these features programmed.

Speak numbers out loud

For sighted users, there are options to show the balls bouncing as bouncing beat numbers in various counting systems.

So the obvious thing is to make it a speaking metronome for blind musicians, to count out the rhythm. I know how to do that and plan to program it when I get the time.

Pitch Bounces

One thing that sighted users have which isn't yet in the version for blind musicians is the visual bounce effect to help you keep time.

This lets you see when the next beat is about to begin and is very useful for keeping exact time, also for swing, and other rhythms with irregular beat patterns, or tricky rhythms such as polyrhythms.

I think it should be possible to do an audio version of this as "Pitch Bounces".

The idea is to add a pitched noise sound like the sound of the wind rising and falling. Then make the pitch vary just like a visual bounce, and it also gets louder as it approaches the beat.

The use of pitched noise, and silent most of the time should make it unintrusive, but useful as an extra cue just before the beat. Anyway quite hopeful it will work, and plan to experiment with this when I get the time.

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Screenreaders

Bounce Metronome follows Microsoft's accessibility guidelines as far as possible. It is tested with

Jaws
Window Eyes
the free screen reader Thunder
the lightweight screenreader Narrator that comes with XP and Vista - Narrator in XP and Narrator in Vista.

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