No-C-Notes® is celebrating 35 years of audio described music score.
100% Audio
No-C-Notes transcription services will resume Spring 2023 with an updated software for expedient service along with tips on how to use other audio music description methods. This will be provided on a new website: AudioMusicScore.com
This service is able to restart and will continue thanks to a grant awarded to Christina by the Minnesota State Arts Board, supported by the Minnesota’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
To keep up to date on when these services will begin, sign up for the enewsletter by emailing Christina at cc@christinacotruvo.com
Speak the Music! Never read printed sheet music again. No need to learn printed music notation or Braille music notation. No-C-Notes® is an easy and cost-effective verbally spoken transcription of Western music notation. Used by the singer, songwriter, teacher or instrumentalist who wants their sheet music spoken and not written. There is no need to learn clefs, staffs, ledger lines, note heads and flags and other visual sheet music notation as this method reads the actual tone and timing without having to know its placement on paper.
No-C-Notes gives tones and timing shorthand names, and a format for how the sheet music should be read. Whether used for voice, or keyboards, guitar, strings or woodwinds, it gives musicians a common verbal language of communicating their music score to one another. Musicians listen to their sheet music being read verbally in the same manner as you would use an audiobook from a MP3 file that can be played on any MP3 player. Included is the music played in full and a No-C-Notes reading text file that can be read by any screen reader.
No-C-Notes samples
Piano arrangement The Chimes by Johann Philipp Kirnberger
Measures 1 through 4 music and audio described
Lead Sheet arrangement Haste to the Wedding, an Irish Jig
Measures 1 through 4 music and audio described
The History of No-C-Notes®
Verbally reading music note by note is nothing new. Many piano teachers of visually challenged students have their own way of naming tones and timing while repeatedly playing a piece for memorization for their students. Currently, there is no common audio music reading method being used in the United States and no audio music scores to purchase or borrow outside of No-C-Notes transcribing services.
In the early 1990’s Christina started to use email and the Internet for research on audio reading methods by joining newsgroups for the handicapped, researching with blind musicians, agencies, schools, music therapists, teachers and parents of blind children. After developing a demo cassette, it was offered to anyone who wanted to try audio music reading and to give feedback on the developing method. By 1995 the first No-C-Notes Instructional Cassette was published, and Christina was accepting transcription orders nationwide.
In giving tones names, No-C-Notes adapted the piano keyboard for names of tones. It is now the standard for midi definitions of tones. For example, the tone “middle C” is C4, which is the fourth C tone on the piano going from the lowest tone up and the MIDI name for that tone. The name of the note’s tone is not the same as an instrument string, or hole or fret make it universal in understanding.
The music played is included with the No-C-Notes reading. If it is for a two-handed instrument, the music section is played and then the right hand is played and read followed by the left hand played in reading. This method can be used for one or two staff sheet music for vocal or any instrument with the exception of percussion.
Publishers, Teachers and Musicians
No-C-Notes is available for licensing for your teaching needs. Contact Christina for training in this quick and easy method. Coming in 2023, Audio Music Score subscription services, upload your own PDF sheet music for MP3 music and No-C-Notes reading.
- Publishers – just as with audio books, audio described music score can bring your sheet music to a broader market. Licensing and consulting available.
- Teachers – bring a more accessible method of music reading to your classroom and lessons by using No-C-Notes.
- Musicians – whether used for your own compositions or reading music score, No-C-Notes provides a common and easy to use language of music notes.