Musician Assistance and Score Distribution (MASD)

The purpose of the Musician Assistance and Score Distribution (MASD) system is to assist novice musicians with playing in an orchestra, concert band, choir or other musical ensemble. MASD helps novice musicians in three ways. It removes the confusion that results from page turns, aides a musician’s return to the proper location in the music score after the looking at the conductor and notifies musicians of conductor instructions. MASD is currently verified by evaluating the time between sending beats or conductor information and this information being rendered for the musician. Future work includes user testing of this system. There are three major components to the MASD system. These components are Score Distribution, Score Rendering and Information Distribution. Score Distribution passes score information to clients and is facilitated by the Internet Communication Engine (ICE). Score Rendering uses the GUIDO Library to display the musical score. Information Distribution uses ICE and the IceStorm service to pass beat and instruction information to musicians.