Music accessibility questions

Good afternoon,

I am a web developer working with the Music Branch at the Canadian Armed Forces to produce their Music Branch manual online. (I’m not a musician.)

Volume 1 of the manual is almost complete and will be WCAG AA compliant for the web as HTML and I will provide an accessible PDF downloadable document. (I have no issues with regular content.)

The issue is Volume 2 of the manual, it contains mostly images of sheet music with musical notes for Marches, Calls and Protocols content.

Normally, I code an image with a descriptive alt tag or provide a long alternative text version under the image. I don’t think this would work in this case as three quarters of Volume 2 are images which means over a hundred pages of sheet music. The descriptive text for the musical notes would add at least 100 pages more. This wouldn’t make sense online or in a PDF document plus the time and money it would take to write and incorporate all that descriptive text. The problem would be that the military musicians would do without the online manual, and they travel so this is not a solution.

Can you please guide me on how to create sheet music and musical notes that are WCAG 2 compliant for HTML and for a PDF document? What tools and or software are available plus how do I test it? I’ve searched online and really can’t find anything that’s helpful or concrete.

Thank you in advance.

Yours truly,

Suzanne Doyle

Web Developer, Directorate History and Heritage (DHH)
National Defence | Government of Canada
Suzanne.Doyle@forces.gc.ca<mailto:Suzanne.Doyle@forces.gc.ca> / Tel: 613-290-2102

Développeur web, Histoire et patrimoine (DHP)
Défense nationale │ Gouvernement du Canada
Suzanne.Doyle@forces.gc.ca<mailto:Suzanne.Doyle@forces.gc.ca> / Tél : 613-290-2102