Accessibility grading

What is accessibility grading?

Accessibility grading is a 4-point scale that I use to assess the performability of my own music. It's inspired by WCAG Guidelines for web accessibility, however I've modified their scale based on my own needs. This is a relatively new concept that I've been cooking up 🧑‍🍳 over the course of 2024, and I've recently updated my site to include accessibility grades for all of my publicly available work.

How does the scale work?

Unlike the WCAG grading scale, which assesses a website's accessibility on a three point scale: A, AA, and AAA, my grading scale is 4 points. A three point scale doesn't provide me with the granularity I need, so I added two more points. For the Tl;drers 1 is a piece intended for trained musicians and 4 is a piece that requires no musical experience to partake in. This only applies to music that has at least 1 interactive component, so my perpetual music engines, for example, are not graded.

1 - "Experienced + Notation"

This grade is assigned to pieces that were written with the expectation that the performer is not only exceptionally capable with their instrument, but is also able to read conventional staff notation. This is more common with pieces that I wrote at the beginning of my bachelors.

2 - "Experienced + FBDS"

Similar to grade 1; however, these pieces utilize a notation that uses my style of Free But Deliberately Spaced notation. The level of accessibility is heightened by the intuitivity of the notation for me, as well as the flexibility of the notation for the performer.

3 - "Experienced + Intuitive" or "Some Experience"

Grade 3 is applied to pieces that fit into one of two categories. First is for experienced performers who are reading a notation that requires little-to-no explanation to understand. Second is for performers who may or may not be engaging with a low-barrier-to-entry notation, however the piece doesn't require any non-beginner-friendly techniques.

An example of "Experienced + Intuitive"

An example of "Some Experience"

4 - "Fully accessible"

Pieces given a 4 grade are what I consider to be fully accessible. I grapple with accessibility on a daily basis, and I know that complete accessibility on a large scale is practically impossible, but assuming the user has an internet connection and a willingness to participate, there are no experience requirements to participate.

Why have I decided to start grading my music?

To me, seeing an accessibility grade when looking at other meta-data, like instrumentation and year of publication, is relevant to my aesthetic as a composer. It provides insight to both listeners and performers of my music when perusing my portfolio. This isn't a perfect system, since I believe that labels aren't universally beneficial in art, however I believe that labeling my own work doesn't cause any harm, since I'm not holding other musics to the same standard.