Feature Writer John Christie – A Dream Realized for Blind Musicians Everywhere
Bill McCann was a successful programmer at Sun Microsystems and was being promoted on a regular basis. But the former Philadelphia native had a dream. He wanted to develop Music Translation Software that would allow people to create their own music compositions and arrangements and create hard copy music scores that blind and sighted people could read. This software idea kept on coming up in McCann’s mind.
In 1991, with two children on the way, he decided to leave his programming job and accept a severance package that Sun Microsystems offered.
For the next year, McCann made plans to start up his own music company along with generating some income. In other words, he was a part-time musician playing the trumpet–which he started playing when he was 9 years old–a part-time assistive technology trainer and also went to school to learn the C Programming language. He also was an entrepreneur working on setting up his music business for both the blind and sighted alike. He came up with a business plan with the help of a school in Pennsylvania. This new company would become Dancing Dots.
He then started working on the Braille Translation Program which would later become the GOODFEEL music-translation software, which came out in 1997. The program was a dos-based program. Many Windows versions have come out since, and it does work on Windows 7 64 bit operating systems. He acquired start up money from a program that funded new businesses involving technology. His former school, St. Lucy’s, provided office space for his business. Another event happened at a family gathering which would change McCann’s life forever. He met the boyfriend of his wife’s sister. His name was Albert Milani. They both started talking about what each of them did for work. When McCann found out that he was an electrical engineer and Wiz Programmer, he knew that he was the missing link to his business plan.
“What I had before I met Albert,” McCann recalled, “was a prototype. Albert turned it into a product.” Milani became a full time employee of Dancing Dots in 1994 and he is now their Chief Technical Officer. He was hired with the help of a grant through the federal government. Dancing Dots has 5 programmers working on the GOODFEEL program.
He also had something to do with making CakeTalking, another music software program accessible to screen readers. Dancing Dots is also making a musical program for partially sighted people called Limelighter.
Dancing Dots has received calls from celebrities such as Ronnie Millsap, Stevie Wonder, and Ray Charles.
McCann’s dream of starting his own music company has finally been realized and is incredibly successful. His drive to make digital music accessible is a testament to the type of person he is and blind musicians everywhere can now compose music easier than ever. He truly is a role model in the blind community.
Sources: http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw090203
http://www.freedomscientific.com/FSCast/default.asp
http://dancingdots.com/main/index.htm