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I'm thinking of converting a score I downloaded (Bertuzzi's 10 Violin Caprices) to MIDI. As I have never done this before I was wondering if anyone else had tried doing this and what pitfalls I should watch out for?

Graham

How are you planning to do this?

I have a copy of the MuseScore program (V 0.9.5b) which I can use to transpose the notes into an electronic format for conversion to midi.

If I can locate software that allows me to scan printed score into a computer readable I'll use that as a start point.

I've taken the first step and printed out a copy of the score.

Are you talking about Optical Music Recognition (OMR) software? Most I've tried haven't worked very well. The easiest open source one to try out is probably audiveris. I haven't had the best luck with it though. I've read some papers in the past about people using gamera for some parts of omr (Staff line removal). But this still won't get all the way there.

I haven't tried a commercial one in a long time so I can speak much about those. Last I tried I thought it was less effort to just type the music in than correct mistakes from the OMR output.

The one that comes with finale isn't too too bad actually.

horndude77 wrote:Are you talking about Optical Music Recognition (OMR) software? Most I've tried haven't worked very well. The easiest open source one to try out is probably audiveris. I haven't had the best luck with it though. I've read some papers in the past about people using gamera for some parts of omr (Staff line removal). But this still won't get all the way there.

I haven't tried a commercial one in a long time so I can speak much about those. Last I tried I thought it was less effort to just type the music in than correct mistakes from the OMR output.

I've just performed a quick online search and it looks like Audiveris might be the only open source OMR package available. I might try and download it later.

I thought about typing it in myself, but it's been way too long since I last sight read music, the only things I can remember how to read are the tempo markings (Allegro, Adagio etc) and the time signatures.

The claim of 99% accuracy applies only to scans made from computer-generated engraving. The older, hand engraving process resulted in staff lines that weren't spaced exactly evenly, inconsistent symbol placement, etc. While the hand-proced scores look fine to the naked eye, the OMR software packages presently used aren't very good at allowing for the slight variation present in engraved scores from the pre-computer era.

That is precisely why hand-engraved scores are better than computer typesets. Even if not visible to the naked eye, those small differences do seem to make the score easier to read.

Although it wont help with electronic re-formatting, you might also want to check out Notion, a relatively new music software that sues samplings recorded by the London Philharmonic. I've used it on a few projects, and the sound quality has been astounding.

SeanMartin wrote:sues samplings recorded by the London Philharmonic.

what does the LPO's legal team have to say about this?

Nothing at all: the LPO has been part of the project from Day One.

ETA: Oh wait. "Sues". Got it.

Regarding OMR software:
Just tried the newest version of Smartscore Pro (thats the full version of what comes with Finale) with the Bertucci-caprices: completely useless, maybe 90% of the noteheads are correct, but everything else???
Main problems: 1 page would need straightening, staccato marks and dirt recognized as extension-dots of note-value, missing barlines etc.

So I would think you will need to copy these caprices by typing them into a music program - you don't need to use a midi-keyboard, can use the computer keyboard/mouse for this.

In my experience I got good results with smartscore that make it easier than new note entry for:
a) editions with very little dynamic and other markings, was very pleased with scans of Bach Kunst der Fuge or of Gabrieli Canzoni from the critical editions scores (about 1-5 mistakes per scanned page!)
b) piano music with many chords - there is rarely a wrong notehead in the scans (but the program still chokes on cross-staff notes)

kalliwoda wrote: So I would think you will need to copy these caprices by typing them into a music program - you don't need to use a midi-keyboard, can use the computer keyboard/mouse for this.

Currently trying this using MuseScore, having a lot of problems, can't seem to get the notes into the right positions.

Ditto what Carolus said. If you're working with anything other than electronic typesets, regardless of the OCR program (although SharpEye is very good), it's almost always faster to do it by hand, provided you're a seasoned typesetter with speedy entry-like tools.