Tech Forum

Would it be possible to make LDS music files that are compatible with Finale (the standard) or other notation programs.

It would be nice if songs could be easily uploaded to notation software for easy re-arranging, without starting from scratch. Is there already something that allows that?

With the limited amount of active LDS arrangers, the ability to quickly upload LDS music notation to a notation program could encourage the rest of to get in the game and provide new arrangements of LDS favorites.

I've dabbled a bit in arranging a few hymns (some more successfully than others ), although I use a competing product to Finale. Built in to most of these music editing programs is usually some sort of scanning software to input sheet music, or in this case, hymns to the music editor. I think the one for Finale is Smartscore Lite. Although these have varying success rates (just like early OCR software), usually after a bit of touch-up you're good to go.

For me, having the hymns already available in some sort of music notation would be nice, but it would only save me a couple of steps in the overall process.

I haven't had much luck with Finale's SmartMusic Lite. The results are usually far off from the scanned music. I'm scanning at 600dpi on a standard HP $150 printer/scanner. Perhaps I need something out of my price range.

Finale has an Import > MusicXML option. The tech.lds.org site lists "MusicXML for new content" on it's projects page: https://tech.lds.org/wiki/index.php/Int ... ic_Project (listed under Technology). Maybe something will happen down the road ??

Blending the LDS music site with popular notation sounds like a great idea.

In the meantime, I need to stop being lazy and start writing something down. I love to modify music as I play, but don't usually have the patience to write anything down.

riverton wrote:In the meantime, I need to stop being lazy and start writing something down. I love to modify music as I play, but don't usually have the patience to write anything down.

I'm don't know what you play, but might there be some MIDI tools that would help?

riverton wrote:I haven't had much luck with Finale's SmartMusic Lite. The results are usually far off from the scanned music. I'm scanning at 600dpi on a standard HP $150 printer/scanner. Perhaps I need something out of my price range.

I use PhotoScore Lite that ships with Sybelius and have the best luck using 300-400 dpi. When I try higher resolutions, it actually produces less accurate results. I don't have any experience with Finale's scanning software, but perhaps it's similar.

RussellHltn wrote:I'm don't know what you play, but might there be some MIDI tools that would help?

Yes, most music notation software I've seen has direct input capability via MIDI (or USB) keyboard.

It would be nice to be able to get the songs in MusicXML and/or midi files.

We have multiple instruments: flute, clarinet, viola, violin, piano. We could connect the keyboard to the computer -- but that means a fight with the wife over re-arranging furniture.

I guess my goal is to convince the big chiefs to make the hymns compatible with common notation software programs.

riverton wrote:I guess my goal is to convince the big chiefs to make the hymns compatible with common notation software programs.

Although a good set of MusicXML files would be preferred, I stumbled across a pretty good collection of LDS Hymns done in MIDI here...

http://people.uleth.ca/~anderson/midi-orig.html

Near the bottom of the page is a link to snag them all in one 250KB ZIP file. The files are by hymn numbers only (no titles), so you will probably need a hymn book handy to find the one(s) you want. There are a few copyrighted hymns missing from the list, but other than that, it's fairly complete.

I imported a couple into my notation program without any issues, except (as expected) they will have to be aesthetically cleaned up a bit after importing.

-Mike

Beautiful. Finale imports the music perfectly. I have page numbers memorized from popular hymns, so the numbered titles work great.

Thank you for the link. I'm just starting with Finale, but my daughters have mastered it, so I'm on my way.

That link may be a good resource to add to the official LDS music website.

Ken