Disklavier

----- Original Message -----

From: Tom Wheeler

To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, April 29, 2003 12:07 PM

Subject: Re: [disklavier] Re: using a scanner

Midi,

You will note that I did indicate that music scanning was not an inexpensive process in my original e-mail. However, the price that you are paying for Sibelius 2.1 and Photoscore in the U.K. is (like most things) considerably higher than I paid here in the U.S. I purchased Sibelius 2.1 and Photoscore Professional (as a combined package) for $512 (including tax).

While a professional pianist would do a far better job in preparing this music for playback on your disklavier than can be done with this software, I do have the advantage that in scanning the material that I am learning to play, I am also learning the structure of the piece and often hearing the music played reasonably properly for the first time.

Tom

midi_magic2000 wrote:

Hi Tom

May I just say that Sibelius 2.1 and Photoscore Pro 2.1 are very very 
expensive around £600 in the UK.
For that money I could hire a proffesional pianist to play them for 
me, without the need to spend hours making it sound good. 

Midi Magic


--- In disklavier@yahoogroups.com, Tom Wheeler  wrote:
  

For what it's worth, I would like to chime in and add my two cents 
    

about 
  

scanning in music.

Let me begin by saying that I am an adult trying to learn to play 
    

my 
  

DC3A disklavier.  After spending a year with Voyetra's "Teach Me 
    

Piano" 
  

software which I enjoyed very much and felt was an excellent way to 
begin to learn to play the piano (for an adult), I began taking one 
    

hour 
  

per week piano lessons slightly over one year ago.  The core of my 
instruction has been the Suzuki Piano Method and I am now on the 
    

3rd 
  

selection in book 4 of this method for those familiar with the 
    

method. 
  

 In addition my instructor always assigns me classical pieces from 
several other books including the Hanon and Czerny technical 
    

materials. 
  

 I would thus classify myself as a very inexperienced student 
    

attempting 
  

to learn the piano.

I began scanning in sheet music about two years ago using Smart 
    

Score 
  

and Finale.  Smart Score V. 1.3 (which I began with) did a very 
    

poor job 
  

in terms of scanning accuracy although this improved somewhat when 
    

I 
  

purchased a newer Epson flatbed scanner.  I can definitely state 
    

that 
  

the quality of the scanner plays an important role in scanning 
    

music in 
  

terms of the accuracy of the results.  Another important issue is 
    

the 
  

interface between the scanning program and the notation program.  
    

It is 
  

always necessary to correct errors, add dynamics, musical 
    

expressions, 
  

text, etc. in the notation program.  Finale and Smart Score work 
together, but in my opinion not very well.  It is necessary to save 
    

a 
  

Smart Score music scan as a .fin file which must then be imported 
    

into 
  

Finale.  The importation into Finale introduces errors that were 
    

not 
  

present in the scan requiring further correction.  Furthermore, in 
    

my 
  

opinion, Finale has a difficult learning curve (I have been using 
    

it 
  

steadily for 2 years and I still find myself referring constantly 
    

to the 
  

manual).  While Smart Score has improved significantly with Version 
    

2.1 
  

(currently latest version), it still has problems including the 
    

fact 
  

that my computer (running Windows 2000 Pro on a 1.8 GHZ Pentium 4 
    

with 1 
  

GB of memory) crashes after every single time that I use Smart 
    

Score. 
  

 (No other software that I have produces these crashes but Smart 
    

Score.)  
  

Recently (about two months ago) I purchased Sibelius 2.1 and its 
associated scanning program (Photoscore Pro).  These two programs 
    

are 
  

tightly integrated although Photoscore is more limited in its 
recognition of musical symbols than Smart Score.  Both Sibelius 2.1 
    

and 
  

Photoscore Pro 2.1 are very very stable.  I have never experienced 
    

a 
  

crash with either program even when running other programs and 
    

using 
  

them for hours.  Photoscore's note accuracy in music scanning is 
excellent with my Epson flatbed scanner.  With all of that said, to 
    

get 
  

a piece to play with correct interpretations of the dynamics and 
    

other 
  

expressions in the score requires extensive editing in Sibelius. 
 Fortunately Sibelius is much more intuitive to use than Finale, 
    

and in 
  

only 2 months of working with it I feel far more competent to edit 
notation in Sibelius than in Finale.  Further, Sibelius has some 
    

very 
  

interesting artificial intelligence algorithms which can, to some 
extent, interpret correct musical phrasing and apply rubato in 
controlled amounts to the midi playback of the piece.  I find that 
    

the 
  

playback of Sibelius files on my computer using an Creative Live 
Platinum sound card is very good, and the playback of dynamics and 
pedaling on my Yamaha disklavier DC3A is also very good.  

No one should believe that music scanning can produce a file that 
    

plays 
  

back with all of the expressional nuances that an excellent pianist 
    

can 
  

incorporate into a piece.  We are years away from that point, and 
    

in 
  

fact, I would seriously doubt that computers will every seriously 
challenge a good pianist in terms of playback.  With that said, I 
    

do 
  

find the playback of the music that I have scanned in using 
    

Photoscore 
  

and edited in Sibelius and Finale to be musically satisfying.  That 
statement may reveal more about my lack of musical sophistication 
    

than 
  

anything else, but I have also had these files played back for 
    

others 
  

(including pianists) who are quite amazed and pleased with the 
    

quality 
  

of the playback.  

The bottom line is that scanning in of  polyphonic music (which 
    

nearly 
  

all piano music is) is not a trivial or inexpensive process. It 
    

requires 
  

a great deal of patience to learn these programs, understand what 
    

they 
  

can and cannot do, and a willingness to spend many hours to build 
    

the 
  

kind of playback that will satisfy most,  but not the most 
discriminating listeners. However, it can be done, and the results 
    

of 
  

music scanning have been most helpful to me in learning new pieces, 
    

and 
  

in listening to a wide assortment of music on the web for Finale 
    

and 
  

Sibelius.  

Tom
    

------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/O10svD/Me7FAA/AG3JAA/MlLolB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

To Post a message to the group, send it to:   disklavier@...

To Post a private message to Todd Muncy, the group's founder and moderator, send it to:
disklavier-owner@...

To reach our group's web site go to:
http://Yahoogroups.com/group/disklavier

Todd's family web site was completely updated 01/15/03.  It contains some fun disklavier content and links to midi sites among many other things, The url is:
http://MuncyFamily.com 

THINKING OF LEAVING THE GROUP?
If you are thinking of unsubcribing because you are getting too much mail, go the the web site and change your email delivery option instead.  That will fix the problem, while maintaining your access to the group.  If you insist on leaving us completely send a blank email to:
disklavier-unsubscribe@yahooGroups.com 

Know someone who wants to join?  Have them send a blank email to:
disklavier-subscribe@... or give them this link:
http://Yahoogroups.com/group/disklavier/join 
 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 



  

To Post a message to the group, send it to: disklavier@...

To Post a private message to Todd Muncy, the group's founder and moderator, send it to:
disklavier-owner@...

To reach our group's web site go to:
http://Yahoogroups.com/group/disklavier

Todd's family web site was completely updated 01/15/03. It contains some fun disklavier content and links to midi sites among many other things, The url is:
http://MuncyFamily.com

THINKING OF LEAVING THE GROUP?
If you are thinking of unsubcribing because you are getting too much mail, go the the web site and change your email delivery option instead. That will fix the problem, while maintaining your access to the group. If you insist on leaving us completely send a blank email to:
disklavier-unsubscribe@...

Know someone who wants to join? Have them send a blank email to:
disklavier-subscribe@... or give them this link:
http://Yahoogroups.com/group/disklavier/join


Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.