Transposing software question.

VimFuego

1st off, sorry for asking an actual music question, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

I want to get hold of some software (I don't mind paying for it) that will allow me to import sheet music in something like PDF format and allow me to transpose or edit them, is there anything out there that will allow that?

drofluf

I think you'll struggle to find something that will scan a pdf and convert to notation, but I'm happy to be proved wrong on that.

I use Tabledit to take notation and transpose, produce tabs and even convert tabs to alternate proper tunings

You can enter from scratch or import abc, xml files etc.

Now go and do penance for asking about music

Jalapeno

The ones i've tried have been pretty crappy - they were to import sheet music into Sibelius or the like.  I've typed the notation into packages before to convert melodies into Tab, once you know the keyboard shortcuts it isn't as painful as it sounds. The correct answer of course is to lead to read music

However .... the IOS App Unreal Book App can transpose tune keys so it ought to be possible.

axisus

Sounds impossible!

More feasible would be to go via midi music file. Much more likely to be something there that will transpose, and there is usually a show score feature to print from.

VimFuego

Jalapeno said:

The ones i've tried have been pretty crappy - they were to import sheet music into Sibelius or the like.  I've typed the notation into packages before to convert melodies into Tab, once you know the keyboard shortcuts it isn't as painful as it sounds. The correct answer of course is to lead to read music

However .... the IOS App Unreal Book App can transpose tune keys so it ought to be possible.

I can read music (to an extent, still struggle with non normal time sigs), what I struggle with is transposing from notation written for concert pitched instruments into Bb or Eb. My plan was to download scores from t'internet and have some fancy bit of gubbins transpose it to Bb or Eb for me. Probably will be easier to type it into a package, as you say, and then get it to transpose for me (or learn to transpose in my head, but that makes me head hurty).

ArchtopDave

Two things. Musicnotes, in particular the Pro version, allows you to download sheet music as PDF's in different keys. Also, something like forScore allows editing, plus you can download Musicnotes purchases direct into forScore.

Jalapeno

Eb/Bb are easy - Bb is up a tone/2 frets, Eb down a tone & half/3 frets. Learned it from discussing what key a tune is with Tenor/Alto Sax players, (versus "Concert")

fretmeister

https://www.musicrepo.com/music-scanning-software/

It mentions Playscore 2 as being able to do this.

There's a vid. Not watched it myself, but might be helpful.

VimFuego

Jalapeno said:

Eb/Bb are easy - Bb is up a tone/2 frets, Eb down a tone & half/3 frets. Learned it from discussing what key a tune is with Tenor/Alto Sax players, (versus "Concert")

yup, I know that, what I struggle with is transposing as I'm playing from a score in C whilst playing a Bb or Eb instrument (basically I've been given a bunch of scores for C instruments and been asked to play them on an Eb instrument). If I have the dots in front of me, I don't have to.

@fretmeister that links looks excellent, thanks. 

Snags

I used to use Noteworthy Composer for this when I was doing sheet music for people with stupid instruments who were too stupid to do it in their heads my wife and other band members who played non-C parts. Or for when they wanted to do a song but not in the published key (very common with modern (at the time - it's a while ago) God-bothering music, which is almost always recorded by castrated blokes trying to be Bono).

Well, apart from the "scanning a PDF" thing, that you're going to be right out of luck on. I just used to type in the relevant bits of the score and then bump it up or down.

The other possibility, depending on how many songs etc. might be a subscription to one of the online music services where you can get the score and transpose it before downloading. That does rely on one source having most of what you're interested in at a reasonable cost, but it can work out fairly effective, and a single part/single song is normally only a quid or two a go, which is better than an hour fucking about typing it in.

stratman3142

I just tried it with Musescore 3 and it seemed to get the notes on the stave for the example I tried. Although I have to admit the pdf was originally created as an export from Musescore.

I clicked on 'Import PDF' within Musescore 3, which took me to a weblink. I had to sign in (I'm already registered with Musescore). It says it's an experimental feature.

At the weblink, I uploaded a pdf and a Musescore file was emailed back to me.

viz

The other option of course (if the music isn't too complicated and people only need to know the harmony as they can remember the melody) is just to write out a chord sheet in roman numerals - ie agnostic of key.