Other Stuff: Transposing sheet music
This is something you can do yourself. I probably can't do it much better than anybody else but I've at least got used to using the software which takes anybody a while. Anyway there are several packages that can do the job. The one I use is Music Publisher from Braeburn Software which I can highly recommend.
OCR is optical character recognition. If you scan a text document you get an image of the page. For all the computer knows the image is an image - it might just as well be a country scene. OCR is the process of going through the image and trying to recognise words in a particular language. When it has recognised all the words it can it gives you a file of the words that your word processor can read. When that has been done successfully you can then edit the document in your word processor. But if the original document was a bit scrappy, such as old newsprint, the OCR process can go badly wrong and serve up a whole lot of rubbish. If it's medium bad, you get a lot of correct stuff and also a lot of garbage and you can if you like go through it manually and correct it.
Scanning music is no different. Even perfect originals can throw up odd bits and missing bits when it is interpreted by the OCR engine.
So it's a time consuming business. I don't have an A3 scanner so if the original is bigger than A4 I have to do it in two halves. If the original is in poor condition then I would probably have to abandon it if the result of the scan is unworkable.
Now we all know that 'Photocopying music is wrong' and I have no wish to fall foul of anyone's copyright. But I am happy to use a scan to produce a transposed version which is often needed by choirs and instrumentalists.
In my own case I help out with doing a sing-song for a residential home. Wartime music is of course very popular for this sort of group and here's a bit of 'Take me Back to Dear Old Blighty' for example. Click on the images if you want to see larger versions.
The top note of the tune is E flat and the residents were struggling with reaching it. Well no, they didn't struggle; they declared that it's way too high. Now I can't sight-read and transpose and smile at everybody at the same time (I have some difficulty doing all these things separately), so I put the music through the scanner and put it down from B flat to G. Then everyone was happy.
You may notice that while it does the job for the pianist, the line of do-re-mis in the original has gone because it was so garbled in the scan.
So what I'm offering is admittedly an imperfect, hit-and-miss service, but it may well be a life-saver for any group that can't hit the top notes or any instrumentalists trying to marry up two or more disparate instruments.I would charge £5 per sheet if it is straightforward, or possibly more at the rate of £5 per hour if it isn't. If it's going to be more than £5 I'll give you a quote before continuing. If I fail miserably I shall of course let you know and charge nothing.
Email me if you are interested at .
But if you are interested please read the rest of page VERY CAREFULLY!
Guarantee
There is no guarantee. The result should be pretty good but you are expected to check it over and play it through before performing in earnest. The value of the service is no more than the cost of the service so if you really are dissatisfied for good reason I will reimburse what you have paid me. If I have given you a duff note and ten thousand people ask for their £70 ticket money back, don't send the bill to me.
The sheet music
The quality of the original music is important. The better it is the better the process will work. But do not use scanned or photocopied music as the original as this will never produce a decent result.
You are of course welcome to send me your music but many of my customers would rather not send off their actual music sheets by post and would prefer to send me their own scan of them.
If you are sending me a scan, DON'T DO IT LIKE THIS!
DON'T just stick it in the scanner, and hit the scan button. Even if the result looks very good.
If you are sending me a scan, DO IT LIKE THIS!
There is a lot of variation in how things are shown in different scanning programs. The pictures are just a guide as to what it might look like.
Set the Scan 'type' setting
Put the sheet music in the scanner as straight as possible. Set the scan to Text or OCR or Black and White or Monochrome or 1-bit colour depth or 2 colour. If asked for bits per pixel choose 1-bit. If you can't find such a setting then select Black and White.
Set the Scan resolution
For normal sized music, around A4, the resolution should be set at 300 dots per inch if available, or higher such as 400dpi. If you have very small music you could select 400 dpi or even 600 dpi but otherwise there is no real reason to select higher resolutions.
Set the output file setting
Please choose BMP for the output file, or failing that GIF, but not JPG.
When you've scanned the first sheet of music, STOP.
Please don't then reach for the second sheet of music. Please send just the first page so that I have a chance to test it out. If half the first page is a title and blank space, send the second page instead. Even if you've done it correctly if the quality of the original is not very high the scan may be unusable. Then I'll either give you the green light for the rest or suggest changes in the settings or tell you that unfortunately I won't be able to do it. Remember even if it looks good to the human eye, it may not be good enough for the machine.
If you are having difficulties finding the right settings, please email me for help.