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I am helping someone who plays pedal harp and needs to do extensive arranging of songs that are available as PDF files or are simply printed sheet music . . .
 I recall reading posts in the forum where folks are doing this, so I would like recommendations on which software to use . . . It's on the Mac, and the software needs to run in macOS, but then I need to get the music notation onto an iPad which will be running NOTION Mobile, although doing some of the work on a MacBook Pro or a 27" iMac (2019) running macOS Sonoma is possible, since both are loaded with the same apps, sample sound libraries, and effects plug-ins I use, which basically is so complex it's like flying a spaceship or running a Fortune 100 corporation . . . NOTION Mobile The pedal harpist has been using an iOS app called "forScore" and doing arranging via annotations, but it's not a user-friendly app--at least if you are software engineer and are accustomed to macOS and Windows GUI style MS-DOS and UNIX file-focused concepts like {open, save, and save as}.  forScore I have not done much with an iPad, but I have 50 years experience doing Windows and Apple software development, yet I tried for two hours to discover how to save a song in "forScore". [NOTE: The Graphic User Interface (GUI) reminds me of what in the late-1950s was called "new math" and made no sense to me or my father (Electrical Engineer, EE). The best example of this is the house where a fellow who thought the moon was 60 miles away and earth is flat decided floor joists should be positioned sideways like a diving board rather than vertically. He also thought it made no difference the way white (neutral), black (hot), and ground wires were connected. It was not my house but was a neighbors' house, and the floor was bouncy and they got electric jolts depending on which electric outlets they used. I helped them make corrections; and it was in a very rural county where the only building code was for water wells and septic tanks, so folks could do all sorts of building stuff regardless of whether it made any actual sense. On the good side, the fellow did something similar to what Frank Lloyd Wright did with concrete and geometric designs, which was to make a plywood mold; put leaves and small branches on the bottom; and then pour various colors of concrete to make walkway "tiles" with botanical designs, which was very nice. Otherwise, the fellow was an idiot.  ]"forScore" has a scanning app, but reports are that it's not good, hence is not a solution for getting the music notation into NOTION and NOTION Mobile . . . It's the most frustrating app I have used in over 50 years, hence the idea to switch to NOTION Mobile . . .  This is what I think will work: (1) Get a song in PDF or as printed sheet music and convert it to music notation via software. [NOTE: If printed sheet music, then take photos and convert to PDF, and then convert PDF to music notation (MusicXML) for import to NOTION and NOTION Mobile.] (2) Import the music notation (MusicXML) to NOTION and NOTION Mobile and do edits. (3) Export from NOTION or NOTION Mobile as PDF and import to "forScorre" on iPad, which is useful for its very nice page turning abilities and working as digital sheet music but on an iPad. The key is being able to get a song in PDF or printed sheet music converted to music notion (MusicXML) so I can import it to NOTION 6 and then get it into NOTION Mobile for editing and annotating and then exporting as PDF to import to "forScore" . . . Thanks in advance for suggestions and help on this . . . Lots of FUN! 
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With the caveat that I have no knowledge of music for harp, here is what I do regularly.
If I have a PDF, I try PDFtoMusic Pro first. This software will only touch published music or music printed by the major notation software products. If it works, it works the best. Otherwise, I use ScanScore 3 Pro. This can take a PDF or can use your scanner to input music. The editor to make corrections is powerful, but I prefer to export directly (with the scanning errors) to Music XML and make the corrections in Notion Desktop 6. If you are scanning, two things are critical: a clean copy (not a photocopy of a photocopy with lots of pencil marks), and careful attention to the document orientation in the scanner. Once I have a score in Notion, I save it to PDF, load that into ForScore, and place it in the appropriate setlist. |
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I purchased a license for ScanScore, and it's nice.
It's not perfect, and how well it recognizes notes and music notation depends on the quality and characteristics of the photos . . . This is one of the experiments I did:  This is how it looks when imported as MusicXML in NOTION 6 prior to editing and making corrections:  This is how it looks after I made some corrections--mostly adding missing bar lines:  The original version is a photo taken of the screen of an iPad running "forScore--with a bit of cropping . . . Considering the quality of the photo, I think ScanScore Professional 3.0.6 did a reasonably good job . . . Then I did a second experiment . . . I purchased an arrangement of "She's Leaving Home" (Beatles) and did some editing, which included adding a staff in NOTION 6 for MODO BASS (IK Multimedia) to enhance the deep bass, which is one of the harps from EW Composer Cloud "Hollywood Harps" . . . The EW Composer Cloud "Hollywood Harp" I selected was not a Concert Harp--or at least did not have the full pitch range--so I had to edit some of the bass notes. Then I added MODO BASS and copied the edited bass staff notes to the new MODO BASS staff. In retrospect, I probably should have copied the original bass notes to the MODO BASS staff in NOTION 6 before doing edits to move the notes into the range of the sampled notes, but so what . . . [NOTE: It's "She's Leaving Home (arr. Jim Palmer)" purchased from Sheet Music Direct for $5.40, including sales tax. This the MP3 version exported from Audacity, so it's smaller than the higher resolution 32-bit WAV audio . The purchased arrangement was supplied as a high-quality PDF file, and ScanScore did a nearly perfect job of converting it to MusicXML, which I then imported to NOTION 6. The MODO BASS is a VSTi Gibson EB-0, which IK Multimedia calls a "Devil Bass". I did some producing and audio engineering, including adjusting the panning and adding some reverb from T-RackS 5 (IK Multimedia) "CSR Plate" and EW Composer Cloud "Spaces II, along with T-RackS 5 "White 2A" compressor-limiters on both harp staves, observing that ScanScore has the option to split a Grand Staff into two separate staves, which was handy for doing the MOTO BASS enhancement . . . ] White 2A Leveling Amplifier (IK Multimedia)  [NOTE: EW Composer Cloud "Hollywood Harp" has a full-range concert harp, but at the time I did not know this, hence the producing and audio engineering technique of enhancing it with MODO BASS . . . ]phpBB [audio] I like the various harps from Vienna Symphonic Library, so depending on the price I might purchase them . . . It's $131 USD based on the current pounds to dollars ratio, so it's not too expensive, and the quality is superb . . . Harps (Vienna Symphonic Library) Lots of FUN!
Last edited by Surf.Whammy on Sun Mar 17, 2024 3:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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The Surf Whammys Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution! |
madisonfinley wroteWith the caveat that I have no knowledge of music for harp, here is what I do regularly. Very helpful! "forScore" has what for me is a totally unintuitive Graphic User Interface (GUI), but after trying to make sense of it for several hours, it's starting to make a bit of sense . . . For reference, I have done Windows and macOS software development for over 50 years, and the MS-DOS and UNIX file concepts for me are intuitive . . . I switched from Windows to macOS about 25 years ago, but I did some work in Windows for a while . . . "forScore" uses a different way to manage what actually are files; so when I look for "Save" or "Save As . . . ", it's not there; and there is no "File" menu . . . If you connect an iPad to an iMac, you can see the actual files in Finder; so the files are there but not so obviously . . . The data management concept in "forScore" reminds me of "new math" from the late-1950s, which made no sense to me or my father (an Electrical Engineer [EE]) . . . It never made sense, but my recollection is that it was something like "combining two and two into a Neo-socialist entity or collective feels best when it's a foursome" . . .  Nevertheless, the page turning in "forScore" is very nice, and it works on the iPad . . . Lots of FUN!
Surf.Whammy's YouTube Channel
The Surf Whammys Sinkhorn's Dilemma: Every paradox has at least one non-trivial solution! |
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"forScore" has what for me is a totally unintuitive Graphic User Interface (GUI), but after trying to make sense of it for several hours, it's starting to make a bit of sense . . ."
I agree, it takes some getting used to. I had to crack the manual to find out how to use Setlists, but now that I have, it's indispensable. |
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