SmartScore 64 is a
music OCR
Optical music recognition (OMR) is a field of research that investigates how to computationally read musical notation in documents. The goal of OMR is to teach the computer to read and interpret sheet music and produce a machine-readable version o ...
and
scorewriter
A scorewriter, or music notation program is software for creating, editing and printing sheet music. A scorewriter is to music notation what a word processor is to text, in that they typically provide flexible editing and automatic layout, and pr ...
program, developed, published and distributed by Musitek Corporation based in
Ojai
Ojai ( ; Chumash: ''’Awhaỳ'') is a city in Ventura County, California. Located in the Ojai Valley, it is northwest of Los Angeles and east of Santa Barbara. The valley is part of the east–west trending Western Transverse Ranges and is ...
, California.
History
SmartScore was originally released in 1991 as MIDISCAN for Windows. The product line was later changed to "SmartScore" and re-released for
Windows 98
Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...
in 1998, and for the
Macintosh Power PC in 1999 as a scanning/scoring hybrid product.
Software
SmartScore is a software product which performs
optical character recognition
Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a scen ...
on scanned music and converts it into a digital musical score that can be played back as a
MIDI
MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...
file, or exported as
MusicXML
MusicXML is an XML-based file format for representing Western musical notation. The format iopen fully documented, and can be freely used under the W3C Community Final Specification Agreement.
History
MusicXML was invented by Michael Good and ini ...
to
music engraving
Music engraving is the art of drawing music notation at high quality for the purpose of mechanical reproduction. The term ''music copying'' is almost equivalent—though ''music engraving'' implies a higher degree of skill and quality, usually f ...
programs such as
Sibelius
Jean Sibelius ( ; ; born Johan Julius Christian Sibelius; 8 December 186520 September 1957) was a Finnish composer of the late Romantic and early-modern periods. He is widely regarded as his country's greatest composer, and his music is often ...
and
Finale.
[
]
Reception
Maximum PC reviewed SmartScore in 2000 and said that it "gets the job done easily", but was difficult to navigate and had a crowded layout. Also, some scores scanned by Maximum PC weren't recognized by the software.[Daevid Vincent (January 2000)]
Makin' Madness: Put on your boogie shoes
''Maximum PC'' 5 (1): 94. ISSN 1522-4279. Accessed July 2013.
Researchers at the University of Florence
The University of Florence (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'', UniFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled.
History
The first universi ...
conducted a performance assessment of optical music recognition software in 2007, and found that software developed at the University, Object Oriented Optical Music Recognition System, as well as SharpEye 2 outperformed it.[Pierfrancesco Bellini, Ivan Bruno and Paolo Nesi (Spring 2007)]
Assessing Optical Music Recognition Tools
''Computer Music Journal'' 31 (1): 68–93.
In 2009, a review of SmartScore X in ''Music Educators Journal'' found the scanning performance to be "extremely accurate" with professionally engraved music, but said the program was only able to "minimally interpret" handwritten scores. The reviewer stated that the user interface was confusing even for advanced users, and that the manual offered "little or no help, especially for the novice".[Adam Michlin (June 2009)]
SmartScore X eMedia Music Corp (review)
''Music Educators Journal'' 95 (4): 16.
In 2011 a review in ''PC World'' said the results with clearly printed sheet music were accurate, but that the interface had too many floating and docked toolbars. The reviewer said there was "no more effective musical OCR/editor on the market", but that PhotoScore 6 Ultimate gave superior results with handwritten music.[Jon L. Jacobi (February 2011)]
SmartScore X Pro (review)
''PC World''. Accessed August 2013.
See also
* List of music software
This is a list of software for creating, performing, learning, analyzing, researching, broadcasting and editing music. This article only includes software, not services. For streaming services such as iHeartRadio, Pandora, Prime Music, and Spotify, ...
References
External links
*
{{Scorewriters
Music OCR software
Scorewriters