Bugs in Songbook

• Feb 9, 2016 - 10:05

1. Every time I open a .mscz file from the website which give you a choice to open it in different apps from which Songbook is one, then if I open it in the Songbook it shows the file but it skows also an error message. Just clicking the file removes this. Not a real problem. On the other hand I can understand it because if opening the file it crashes in about 10-20% of the time. Tryïng the second time I always succeed but it still shows the error message.

2. If downloading "Satanic Blues" in PDF it is a correct file. If downloading it as .mscz in the Songbook the file is one octave transposed up. Very strange. This is the only file until now. Compare two attached results.

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Comments

Looks like the score was saved with "Concert Pitch" turned on. I don't know if the iOS app supports concert pitch mode, so that might explain why it is transposing, and for all I know might explain the error message as well.

I just tried with a very simple score for Bb clarinet saved online with Concert Pitch turned on and got the same result transposition-wise (no error message though) - the notes were transposed, chord symbols left at concert pitch.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

The error message is a different issue. If downloading from Safari it asks how you want to open the file and then you activate "Open with Songbook" For every song (the songbook app is not open) it starts to open the Songbook and then it comes up with the downloaded song with an error message 'Fault could not open the sheet music' although it did open the music.
So the message doesn't make sense. Now and then it will not open anything and completely crashes. So it looks if most times it just made it but it produced already an error message.
However if it crashes error messages cannot be shown by defenition. If it crashes a second try always succeeds. Attached file is in Dutch.

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In reply to by Marc Sabatella

The "Satanic Blues" and the "Concert Pitch" mess.

The remark from Marc Sabatella quote: "It looks like it has been saved with Concert Pitch on" did activate me to really investigate the origin of this problem.

Normally switching the Concert Pitch on/off status doesn't effect the result. Because of the imho strange Dutch translation of Concert Pitch in "Werkelijke toonhoogte" ( true pitch) it really didn't ring any bells to me before, also because mostly nothing happened if I switched it.

The real trouble seems to be caused if the "tranpose action" is saved in the files.
Since I did collect files and sometimes transpose files with as well Sibelius 7, MS 1.3 or MS 2.0.2 I tried to figure out what caused the problem. Those particular files originated from Sibelius 7 and were exported as MusicXML, batch imported into MS 1.3 and saved as .mscz, which was used in MS 1.3 and MS 2.0.2. Somewhere in this chain the files might have been transposed by myself or the guy who gave me the files.

The typical problem arises when the "transpose info" becomes indicated in the saved file itself whether it is the MusicXML or the .mscz.
So in the MusicXML this "transpose info" may look like (read brackets as html tags):
(transpose)
(diatonic)-5(/diatonic)
(chromatic)-9(/chromatic)
(/transpose)
The result of opening such a file in MS 1.3 or MS 2.0.2 (valid for .mscz as well for the MusicXML) the Concert Pitch switching on/off will show different keys and may sound sometimes the same or different. The problem is that the results for as well MS 1.3 , MS 2.0.2 and the Songbook are all different and inconsistent making those files quite unusable imho.

Once this transpose info is present in the file I didn't succeed to get rid of it otherwise then just deleting this "transpose info" in the file itself then open it in MS 2.0.2 and correct the result by transposing it back untill it is what I wanted.

In order to discover if MS 2.0.2 ever (or even MS 1.3) did save the file differently with Concert Pitch on or off or did ever save a transposed file differently when it were transposed with Concert Pitch on or off I did do multiple trials but I did never could re-create a file which contained this "transpose info action" in the file itself. So I just guess that this transpose action in the files were introduced by Sibelius 7. And checking all 5 songs I found with the same problem I noticed they all came as MusicXML saved from Sibelius.

Conclusions:
1. Imported files that contain "transpose information" don't show a consistent interpretation if read by MS 1.3, MS 2.0.2 or the Songbook. This might be an issue that needs attention, especially since actions performed by switching the Concert Pitch do have a complete different result for 1.3, 2.0.2 and the Songbook with such file. I don't know what is correct.
2. It seems that MS 1.3 nor MS 2.0.2 ever produce files by themself which contain transposing info if saved in any format independant from the position of the Concert Pitch switch OR I'm not yet aware how to produce such a file with Musescore.
3. Preventing problems when importing MusicXML files containing "transpose information" can be done by deleting this at forehand, and so I will check my XML files before importing them.
4. Files from Sibelius easily seem to contain this kind of transpose information when saved as MusicXML especially if the file has been used to produce different instrument key outputs I guess.

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