Making a video of a MuseScore piano piece

• May 29, 2020 - 12:26

First, please tell me if I'm breaking any forum rules or etiquette by posting this (maybe there's a rule about self-promoting one's music on this particular forum?) but I just completed a YouTube instructional video of one of my piano pieces ("Rock Song") and I thought I'd share a few tips on how I did it. (My intention is not to showcase the music itself but the methods I used). If I'm in breach of any code I will remove this post.

So, to make the video (below), after composing the music and inputting notes into MS via a laptop keyboard, adding voicings, articulations, dynamics etc, I:

  1. Set up a MuseScore template with page dimensions to 1920x1080 pixels (the dimensions of a HD video screen);
  2. Copied the score to this template
  3. Tweaked the score to look visually attractive
  4. Zoomed in so the score filled the screen
  5. Captured the playback using ShareX (open source screen capture programme) as an mp4 video.
  6. Exported the score as a music XML file.
    Then:
  7. Imported the XML file into Cubase 7
  8. Made the backing track (and the other performance tracks) in Cubase 7, by adding instrumental tracks (I played these in via a music keyboard). I used the following sounds:
    Piano: my beloved Garritan Authorised Steinway VST (purchased some years ago, no longer available unfortunately)
    Bass: Scarbee Bass Guitar library I purchased years ago
    Drums: the standard "Stereo GM Kit" from Halion SE (bundled with Cubase 7)
    Guitars: 1) a guitar soundfont I got from the "soundfonts" category of this site by Mr.Ichiyanagi (Classical-Guitar_Ichiyanagi-v1_03-SF2) and2)) a rhythm guitar track created with "Acoustic Strummer" (a purchased VST instrument by Native Instruments) https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/guitar/session-…
    Strings: Project SAM free orchestra : https://projectsam.com/libraries/the-free-orchestra/
    10 Exported the audio tracks as mp3 files
    Then:
  9. Opened Shotcut (open source video editor) https://shotcut.org/
  10. Imported the mp4 (from step 5) and the mp3s (from step 10) into video and audio tracks on the timeline
  11. Did some artistic design work for the background and slide in/out banners and added the text
  12. Cropped and positioned the MuseScore piano mp4 video and overlayed it over the background
  13. Synced the backing tracks to the video by positioning the backing tracks carefully on the audio track on the timeline
  14. Exported the Shotcut project as an mp4 video (in HD resolution - (1920x1080)
  15. Uploaded to Youtube and wrote the YouTube description notes.

Ta - DA - here's the result:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUKcAKK53s&t


Comments

Nice job. Just the effort of #1-4 plus tweaking gave me a clear view with good contrast. Very much in the foreground. I don't do any video or much formatting/sizing but from what I have seen this is good. ( I wonder what happens when the score becomes very dense and bigger.) Maybe the key is to pick out a part, zoom in, and put the rest on backing tracks.

A fine job...

This was a good candidate for the "Made with MuseScore" forum which touts:
"Show off what you've scored with MuseScore."
… and where you can attach the actual MuseScore (mscz) file for any interested MuseScorers to use. (Maybe next time.)

See the various forum descriptions here:
https://musescore.org/en/forum

(P.S. Would be nice to mention MuseScore on that YouTube site ;-)

In reply to by Jm6stringer

Thank you. And thanks for your two ideas - 1) of posting it on the "Made With Musecore" forum and 2) mentioning MuseScore on the YouTube site. never though of that !! :-( I'll add a comment to the YT description.

I also tried to edit the post by taking out some of the detail regarding Cubase but the edit option seems to be missing. Is there a time limit between posting something and being able to edit it?

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