how to combine to mscz scores

• Oct 5, 2021 - 10:00

Greetings
First mscz is for 1st instrument and second mscz is for 2nd instrument.
Is there a way to combine 2 single instrument scores into one double instrument score?
Of course I can take the first score, add instrument, and copy the second instrument in the second score and paste it into the empty second instrument in the first score
There must be an easier way than copy & paste
thank you


Comments

Hard to get that much easier than three keystrokes for what is a very rare operation! But for the record, normally one should create the score for both instruments to begin with and enter the music there rather than in two different scores.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I am not typing the scores. I use OCR to create the musicxml from the PDFs. This saves a lot of time, but it is sadly not capable enough to do what you suggest.

it takes a little more than 3 commands to then create a new score combining the parts, but it's not overwhelming. While the OP is right, a utility function to do the same thing would be nice, it is not likely to rise to the top of anybody's priority list.

For the student/amateur chamber groups I work with, having a combined score is a valuable resource for practice.

I am surprised that others are not trying to do the same.

In reply to by tejjy

Should be a very simple matter to add two more instruments to the score containing the first. It's conceivable a plugin could somehow automate some of the process, although working with multiple files at once might not currently be possible for plugins

No doubt you're not the only one using PDF scanning programs to enter individual parts in cases where the score has been lost. But since PDF scanning tends to create tons of errors that often take at least as long to find and fix as entering the music normally, most people trying to recreate scores from parts probably do simply enter the music themselves for better results.

So while I'm sure you're not unique, there probably aren't a ton of people trying to do what you are, and again, it's not like it's that hard to copy & paste. Which would probably explain why no one has yet volunteered to implement something else. Could still happen, of course, if one of the people doing this often devices it could save enough time to make it worth their while to design & implement a facility to assist with this process.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

OMR of a single instrument is not to bad and it can be corrected if there are too many errors on the OMR level, e.g. Audiveris. Performing OMR of a complete orchestral score is a completely different issue.

Normally I'm using Lilypond and there I engrave the individual instrumental parts first. To establish the score, you just link the individual instruments into the score so it's quite simple

In MuseScore, the process is different, i.e. you first create the score and then the parts.

Now in MuseScore I'm "playing around" a little with a score (23 instruments 2 SATB choir and one children choir with some 800 measures) of a piece I engraved in Lilypond some time ago. My process is the following.

  1. Create a new score in MuseScore with the required instruments
  2. Perform OMR of each instrument part, i.e. the PDF output from Lilypond
  3. Import the xml files into MuseScore and Perform Copy and Paste of the individual instruments into the prepared score

So far it's working ok but I'm not yet ready and it's not straight forward to combine instruments (e.g. oboe 1 and 2, horn 1 and 2 etc) to a single stave respecting for example the dynamics. Also key changes, change of time signature, copy and paste of other music expressions is not flawless. I find the MuseScore forum is good, thanks for that, and I'm picking up ideas, solutions, work arounds as needed.

Another issue is that MuseScore, with maybe half done, now behaves rather sluggish and sometimes crashes. Let's see if MuseScore can handle the complete piece.

I've not even tried to set up the piece with the "new" Muse Sounds instruments as playback is only, for me at least, a nice to have feature. Hence, the standard muse sounds are sufficient.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

OMR of a single instrument is not to bad and it can be corrected if there are too many errors on the OMR level, e.g. Audiveris. Performing OMR of a complete orchestral score is a completely different issue.

Normally I'm using Lilypond and there I engrave the individual instrumental parts first. To establish the score, you just link the individual instruments into the score so it's quite simple

In MuseScore, the process is different, i.e. you first create the score and then the parts.

Now in MuseScore I'm "playing around" a little with a score (23 instruments 2 SATB choir and one children choir with some 800 measures) of a piece I engraved in Lilypond some time ago. My process is the following.

  1. Create a new score in MuseScore with the required instruments
  2. Perform OMR of each instrument part, i.e. the PDF output from Lilypond
  3. Import the xml files into MuseScore and Perform Copy and Paste of the individual instruments into the prepared score

So far it's working ok but I'm not yet ready and it's not straight forward to combine instruments (e.g. oboe 1 and 2, horn 1 and 2 etc) to a single stave respecting for example the dynamics. Also key changes, change of time signature, copy and paste of other music expressions is not flawless. I find the MuseScore forum is good, thanks for that, and I'm picking up ideas, solutions, work arounds as needed.

Another issue is that MuseScore, with maybe half done, now behaves rather sluggish and sometimes crashes. Let's see if MuseScore can handle the complete piece.

I've not even tried to set up the piece with the "new" Muse Sounds instruments as playback is only, for me at least, a nice to have feature. Hence, the standard muse sounds are sufficient.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

I am convinced that copy & paste is the best way but when it comes to scores of 15 pages it is a bit of work.
Musescore ocr (getting the program to recognize musical notes) is far from satisfactoty.
I recommend SmartScore Pro (not free). I have only few surprises once in a long time, since PDFs have different quality

In reply to by TomStrand

I'm not understanding how that could make any difference. Ctrl+A selects the entire content of the part regardless of its length, number of movements, or key/time signature changes. So assuming you are pasting it into the same score you've already set up for one part (so those structural elements are already in place), it is again, precisely the same series of keystrokes or clicks either no. Literally not a single difference whether you are copying one measure or 1000, whether it's one movement or 10, whether there is a single key & time signature or 100,

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

> regardless of its length, number of movements, or key/time signature changes.

Does MuS 4 copy time signature/key signature changes?
MuS 3.x does not copy this, nor does it copy tempo markings, repeat bar lines, rehearsal marks and probably other things.
All these things need to be in place before the copy/paste process takes place.
I think that's what tommy_strandberg@web.de meant.
As you said, you need to have at least one staff with all these things already defined.

In reply to by HildeK

But that's exactly my point - if you are combining parts, then by definition you already have at least one staff with these things already defined. Whether you entered the parts individually by hand or relied on OMR software, you now have multiple scores each already set up with the proper key and time signatures etc. So simply take one of the scores you already have - like, say, the score for the instrument that you eventually intend to be the topmost instrument - and add instruments to that to then serve as the primary score. Everything is already now in place for those other staves.

So, the actual copy and paste is completely independent of the length of the score. You already have the structure, the copy and paste is Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C, Alt+Tab, Ctrl+V - flour keystrokes total per instrument regardless of how many key/time/tempo/barline/movement changes there are.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

In theory you are right and for me it's ok because MuseScore it's just still a kind of a hobby.

In practice, however, it's not so simple as if you take an OMR file which, to your best knowledge is correct but it isn't. As an example, I've experienced problems just because the OMR program and me, of course, missed some rests in various places (easily done for instrument parts with hundreds of measures) and then the resulting paste in the score will be "corrupted" if there are key and time changes afterwards.

Also, so far I've not been successful performing OMR over more than one movement and paste the result in MuseScore but this could be a problem with the various "OMR engines" (Cappella Scan, Audioveris, SharpEye) I'm using.

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