How To Use MuseScore to Identify Notes from An Audio Recording and Show Notes on A Music Staff

• Apr 16, 2019 - 03:53

Is it correct that MuseScore can identify notes from an audio recording and show the notes on a music staff?

Please let me know if that is possible and if so, how it is done. I am using MuseScore 3.0.5.

Thank you.


Comments

In just one word: NOT!!!

There are a lot of software that say they do that, BUT...

Good luck if you get the whole score, without... Anomalies!!!

In reply to by jotape1960

Let me clarify. I am not attempting to get a whole score. I am a keyboard player and don't have the best of ears. What I am attempting to do is simply capture a short piano passage on a recording and see what is being played on a score/staff. This passage has really nothing else going on, just the piano. I recall doing this before some time ago with an earlier version of Musescore and it worked pretty well. I just can't recall how it was done and have been unable to figure out from the interface on version 3 how to do it. Hope that helps. With this in mind, is it possible to do this and if so, how? Thanks.

To be clear and honest: The problem is too much complicated, far away from the C++ code.

It is related with physical physics of the sound phenomena.

When some instrument produces a note (let's say... Central A, which standard frequency is 440 Hertz or cycles per second), even the fact that you are not enable to full realize it, this instrument is producing a lot of others sounds!

It is not too much "magic" and/or "mysterious". There is a very basic and simple science here. The lowest frequency of the note is multiplied by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10... etc.

So... When the instrument plays de central A, it is really producing, at the same time:
440 x 1 = 440 Hz
440 x 2 = 880 Hz
440 x 3 = 1,320 Hz
440 x 4 = 1,760 Hz
440 x 5 = 2,200 Hz
440 x 6 = 2,640 Hz
440 x 7 = 3,080 Hz
440 x 8 = 3,520 Hz
440 x 9 = 3,960 Hz
440 x 10 = 4,400 Hz
... etc.

These additional frequencies are called: "Harmonics".

The volume level of each one of those additional sounds depends of the physical characteristics of the instrument and this harmonics level relation is unique to this instrument! !!!

In percentage it could be (just an idea):
440 = 50%
880 = 40%
1,320 = 30%
1,760 = 20%
2,200 = 10%
2,640 = 5%
3,080 = 4%
3,520 = 3%
3,960 = 2%
4,400 = 1%

These differences, between the harmonics intensity of the instrument sounds, are the reason that let us to distinguish if it is a guitar, a clarinet, a trumpet, a violin, etc, etc, etc.

In some moment we have 5 instruments playing the same note: the central A. BUT... Our brain is training to distinguish the harmonic differences between those instruments.

Magic? No. It is basic science. But... The knowledge itself... IS A GIFT, A BLESSING!!!!

So, come back to our main issue, when we have only one note at a time... There is no problems to recognize it (The old Cool Edit Pro had a musical note recognizer which worked so fine, only with individual notes).

BUT... When we have more than one note at a time (typical piano, or guitar, chord)... The problem is...

Which sound is the lowest sound (basically question to know which note is)? ???

Maybe, you think it is so easy because we have just one lowest note in a chord. Logic! Really? ???

OK. Let's say the lowest note of the chord is 55 Hertz (equivalent to A1). SO... The next superior sound in that chord... Let's say 110 Hertz (A2)... Is it an harmonic of the prior sound? ??? Or... Is it a new note? ???

Even more... In music, is more often that you think that composers use not the basically chord note as the lowest note (which is called "Inversion").

If the chord should be (from lowest to highest) A - C# - E -A, the composer can use C# - A - E - A.

All those very complex situations exposed are what a software to recognize musical notes has to solve first, before to give you a musical score.

To me... It is too much easy to train my mind to recognize the sound and... Then... Write it with MuseScore.

Just think, please, think... If I (a very common and simple human being from Curicó, Chile, South America) could learn how to do it... ANYONE CAN DO IT!!!

Just... Dedicate time to listen... listen... listen... listen... listen... listen... listen...

Just an idea.

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