Can I import existing music & then modify it?

• Mar 2, 2018 - 19:54

Hello!

I am new to Musescore. I am trying to create an organ book for existing hymns. I want to import existing music into music software (such as Musescore) and then add an organ pedal line below the grand staff or just be able to modify the existing bass line of each piece of music I import. Can this be done in Musescore?


Comments

If the music is in a form MuseScore can import, then sure. MusicXML is the standard format for sharing music between notation programs. So if the hymns are currently in a program that can export to MusicXML, do that, and then import. It's not a perfect conversion so you'll need to fiddle with things to get it looking the way it did originally, but then you can add organ pedal or make whatever other changes you want.

If all you have is hardcopy or PDF, then I'm afraid the story is nowhere near as good. The AI involved in "understanding" a printed score and turning it into something like MusicXML that notation programs can import is still very experimental and rudimentary - imagine what the very first beta version of Siri might have been like at understanding speech. So while you can try File / Import from PDF from within MuseScore, what you get will probably require about as much work to correct as would be required to simply enter the music into MuseScore by hand.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

Hi Marc. Thank you for responding. I did upload a pdf into musescore, and it came through just fine. However, I can't seem to modify it now that it is in Muse. Am I missing something? Or does muse not allow you to modify a pdf once you have imported it into the program?

Try PlayScore 2 for Ios. It is very accurate and turns photos or PDFs into MusicXML which you can import directly. You can download free and try it.

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