Test and hope on Musicxml export

• Jan 9, 2019 - 14:28

Hello all,
I'm Hu Haipeng, a Chinese blind musician and braille music transcriber. I'm discussing with another expert, Mike, to build up a Musescore library which is exclussively for blind musicians, producing both Musescore and (from my transcription) braille editions of important scores, especially difficult-to-transcribe chamber, vocal and orchestral pieces. Before this project, I'd like to see Musescore has good support for Musicxml export, for after a bunch of test, I found many important things are not exported. Since this is not a specific bug report, I open this in General Discussion.
Now I come with an example of lots of things for testing. It was originally used to test braille music translation using Sibelius, which exported very good Musicxml file. I had Mike to enter it in both Musescore 2 and 3, and then I exported them using both versions. The Musescore files are complete, but the output xml have the following issues:
1. m4: Accel. exported in Musescore 2, but not in 3
2. M8: The parenthesis in the chord are not exported, as either symbol or attribute.
3. M17: Laissez vibrer not exported. it should be exported as either a tag with the SMUFL name or as a tie only having start value.
4. M18: dotted barlines not exported. The dotted barlines will split the measure into three segments, and are put at the end of the previous two. The second and three must have the measure numbers set to x1 and x2, implicit.
5. M19-23: All trills are not exported, only an end of trill line is found at m23.
6. M25: Feather beams not exported. There are accel and rit of such beams defined in Musicxml specification.
I warmly look forward to our discussion on implementation. Thank you in advance!

Regards
Haipeng

Attachment Size
implementation test.zip 51.35 KB

Comments

• Jan 9, 2019 - 15:21

Here are the test files that are contained in the zip file.

Haipeng V2.mscz
Haipeng V3.mscz

I entered it in both versions 2.3.2 & 3.0 to what differences there might be between the two versions when exported to musicxml.

If some of the export problems can be fixed by entering them in a different manner, then let me know.

My ultimate goal it to have MuseScore properly export score so they can easily be converted to Braille. I would like to create a set of instructions that will make this process as easy as possible. It is also necessary for MuseScore to export items properly into musicxml.

There are some other problems that Haipeng pointed out concerning version 3. One of the major issues is that there are never measure numbers reported during musicxml export, this includes restarting numbering at 1 after a section break.

Haipeng is my expert on what needs to be exported, and I would appreciate any help the community can provide in realizing this project.

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• Jan 9, 2019 - 23:10

Another thing should consider is, can we set an option not to export any hidden articulations, dynamics, hairpins, metronome marks and texts? This will make Musicxml files very dirty, and the braille conversion will be very misleading, presenting lots of unwanted things and we can't remove them easily. Currently I have to use advanced text editor to remove some hidden things, but most of the time I have to do this one by one manually, which cost too much time and energy, which can be used to transcribe several bars of braille music. I believe this is not a difficult effort compared to making trills exported :-)

Haipeng

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• Jan 10, 2019 - 09:04

But since I can't see, I can't create so small examples. Could anyone help me to do this? Sorry, but this may be very complicated and boring, so I put all in one. I'm afraid I'll get all files wrong if I simply cut codes to create handwritten mscx files myself.

Haipeng

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• Jan 11, 2019 - 05:02

@hhpmusic,

Regarding 1, I have entered the text as I did in the original file in measure 1. In measure 3 I have entered system text for the "Accel" and a line as you requested in our e-mail conversations. Please look at this and let me know what we need to do to fix it and I'll enter the bug report.

All other bugs have been reported.

2 & 3 are combined because they both have the same problem in MuseScore. See #281590: Symbols are not exported to musicxml.

  1. See #281591: Mid-measure barlines are not exported to musicxml

  2. See #281592: Trills not exported properly to musicxml

  3. See #281593: [MusicXML export] Feather beams are not exported to musicxml

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• Jan 11, 2019 - 05:14

The answer is, system texts are not exported. As I read in the files, all systemText (v3) or text with system property (v2) are not exported in Muxicxml in version 3 of Musescore. Sometimes Musescore 2 can export a system text, but this depends on our luck.

Haipeng

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• Jan 11, 2019 - 05:38

If I remember correctly, you asked my to enter accel and rit as text with a separate line. I forgot to attach my test file.

Missing_system_text.mscz

I entered the "accel...." as all text, then I entered it as text that reads "accel" with a dotted line. The dotted line will be an issue if you use MuseScore to create parts, because the line will only be included in the part that has the line added which is normally the first instrument in the score.

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• Jan 11, 2019 - 22:46

Just a note that I am happy to see this dialog. I personally remain committed to seeing MuseScore do all we can to improve accessibility and that includes things like improving MusicXML export with Braile applications in mind. Unfortunately. I am spread pretty thin right now and haven't been able to be playing as active a role as I'd like. I do hope to pick up the pace later this year. Meanwhile, again, I'm happy to see people working on what they can!

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