Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.

Subject: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: Fergie
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 08:50 AM

Hi all,

I need to prepare an out of print songbook for reissue. Rather than start from scratch and retype each page of text and sheet of music notation, I was thinking of scanning the pages to my PC and using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to convert the images to text as a Word(doc.) or similar. I don't know how to go about reproducing the music notation, but I'm full sure that other Mudcatters have experience of such a task and would be able to guide me. I'm open to being advised on every aspect of this project.

Fergus

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 09:12 AM

The songbook may be out of print, but is it out of copyright?
This is assuming that you are not the copyright owner.

If not, do you have clearance from the copyright owner to
republish?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 09:17 AM

OCR software can be notoriously laborious - particularly if the typeface being scanned is irregular in any way.

Is the text completely integrated with the music staves - or is there "clean" music with totally separate text? If the latter, then you could:

(a) scan in the whole page as a complete JPG file
(b) isolate the music parts of the complete page, with a picture editor, into separate JPG files
(c) scan/retype the text as separate text files
(d) intersperse text files and individual JPG files using Word or a graphics program

There are many variations possible on this. If the music staves and text are a unit, i.e. a treble clef of melody has a line of words underneath it, for example, then that's lot more difficult.

If the worst comes to the worst, a straight scan of each page - as is - might have to do you!

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 09:20 AM

DaveO is quite correct, of course - I assume that your question is purely technical (as is my response), and that you've sorted out any legal issues to your own satisfaction. :-)

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: Fergie
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 09:42 AM

No piracy here. All legal and above board.

Fergus

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 09:46 AM

What Will said. See Wikipedia. The free software "audiveris" was quite unreliable last time I tried it.

If you need a genuine digital notation format (such as MusicXML, also capable of MIDI playback), manual transcription is usually fastest. Some Mudcatters claim to be virtuosos with ABC notation.

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 10:01 AM

Um, I'm in a hurry today, so this may be a stupid question, but why not save the scans as JPG's and print the JPG's? Why go to Word?

Also, how big a job is this? Are you thinking of 5 songs or 100? Familiar songs or brand new? Old, hard-to-read print or nice print?

If the job is small enough, it could be that preparing new music and text is the best way to go.

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: GUEST,#
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 12:11 PM

Would a photocopier work?

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 12:20 PM

You give the impression that you are new to Desk Top Publishing. Before you get down and dirty with the software talk to your printer and determine what he will need and then work backwards from there.

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 01:04 PM

Music score for printing generally require 600 dpi resolution...

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: Fergie
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 01:19 PM

The songbook is to be reissued (it will be a third edition) with full permission of the copyright holders. It will be paperback of approx 80 A5 pages containing close to 40 songs with music notation and notes. The printing and publishing companies that issued the previous editions are no longer in business, so I'm starting from scratch. The only resources that I have are copies of both previous editions.

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 01:34 PM

There are many companies re-issuing out of copyright works at the moment and all they are doing is scanning the pages and putting the book together. I don't see a problem. People like me are buying them.

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: Fergie
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 01:56 PM

Hi Steve,

The songbook is not out of copyright. It was last produced in the 1980's. I have considered doing as you suggest, but I'm concerned that it could be claimed that what is being produced are pirated copies of a previous publication, so I would like to produce an edition that is not simply a replica of a previous edition, but can be demonstrated to be a separate entity. The change might simply be a different font and changes to the style of notation.

Fergus

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 01:57 PM

No reason that I can think of not to do as Steve Gardham suggests. a "reprint" if you will be adding new text, it is a new project. Also, you should go to a printer who does this sort of thing, and avoid "do-it-yourselfing"--you'll save money, time, and end up with a better quality result.

Also, even though the original publishers are no longer in business, there is a fair to good chance that the original films, plates, and boards are in storage somewhere--if it is worth reprinting this piece, it is worth looking for them.

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: Stanron
Date: 07 Jul 15 - 06:24 PM

The music notation software 'Sibelius' has a feature by which sheet music can be photocopied and converted to score files which can be edited, corrected, printed and saved. It is not cheap and I have not had experience of using this feature. Maybe others have used it and can comment. If it works it should do what you want.

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Jul 15 - 03:07 AM

Hi, Fergie-

Mudcat's Dick Greenhaus has done some first-rate reissues, most notably Sharp and Bronson. They're being marketed through Loomis House Press. I can't find Dick's CAMSCO Website, so maybe he's closed that down. Send Dick a personal message and ask him how he did it.
The Sharp and Bronson books are absolutely terrific. I think they're mostly scans of the original books, but they are very high-quality reproductions.

The Mystic Seaport Museum did an abridged reissue of Stan Hugill's Shanties from the Seven Seas. Hugill used kind of an unusual font for the music notation and first verse of every song. It was hard to read in the original, but impossible to read in the reissue. I finally gave up and bought a used copy of the original. Lesson: you can't reproduce every book by photographic means.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: EBarnacle
Date: 08 Jul 15 - 04:17 AM

As the coauthor and publisher of a Chantey book which my partner and I created using precomputer means, I know I would be very upset if someone were to reissue my book without permission. Our publishing house is not out of business, merely quiescent. A lot of work went into our product. I suspect that others feel the same. If relatives of the original producers are still alive, be prepared for a lawsuit for going beyond fair usage of copyrighted materials.

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: GUEST,Alan Ross
Date: 08 Jul 15 - 06:34 AM

This is straying off the original point of tech. production. However, does changing the text style really alter the copyright status to create a new version?   

There was in UK 1988 law, some kind of weird protection given to 'databases' as a whole which gave institutions copyright over collections of works, even though the work itself was out of copyright.   I never quite understood the interpretation of this. There are photographic collections where the images are out of copyright, having been previously published - should be considered in the public domain - and yet these are claimed as being 'collection' copyright.

Therefore generally speaking, does a songbook constitute a copyrighted database by the use of its contents, in the same order even if you change the presentation style?

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: Fergie
Date: 08 Jul 15 - 06:47 AM

EBarnacle could you please read my posts on this thread, before making unwarranted comments.

Fergus

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jul 15 - 07:09 AM

To Fergie, I know that there are strident approaches by certain parties to this subject. As you already have permissions..this is not referring to you.    I am curious myself to know though, whether in principle a songbook by virtue of its OVERALL contents, irrespective of typeface - and music printing is what constitutes the protected database and uniqueness under the 1988 copyright act.

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jul 15 - 10:01 AM

THe toughest part of re-issuing out-of-print books is then obtaining of permissions from copyrighjt holders.

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 08 Jul 15 - 11:13 AM

Some words of advice from someone who does this stuff regularly.

a: Be very careful about permissions. Unless you're making a significant change (not just foermatting) you let yourslf in for a world of trouble.

b. While scanning and OCR work fine for texts, the quality of scanned music is iffy. I've found it best to actually re-enter the music. I know it's a pain, but programs like MuseScore (free) let you produce professional results. I entered some 220 or so tunes in preparing Huntington's "The Gam" for publication.

c: Publishing (if you're at all concerned with quality) is tougher than you might think)

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Jul 15 - 12:34 PM

Dick, did you scan text and/or music on any of your books, or did you re-enter all that on every one of them? Whatever you did, the results were great.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: GUEST,Alan Ross
Date: 08 Jul 15 - 01:40 PM

I should have qualified that I was referring to works that are out of copyright or you have the authorisation of the copyright holders or their publishers to reproduce their works in a compiled edition.

So, I was getting at that: a separate copyright is supposed to exist in UK law for a collection and database. If you reproduce the collection of a previously published edition - even if you change the format style of print, then you might still be breaching copyright by creating an OVERALL copycat!   Does that make any sense?

Another nightmare is that original printed publishers may be out of business - but their songs have been sold on many times... some of my late father's works have been transferred at least 6 times through take-overs. So, it really has to be really, really old songbooks to be on safer territory or if you have every single party and their heirs/representatives then that's OK.

Subject: RE: Tech: Reproducing song book with sheet music.
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 09 Jul 15 - 04:53 AM

Give serious consideration to Photoscore.
Colleagues of mine have used that to convert about a thousand pages of sheet music. The results had to be checked and corrected, as does OCRd text, but that was significantly less work than re-writing the music notation from scratch.