I compose. I just barely read music. Every now and then I get an urge to write down my compositions on staff paper, with key signatures and time signatures and notes perched on the wires and all that. It’s a lot like translating your term papers into Russian when you don’t even read the Cyrillic alphabet.
My latest itch is to get this damn thing rendered as sheet music. Unlike nearly everything else I’ve composed, it’s for multiple instruments. The first page alone took me a month. I just spent an hour on an individual measure. I am so totally not the person for the job.
Are there people who work with audio recordings and composers who will transcribe to sheet music? And, if so, where might I find one? (And umm what’s the going price?)
You are correct, Sir. I did this sort of work in Hollywood, CA years ago. Because of the passage of time, it is difficult to suggest where to find what AHunter3 is looking for, but I’ll try.
Check with local recording studios, college music schools, and local Musician’s Union chapters. What you are looking for is in the category of “Music Preparation,” which might be a copyist, arranger or composer. I imagine they will be using computers, at least for the graphic output, if not earlier in the process. Transcription is indeed a good term to use.
As far as fees or costs, there are union rates and there are non-union rates. Again, due to my extreme distance from reality, I could not suggest actual dollar amounts. Standard union rates price the takedown separately from the final, printed music creation (or used to), which complicates matters. If you can find some music student willing to tackle such a project, it might work out better for everyone, but that’s just my two cents.
There is software (Opensource and Commercial) that will convert MIDI files to scores.
MuseScore is opensource and will do this. I’m sure that the process isn’t without some pain and will require some editing after import to get everything lined up and tidy but could be a good way to start.
For sure, there are plenty of free (e.g., Lilypond) and non-free (e.g., Score) computer programs that one can use for high-quality digital music engraving, but if someone can “barely read music”, key and time signatures, notational conventions, etc., how will you know what should go on the page, much less tweak the output so that it looks good as opposed to merely legible? Plus you need to be trained so that you can listen to a multi-instrument audio recording and correctly transcribe each part.
The source here is MIDI. The suggested software will convert the MIDI file to a score. Multiple parts and everything. It’ll be accurate. It’ll work out the time-signature(s) and key and all that. The result will need sprucing up for sure.
I’m familiar with MuseScore. First time I tried importing this MIDI file into MuseScore I got pages of stuff that looked like this:
I downloaded version 3.5 about 30 minutes before starting this thread. It works better now, but not well enough to actually use. I spent an hour trying to figure out how to make it transpose the damn piece from six flats (ugh!!!) to 1/2 step higher E minor before giving up on that. More importantly, it still gets the complicated tempo wrong, although it’s pretty impressive on the less trickly bits. I am, in fact, using a printout of the MuseScore attempt as my starting point in handwriting the score.
I’ve used services like this. Make sure they deliver a finished PDF for printing and Musescore source files. Midi files are helpful too. But you can easily play the music in Musescore.
Your image does not show up for me. BTW, what’s wrong with E-flat minor? Besides having a bunch of flats in the key signature, but we would not call that a problem, that’s exactly what the key signature is for. Didn’t you pick the key?
I can’t say whether the learning curve of MuseScore is easier or harder than some of the other software, but if you are willing to pay one of those music students to do it then it obviously does not matter.
I composed it in MIDIgraphy eons ago. In MIDIgraphy key signature is kind of irrelevant. It looks like this.
I never had to know what key I was in. I just dragged notes of a specified duration to the horizontal and vertical space I wanted it to occupy.
I want it in E minor. I’m a half-tone low. I suppose I could open it in MIDIgraphy and do a Select All and drag it up one semitone and do a Save. But you’d think MuseScore would make it easier to do the transposition itself.
I took @aceplace57 's advice and contracted with someone on fiverr. Looking forward to see if the results are all that I hope for or are equivalent to what I can get out of MuseScore myself. It’s surprisingly cheap so even in the latter circumstance I’m hoping I can get the transcriptionist to work with me to fix what software gets wrong.
