LANCASTER UNIVERSITY, LANCASTER, UK. In this modern age of music in different formats, we rarely hear about music scores. In fact, can you remember the last time you even thought about a music score? Well, most of us neither but things are going to change really soon. You might want to find those old music scores that you have hidden somewhere in middle earth because you can soon edit these sheets on your smartphone in mp3 format.

Researchers have just started a project which will “unlock” thousands of musical scores that have been stored away for ages. Usually, digital music scores acre scanned photographs of the original compositions to keep it preserved somehow. If you would search online for musical score sheets, you will find thousands but only few would be interested to find out how these scores actually sound like once played.

That is because in order for someone to actually use the digital music score, the entire piece has to be copied from scratch since they are unable to amend the original digital copy as they need to.

The research is being led by Doctor Alan Marsden of Lancaster University’s Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts and he calls it “Optical Music Recognition from Multiple Sources’. They are aiming to have the new technology ready by a year or two from now. The technology will make it possible to search for particular phrases or note-combinations and to compare large numbers of pieces of music.

Doctor Marsden also said that this project will let musicians find new ways to work with musical scores and within a year, they are hoping to bring significant improvements in Optical Music Recognition technology. It will also bring new life to old scores and give those interested in music new and better opportunities to work with the large online music libraries found online.

Image Courtesy of Gavin Whitner, musicoomph.com