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Re: finale->lilypond?


From: Laura Conrad
Subject: Re: finale->lilypond?
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:12:28 -0400
User-agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.2 (gnu/linux)

>>>>> "Frédéric" == Frédéric Bron <address@hidden> writes:

    Frédéric> A friend of mine is used to Finale. I try to convert him
    Frédéric> to lilypond.  What is the best way to convert a score
    Frédéric> from Finale to Lilypond?  Regards,

What *ought* to be the best way is to have Finale save the file as a
MusicXML file, and then use musicxml2ly to convert it.  

I don't have any experience with doing this -- the Finale users I know
refuse to find options in the Finale menus.  If you want to try it
out, there do seem to be some MusicXML files on the Werner Icking
Archive that probably come from
Finale. 
<http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&brut_query=musicxml&q=musicxml+site%3Aicking-music-archive.org+-filetype%3Apdf+-Events-revisions.php+-Events-revisions.html+-Events-revisions_src.html+-Events.php+-Events.html+-Events_src.html+-Events-all.html+-Events-all_src.html+-Statements.html+-include_all.log>

My experience of reporting bugs in MusicXML is that they do get
addressed.

There is a program called etf2ly, which converts the Finale etf file
to a lilypond file.  It isn't completely useless.  I have vague
memories that it leaves a lot of work for the user in the case of
music I've used it for.  For instance, it might extract lyrics, but
not associate them with the correct line of music, or maybe only
extract one set of lyrics even for a polyphonic piece with different
lyrics for each voice.  

In any case, it's no longer being maintained, and I think I saw a
proposal to remove it from the lilypond distribution.  I'm not sure
whether current versions of Finale export ETF.  There certainly are
old versions of Finale which export ETF and not MusicXML.

There have been other threads about the problems with using midi2ly as
an exchange format for music notation.  I don't recommend it if you
can use an input format (such as MusicXML) that actually has the
information lilypond wants.  There are still people with some interest
in fixing midi2ly, but there are also some bugs that have been there a
long time.  I spent a good bit of yesterday trying all the routes I
could find for getting from MIDI to lilypond for the MIDI file
<http://icking-music-archive.org/scores/holborne/pavanes1599/01_bona_speranza.mid>,
and found the Rosegarden converter was the best at not spelling the
notes wrong.  It was a piece in G minor (actually written as G
dorian), so you would expect most of the accidentals to be Bb's, Eb's,
and F#'s.  midi2ly insisted on spelling them ais, dis, and fis, in
spite of my telling it the key signature I wanted.  Rosegarden got
them right.

I hope this helps.  I also hope someone else knows more than I do and
enlightens both of us, particularly about actually using musicxml2ly
for this purpose.  

-- 
Laura   (mailto:address@hidden)
(617) 661-8097  233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139   
http://www.laymusic.org/ http://www.serpentpublications.org

There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.

Brendan Behan (1923 - 1964)





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