Optical Music Recognition with Python

Andrew Hankinson

Optical Music Recogntionis

Optical Character Recognition for Music Notation

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Building “Google Books” for music notation

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Our Task:Tell a computer how to

understand music notation

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Our Task:Teach a computer how to

understand music notation

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pitc

h

time

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pitc

h

time

clefs

barlinesdynamics (“loudness”)

durations articulations

key signature

implicit knowledge

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♩�

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♩�

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Neume NotationLiturgical Use

~1100 to 1600 CE

Gamera

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Python/C++ Framework fordocument image analysis and

shape recognition

(not just for music...)

Tasks...❖ Binarisation: Colour -> Black & White

❖ Staff Removal: Removing connected components

❖ Shape identification: Automatically classifying shapes

❖ Correction: Fixing machine errors

❖ Exporting: Encoding recognized music notation in XML

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Demo

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Recap❖ “Clean up” images -- binarization, etc.

❖ Remove staff lines

❖ Connected component analysis

❖ Classify shapes

❖ Recombine with staff lines for pitch finding

❖ Save image + musical data to a musical representation format (e.g., the Music Encoding Initiative XML schema)

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Thank you.

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github.com/DDMALgithub.com/ahankinson