Music Library: A peek behind the scenes

[thereallyniceman]

As I am just about brain dead through editing and entering scores into our Music Library, I thought that I would have a bit of a break and show you how it works.

I have had many scores donated for the Library, some original sheet music and some of them scans. Many of the scans are in fact scans of photocopies of scans, previously photocopied after the tea and beer had been spilled on the copy and scanned again!!

This tends to result in a rather shabby scores that no one would want, so I decided to photo-edit all the copies with Photoshop. At first, this seemed quite a good idea, but now after nearly 2000 individual pages… it doesn’t seem quite that good  ;-)

 

I have an A4 scanner and this is great for A4 scores, but many are larger format and I had to come up with some method of copying these. Buying a new A3 scanner sprang to mind and was soon rejected when I saw how much a decent A3 scanner was! I decided that photographing was the answer. I thought "lay the score on the desk, point the camera downwards and CLICK.. Hey Presto..  job done!"

Unfortunately the page didn’t lie flat, curling at the edges or bowing in the middle. Also the camera, if not 100% parallel to the score produced Tombstone shaped scores.  Even when parallel the edges bowed out with a fish eye effect. The worse problem was the “cricked neck” that I developed after hours of stooping over the camera.

 

Then I decided to hold the score down flat with a sheet of glass. This was a very bad idea! There were reflections all over the place and funny double images caused by refraction at both faces of the glass. Then a blinding masterstroke.. I designed a suction box. I described it to another group member as a masterpiece of MDF, chicken wire, greenhouse staging capillary matting and an old computer fan. It is not quite a masterpiece ..but, blow me ..IT WORKS!

 

When the fan is switched on it sucks air out of the box through the capillary matting held over the wire mesh. The score just sticks gently to it.. NO HANDS NEEDED

 

 

Better than just holding the score flat it held the score even when vertical..so no more stooping. The camera could be fitted on a tripod and pointed directly at the score. Much experimentation showed that using my friend John's skill and his Nikon D300 camera fitted with a portrait lens (AF-S Micro Nikkor 105mm) at a distance of around 6 feet away took care of the fish eye and tombstone too.. Perfect. The rest was easy:  score..CLICK… score…CLICK.....

 

I produced Hi Res RGB TIFF images, but each was around  35Meg in size. This would mean that to view a single image on the web would take about 30 seconds, even with a fast connection. 

Let Photoshop be your friend:

The photographs were opened in Photoshop, but I soon discovered that the old scores looked grubby and dirty so decided that I had to edit them to clean them up.

 

Now cleaned up:

 After much messing about and working bar by bar removing scuffs, dots, beer and tea stains. I ended up with scores ready to upload to the database.

 

Then cleaned:

The Database "back end" allows data entry into several fields that enable subsequent searches at the “LIVE END”. 

Each file has to be named in a strict convention so that the database recognises what it is:

Then the files are transferred by FTP to our hosting server:

 A LIVE check on the database is then done. This first check allows the server to process the large TIFF images to small “thumbnails” for use in the Library scores search results.  When someone clicks a download button the server automatically selects the correct files and compiles them into a PDF document at the correct image size for printing

......…EASY

 

Sorry for the long post, but I just thought that you may like to know what is going on here behind the scenes...  all for that simple looking scores search!

 

I will have a break and get back to practising for a while when I hit my “second” target of 500 scores… wish me luck !

 

Ian

 

 

[Mike Moss]

Wow, that's very ingenious... once cleaned up the scores look as good as new, just like they did when they were fresh off the printing press back in the good old days!

[Adam]

Thanks, Ian!  I love the peek behind the scenes ... And your "suction box" solution is pure inspired genius.  Well done!

[Trapdoor2]

Brilliant! I have also been agonizing over how to hold the sheets down flat. I tried glass but it only works if the stars are in alignment (and not reflecting off the glass). The only good part about the glass is when you're working from a bound volume (like a tutor) the weight of the glass holds the pages down nicely.

I'll have to build a suction box...unless you beat me thru all the scores I have lying about. ;-)

I solved the 'bending over' issue by using a mirror over my camera. I used software to straighten out the tombstoning and fisheye effects...didn't want to buy a specialized lens. I just never got around to doing more than a few scores...glad you're solving all the problems first!

You're doing a lot more cleanup than I ever attempted! Well done!!

[Jody Stecher]

My Dear Departed Dad and my old banjo picking buddy (and industrial designer) the late Winnie Winston would have both laughed with delight at your suction box solution, Ian. I am not as clever as them so the best I can do is smile for two hours and every 5 minutes say "damn, that was brilliant".  

[Shawn McSweeny]

Ian, you must have studied violin as a child as you are proving far too clever for a mere banjoist.

Kidding aside, sincere thanks for your hard work on the scores, from one who has been using Photoshop for many years and fully understands both its awesome power and dull repetitiveness.

[thereallyniceman]

Hi Shawn,

"Clever Ian"  or "Thereallycleverman"  both have a nice ring to them  :-)

You don't need to tell me about "dull repetitiveness" in Photoshop!  I have now programmed macro buttons to re-set image size, levels, contrast, brightness + ++++++++++ which does most of the processing, but still have to remove all the marks by hand. It is possible to remove dots automatically, but I discovered that removing dots automatically on a notation music score was a silly idea !!!!