I’m running into a couple of issues I hope someone can help me fix. As you can see
In bar 4, the left hand only shows 3 beats instead of 4. When I try to insert a note (specifically D3) at the end of that bar, Dorico places it at the beginning of bar 5 instead. Bar 5, left hand instead of quarter notes, I have two tied eighth notes.
Also, when I try to insert a note in bar 8, it jumps to the next system unexpectedly. And where are many other issues as you can see!
I’ve attached the correct scoring for reference. Any suggestions on how to fix this would be greatly appreciated! I thought Dorico has a rebar function, but I couldn’t find it.
You may have tried this but one thing I find helpful when importing xml is to go into preferences and un-check all the xml import options. I would also turn voice colors on (view menu) and make sure signposts are on, both to help with troubleshooting. You don’t need the C, common time meter in measure 5. There are also some issues that are voice related that might be affecting the horizontal spacing (possibly ms. 8).
I just did unclick all xml import options also turned voice colors and the signposts on. However, as you can see when I insert a quartertone at the last beat of bar 6, it carries a half of it to the next bar!! This is a bug?
Selected the LH notes from beat 3 of bar 8 through beat 3 of bar 9 and moved them one beat to the right; you can drag them with the mouse or use Alt/Opt+right arrow to move them by the rhythmic grid duration
In bar 8, reset the RH C# 8th note to its original staff (right-click, Cross Staff > Reset to Original Staff)
In bar 8, turned the RH D into an 8th
In bar 8, moved the LH 8th notes into the RH staff (Alt/Opt+N), moved the bass clef and first two 8th notes one 8th to the right, then selected the last 2 8ths and made them cross-staff notes (M)
Selected all notes in bar 9 and reset to original staff, then did right-click, Paste Special > Swap
I think this gets you pretty close to the original, although there are still some wrong pitches and some notes missing. Honestly, in a case like this where the original is fairly simple and short and there are a bunch of mistakes, it’s probably easier to just re-enter it all from scratch in Dorico!
The biggest issue I see is that those Time Signature signposts, if you double click on them you’ll see they are not correct. The first one is set to C,3.5 which is only 3 1/2 beats in the measure. In this case, delete the signpost then click on the last note in the LH, Ctrl/Cmd-E to select to the end of the flow then Ctrl/Cmd-Alt/Opt->right arrow to move to the next measure and continue like that. I think your original scan is not correct. It reminds me of my attempts to use PhotoScore years ago. It will probably be quicker to input the rest rather than rely on scanning.
I haven’t looked at your file, but I don’t see the C# you mentioned in Step 5. I deleted bar 5 — but I think you actually meant bar 7? Could you confirm?
”In bar 8, reset the RH C# 8th note to its original staff (right-click, Cross Staff > Reset to Original Staff)”
After deleting bar 5, should I re-enter it manually? I didn’t see that mentioned in the steps.
If re-entering works for a small case, that’s fine — but what if we’re dealing with a large score, say 90 pages or more? Isn’t that where MusicXML should come in handy? We’re in the age of AI — surely there’s a more efficient way to handle this!
then click on the last note in the LH, Ctrl/Cmd-E to select to the end of the flow then Ctrl/Cmd-Alt/Opt->right arrow to move to the next measure and continue like that.
By the last note in LH do you mean, last note in the bar? which is Bb3 I suppose.
Also, when I do Ctrl - Alt -Right Arrow ( it moves it to the next now and delete whatever is after!)
Would you please clarify this step.
Also I guess because mostly we have timing issue, as you pinpointed, It is good to work from end to the beginning of the score.
I don’t have control over how the MusicXML file is generated. Given that Dorico is one of the most advanced notation tools available, I would expect Dorico 5 to handle these issues more gracefully — or at least provide efficient tools to fix them.
That said, let’s set MusicXML aside and assume the music was manually entered or was given to us this way. In that case, what’s the best solution to correct the problem within Dorico?
I am sorry but I think you’re absolutely wrong here. The OCR used here has delivered a very poor xml file, filled with rhythmic mistakes and a whole bunch of nonsensical stuff. I use Photoscore Ultimate (some legacy software from the pre-Dorico era) and it would not let me output something that wrong!
Dorico can perform miracles, but not of that magnitude. Either use a more reliable software to create the xmls or enter the music directly into Dorico.
It’s all good! I actually thought my OCR did a pretty good job — but I’ll definitely check out the one you mentioned to see if it handles things better.
Either way, let’s see what others suggest. I’m sure there’s a solid workflow out there for cleaning up imported MusicXML files in Dorico.
Actually, I would not recommend Photoscore Ultimate anymore, since its last update was late 2020 or early 2021 and it needs Sibelius to be fully functional… so that’s a very expensive combo for such a legacy program. What is clear with Photoscore is that it will not let you export an xml that has rhythmic inconsistencies, so it needs to be corrected by the operator after it has done its recognition work. It’s tedious, but then the results are predictable and rather good. And if there are too many “mistakes” (Photoscore lists the ryhthmical problems) are too many, I simply close it and copy from scratch, it’s way faster. (Below 5 mistakes per page, I use Photoscore, above 10 mistakes per page, I definitely close it, and in between, I look what those mistakes are and if they are easily corrected or not to make the decision).
What I would recommend is you try the iphone/iPad app that was recommanded by Daniel Spreadbury and John Barron, which is very effective. It’s a monthly fee so not expensive if you don’t need it all year long, and works very well (much better than Photoscore without corrections) but you’ll need to correct after the fact in Dorico, just like the example you posted. Worth trying it.
I did my usual .xml cleanup routine, like resetting the fingering to get rid of them, including minor rhythmical corrections, a correction of the notes in bar 6, and got this file:
I did go into Engrave Mode, but only twice; to correct the little slur in bar 9 and to elongate the l. v. tie in the last bar. On the iPad I didn’t know how to get the coda symbol in - so that’s missing here, but this is how it looks now:
Marc do you remember which tool was recommended? I have Newzik. I use the XML functionality seldomly and use Newzik to show scanned scores and then copy them manually into Dorico. This instead of carrying around the whole paper score. The XML results even for parts require a lot of manual work. The example above is actually fairly good compared to what I often start with.
Yes there are many discussions on this subject. I checked 5 of latest posts but I did not find the one Marc references. It might actually be Newzik as I remember there was some joined marketing some time ago.
It is sometimes difficult to decide if the XML import would really save time. I don’t know about the latest versions but older ones also had limits on minimum note values (actually minimum durations) i.e. with fast runs with 1/32 and shorter note values. Correcting such runs imports is very tiresome.
