Importing transposed musicxml with newzik.com - my experience, and some doubts

Dorico
1

Hi i would like here to share my experience when importing transposed musicxml.

I uploaded PDF, originally written for Bb instruments, to https://newzik.com/ and used that to musicOCR the pieces and convert them into MusicXML. I needed them to be played by French Horn (F), therefore using that tool i specified “-7” transposition and exported in MusicXML format.

When opened in Dorico, however, it did not recognized that they were for French Horn(F).

I therefore manually edited the Musicxml by

  1. specifying the part name, instrument name and sound
<score-part id="P1">
  <part-name>French Horn in F</part-name>
  <score-instrument id="P1-I1">
    <instrument-name>French Horn (F)</instrument-name>
    <instrument-sound>brass.french-horn</instrument-sound>
    <solo/>
  </score-instrument>
</score-part>
  1. In the attribute of the first measure specified that it is a transposed score
<transpose>
  <chromatic>-7</chromatic>
</transpose>

At this point, when I imported it into Dorico, and then switched to the “Concert pitch” it looked fine (from a French Horn point of view). When I played it (with my French Horn) it also sounded fine.

I was wondering, why I have to switch to “Concert pitch” and perhaps if I was doing something wrong, or - in other words - the best practice in Dorico when entering notes for tranposed instruments.

2

Concert pitch should be the “real” pitch, as if the instrument was a Violin or Flute. If you’re getting something that “looks fine from the French Horn’s point of view” in Concert pitch, then that seems wrong.

As ever, a sample document or screenshots would help clarify what’s going on.

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3

My first thought (without having your example to work with, admittedly) would be what would happen if I used the Horn Player’s “Change Instrument” option to reassign the (Dorico) horn instrument to the imported horn player.

Often in the past, when I have imported an XML (in my case from Finale) the instruments look okay but do not respond properly until I reassign the instrument in Setup mode.

4

thankyou all, attached is one of those musicxml files.

4FNr.1.musicxml (29.6 KB)

5

If I’m understanding correctly, in the original part for clarinet, the first pitch was notated as an F. After importing this XML, the first pitch (in transposed mode) is also notated as an F.

It looks to me like MusicXML encodes the written pitch, and then indicates the transposition of that pitch. So your XML encodes the written F and indicates that this it a transposed pitch. In other words, Newzik did not perform any additional transposition from clarinet to horn – it assumed you were telling it what the transposition already was.

The reason that playing the concert pitch (Bb) sounds right to you is that a written F for Bb clarinet is concert Eb, which is a written Bb on a horn. If you ask Dorico to play the music back, it will sound wrong, because Dorico will play the concert Bb instead of the concert Eb.

If you have a PDF of clarinet music that you want to play on horn, I would suggest letting Newzik OCR it, and then importing it into Dorico and doing any instrument assignment and further transposition there.

The goal is to have the Transposed Pitch view in Dorico show the correct written notes that you expect to play.

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6

Thankyou