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[sindi keesan <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>]

> > Are there OCR type programs that can automatically convert a
> > musical score into an uninterpreted midi file?  You might want as many as
> > four channels for each violin part.
>
>   Not really sure what you are asking.


I looked under 'music ocr' as suggested by David and found for Windows:
Sharpeye, Music Publisher, Midiscan, Photoscore, etc., which convert a 
scanned image of a music score (tiff or bmp) to a file that you can edit 
with their editor to correct errors, then prints and/or convert to a 
playable MIDI file.

While poking around I also found some examples of the sort of output you 
can get if you are not too careful at:
www.virtualsheetmusic.com.
$37/year gets you unlimited downloads of classical and/or Christmas music 
for various instruments, and a vote in deciding what to add to the site.

Uncorrected errors included jagged instead of straight lines in music 
where four 8th notes were connected by a line connecting equal-length 
stems (sloping), and in another piece where 16th notes were connected by 
horizontal double lines, these were frequently turned into wide single 
lines.  Sometimes they were a bit of both.

This is a really cheap and convenient way to get copies of lots of music, 
but it is not as readable as it might be without much editing.  But at 
this price you can't expect people to take a lot of time editing.

If you don't pay the $37, you can download for pay, for instance $6 for 
the Bach 3-part inventions.  This might be cheaper than paper.

I may try my new midi players on the pieces at this site.

> FWIW: I use a graphical (Win3.1) program to "write" musical notation 
> onto a screen staff, with a mouse. I write each instrument part 
> separately. I specify the instrument voices. I edit volume levels for 
> each channel (instrument part) in total or one bar at a time. The work 
> is saved as a MIDI file.

>  I don't think there is any way to convert plain, paper, sheet music to 
> a MIDI, except by transcribing it.

These Windows programs all claim to convert sheet music to MIDI files but 
suggest editing first.  The more expensive ones also print the edited 
copy, or read in pdf files.  What I downloaded was both midi and pdf 
output, so presumably they print via pdf.

I could not find any linux music ocr programs, but I did find GOCR, a free 
linux OCR program also available as a DOS binary or a Fedora Core 2 source 
code or binary.

>  On the other hand, it is possible to convert between MIDI, GIF, abc, 
> .ps and PDF if that is of any use.

It is now possible to convert scanned text to pdf OR midi.
> Regards,
>         Ron

Is there any linux music publishing software?  I have a couple of rather 
old programs for DOS.

Sindi