PDF sheet music/MIDI question

[Psymon]

On the book I'm working on, I was thinking of adding in some sheet music, which I've done up as an image -- I'm assuming that there's no way to actually put in sheet music in any sort of "text" kind of way, that no standard has been developed for doing that up in epub format?

I assume that's a "no", and hence my doing it up as an image, but I thought I'd also include a PDF version of the music as well, so if the person's reader can view those then they could get it at an even higher resolution (and perhaps even print it, if they're able -- like, if they were using ADE on their PC, then I would imagine it would open up Acrobat Reader?).

Or is support for PDF files -- via one's ebook reader -- so marginally supported that I should simply not bother?

Also, I have a MIDI file of the actual music itself, which I thought I might include -- I presume it would just go in the /Misc/ folder (along with the aforementioned PDF) and then I just link to it? And I guess for both cases I should add a note saying "If your device supports the playing of MIDI files, click here..." (or something to that effect).

I'm just wondering, I guess, if either/both of these thoughts are more of a waste of time to include or not.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

[mrmikel]

PDF is supported by many many readers, but not as a part of an epub, as far as I know.
You can do the whole thing in PDF. But it would take some thought to make sure that the lines displayed made sense and were large enough to read in a small format device.

[PeterT]

I would say just include an URL within the book where supplemental material can be obtained. This should ideally be shortened via one of the URL shortening services and allow separate download of both a PDF of the music, the MIDI file and any other bits you think are appropriate.

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by mrmikel

PDF is supported by many many readers, but not as a part of an epub, as far as I know.
You can do the whole thing in PDF. But it would take some thought to make sure that the lines displayed made sense and were large enough to read in a small format device.

Well, it would basically be just one rather small part of a VERY large ebook (approaching 2000 page at this point), and there's only 2 pages of sheet music. I guess my thought was that I'd have the images of the sheet music, and then add a link to the PDF (included within the epub) that people could view if their device supported that.

And I'd add in that MIDI file in basically the same way -- so basically the PDF and MIDI file would be there if their device supported it, otherwise too bad. I haven't tried it, but I'm guessing that both would probably work on an iPad, and if one was viewing an ebook on one's PC or something (and in each case it would just switch to the appropriate program/app), but maybe this is all just asking a bit too much, and support for those things too limited?

[DaleDe]

I would suggest you look at http://www.svgopen.org/2005/papers/ScoreSVG2/index.html for details on making a musical score in SVG for use in your book. This would make the text scale and searchable while providing a flexible set of notes.

See also http://www.svgopen.org/2003/papers/S...tionsInSVG/#S2

And http://www.music-notation.info/en/formats/SVG.html

Dale

[DaleDe]

Here are some downloadable examples from wikipedia

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/C...sical_notation

Here is a program that can create SVG music.

http://musescore.org/en

Dale

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

Here is a program that can create SVG music.

http://musescore.org/en

Dale

VERY interesting! I'm not sure if I'm quite that ambitious, to learn a whole new program and everything, as I already have the music done up in both image format and PDF, but I can see that it would be pretty nifty to have it actually "in the page", basically like any of the rest of the text, and nicely scalable and everything.

I just downloaded the software, but I'll have to think about this -- I'm not sure how much of a pain or chore it would be to transcribe the entire song, note-for-note.

I will think about that, though, and in the meantime I do think it's pretty cool! Thanks for pointing that out, Dale!

Oh, just one question... if I did make this into SVG format (which from the help files for that program it would seem I also have to embed fonts, too, in order to get them to actually show up), how does one insert those SVG images? Do you add them in basically like any other images, i.e. <img src= blah blah blah?

[Tex2002ans]

Keep in mind that there is also a few different LaTeX packages designed for typesetting music:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...music-in-latex

One of the largest looks to be MusiXTeX (downloads, guides, samples (source, PDFs, MIDIs)):

http://www.mab.jpn.org/musictex/index_en.html

The documentation PDF for MusiXTeX can be found here:

http://icking-music-archive.org/soft...x/musixdoc.pdf

Originally Posted by PeterT

I would say just include an URL within the book where supplemental material can be obtained.

I would agree, you can always just include an image, and then below, say something like:

"For a higher quality PDF version of this sheet music, visit: http://sample.com/sheetmusic"

Same with the MIDI, would probably be best to just host it somewhere else and link to it within the book.

Originally Posted by Psymon

I'm not sure if I'm quite that ambitious, to learn a whole new program and everything, as I already have the music done up in both image format and PDF [...]

What program did you use to create the music? Perhaps you can just export directly to SVG from there.

If anything, you could always just use something like Inkscape to import the PDF -> export to Plain SVG.

Has anyone stumbled across a music book designed in EPUB? I must admit, I have never seen such a thing (although I assume they are out there, and using SVG).

I would think most devices would be too thin to fit a reasonable amount of music on them, although you might be able to put the images sideways, so that the device could be held in landscape mode.

Side Note: Also, please tell me you made the images PNGs, and NOT those dreadful JPGs.

Originally Posted by Psymon

Oh, just one question... if I did make this into SVG format (which from the help files for that program it would seem I also have to embed fonts, too, in order to get them to actually show up), how does one insert those SVG images? Do you add them in basically like any other images, i.e. <img src= blah blah blah?

A while back there was a topic by MikeWV, who was wanting to insert SVG tables/graphs into his book. We had a big discussion, and there were lots of sample EPUBs:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=240980

You could always take apart the EPUBs and take a look at the code, and test them on iBooks and see how they work (if they are buggy or not). Also, be sure to test things such as changing the background colors (Night Mode, etc. etc.). For example, I found that the color of the SVG images did not change color in Calibre, leading to Black lines on Black background (although I must admit, this might have just been because of some leftover crud in the SVG code due to the way I exported it, I haven't delved as deep into SVG as I would like).

[Psymon]

Wow, this is turning into so much more of an ordeal than I thought. I just spent the last couple of hours investigating whether there was an easier way to convert the original raster images (in Photoshop PSD format) or the PDF into an SVG image -- apparently there's a way to do it via Illustrator (I have the full Adobe Design Studio CS6). I hadn't installed Illustrator yet, so I did that, and have been trying to figure out how to get that conversion done -- it's weird, because I'm not used to Illustrator.

I just don't know if I can be bothered to go through all this, just for this little ditty -- I don't even "have" to add this in to my ebook at all, actually, I just thought it might be fun.

For what it's worth, here's one of the two images that I'd put together for the sheet music (which is two pages long). I'd put it on "old paper", just for the heck of it, to go along with the 19th century flavour of the book as a whole.

I also downloaded that MuseScore proggie that was mentioned before, and started transcribing the sheet music note-for-note -- also a total pain in the butt to do (I got a bar-and-a-half into it before I put it aside and started looking into the Illustrator route instead).

Do y'all not think that for me to just include the images like I originally did up (as you see here) wouldn't be good enough? I was going to do them up as full-page images, and if one's device supports zooming in, then you could do so, of course.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Psymon

VERY interesting!


Oh, just one question... if I did make this into SVG format (which from the help files for that program it would seem I also have to embed fonts, too, in order to get them to actually show up), how does one insert those SVG images? Do you add them in basically like any other images, i.e. <img src= blah blah blah?

The fonts are only needed to ensure that the words show up exactly under the notes I believe. There are other ways to make that happen or you can just check it for expected fonts.

You may be able to import you midi file to make the sheet music in the first place.

Dale

[Tex2002ans]

What I would personally do is split each of those lines (it has been WAY too long since I played music, I forget all the terminology!!! hahaha) into their own separate SVGs/PNGs, instead of having an image of an entire page.

This way you could upload much higher resolution images, and not bump up against much of this "pixel size limit". But what do I know!

Side Note: Is this book also in blackletter font?

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

You may be able to import you midi file to make the sheet music in the first place.

No, not with that MuseScore program, anyway. It would seem that you can input your music with a MIDI keyboard, but not just import straight from a MIDI file. Gee, that sure would have been easy, if it did!

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Psymon

No, not with that MuseScore program, anyway. It would seem that you can input your music with a MIDI keyboard, but not just import straight from a MIDI file. Gee, that sure would have been easy, if it did!

too bad, but maybe you can fake it by sending a midi file to standard out and then reading it in somehow. Since the keyboard really sends text there ought to be a way to fake it. You might want to ask on the web site.

Dale

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

What I would personally do is split each of those lines (it has been WAY too long since I played music, I forget all the terminology!!! hahaha) into their own separate SVGs/PNGs, instead of having an image of an entire page.

This way you could upload much higher resolution images, and not bump up against much of this "pixel size limit". But what do I know!

I was thinking that it would be pretty cool if there was some "magical" way of doing it so that every single bar of music (and not just each measure) was a separate image, and you could put them side-by-side each other, and whenever it got to the end of the "line" the next bar would just wrap over to the next "line" and become a new measure, and in that way have it somehow scalable somehow by adjusting the font size, and have each measure change/wrap accordingly.

If you know what I mean. I know that's dreaming in colour at this time, but I suppose that might be something for musicologists to develop for the future -- "scalable music", that can change where it wraps depending on the font/notation size.

Side Note: Is this book also in blackletter font?

Nope, not this time, don't worry (and that wasn't blackletter that was used on that sheet music).

[Psymon]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

too bad, but maybe you can fake it by sending a midi file to standard out and then reading it in somehow. Since the keyboard really sends text there ought to be a way to fake it. You might want to ask on the web site.

I don't know -- this whole thing is getting to be way more work than I imagined it to be. I've been working on an anthology of writings by -- and about -- Henry David Thoreau ("Walden", etc.), and I have some info about what his favourite song was, i.e. the "Tom Bowling" that you see in the image I posted a couple of replies ago. I just thought it would be fun to add that in as an additional chapter, along with various other biographical and critical stuff about him.

It's really not all that important -- I don't even have to add it in at all, of course, or I could just insert the two images (of the two pages) as I did them, and leave it at that.

I'm starting to get tired of working on this book and just want to get it over and done with! I've already installed two additional pieces of software (MuseScore and Adobe Illustrator) which has only left me feeling frustrated and turned this into a much bigger "make work project" than I'd anticipated -- and even if I did somehow manage to end up with a nice, scalable SVG image (or series of them), I don't know what the heck to do with it, and need to learn that next, too.

Maybe I should just quit... while I'm behind.