Music XML

This weekend I spent a lot of time working (more like battling...) with MusicXML.  MusicXML is an open-format file that allows users of different music notation software to share their files between each other.  It is the equivalent of using a .txt file in notepad to move data between a Microsoft Office document and a Mac OSX Pages document.

I am a Finale Music Notation Software user and the person who wrote our 2011 Marching Band Show is a Sibelius Notation Software user.  In order for us to be able to tweak the show to our band's needs we have to edit some of the music which requires us to convert the file from one platform to another.  This requires a file conversion from Sibelius to MusicXML, then MusicXML to Finale.  After the conversion is complete, here is a picture of what the musical score looks like:

As you can see, there is a lot of cleaning up that needs to happen with the music as it is currently written.  When all is said and done we should have between 12 and 15 staves of music on the page at one time.  This allows it to be readable by the person conducting the ensemble.  Currently, there are about 35 staves that need to be reviewed, edited, and combined.  This work will be done by 2 or 3 people, so using the same software is important.  I hope to continue to update this project as it takes place.