Hello all . . . .
I remember one of my fellow sitar enthusiasts talking about scanning notes and converting to midi, etc. but I can't find the message . . . . is there a way to scan text (like about Ragas) with your scanner and convert it to text format? Hopefully I'm explaining this right? It's a little later but if anyone knows how to accomplish this I would be most grateful . . .
Hey Lars;
I think a whole bunch of posts were lost when David's server crashed last month . . .
I think what you need is scanner software with Optical Character Recognition (OCR). That converts scanned text to ASCI code and then to formatted text. Most scanners in recent years either include OCR software or offer it as an upgrade option. However, I have read reports that conversion is not always 100%.
Hi Russ,
I remember posting my experiment, I guess it was lost. Nowadays sampled instruments have quite perfect sound i.g. .sf2 files so in a few years one may actually play many of them at once as an orchestra. See also my reply to MEISSOUN in Community forum. On top I believe in few years one may be able to search the net for melodies or riffs, alamkaras etc. just as today for words or images. This could be accomplished if notation is scanned. I tried a demo of capella-scan 4 ( see google) and put the raga notation of Alain Danielous book "Ragas of Northern India" on the scanner. It worked that the outcome was a OCR score and could be played as midi with the built in sequencer. The demo only takes the first bar of each stave, therefor it is workable for percussions alright, which repeats. For ragas one may need the full version. Anyhow, one need to convert the midi back to .wav and add the .sf2, possibly revised with intonation. Then the various instruments as .sf2 should be mixed in the sequencer. For ragas one could enter the mudras as .jpgs and have them shown on a laptop as choreography before a performing dancer. One actually needs to practise this to get it all straight, I think it is possible today, but needs some funding to perfect it.
Oh, OK. I see where you're going now. OCR to sound. Isao Tomita would be proud of you! My knowledge of electronic music tapered- off in the early 80s, way before desktop computers, modern sequencers and samplers. Do you think staff notation can be used to adequately deliniate a raga using proper intonation? Pretty ambitious! You could retire in tall cotton if you can figure all this out!
Hi all,
I have nothing against playing real time instruments if you have them, but there should be alternatives.
>Do you think staff notation can be used to adequately deliniate a raga using proper intonation?
Yes. In the 70s I discovered that Bharata was trying to preserve the ancient melodies by introducing a system of notation which has been misinterpreted since. This system equals western staff notation. So if an OCR is run from a saregamapadhani converted to staffnotation the notes needs to be intoned acc. to the shruties as Bharata transmitted them in Natya Shastra originally. Then they could be processed further. It could be a way to create orchestrated ragas as alternative to solo or jugalbandi. Since indian musictheory came down the ages connected to dancedrama I do not want to view it apart from it, music and dance belong together, so some software support for dancers could be envisaged, too.
After all one needs to go into this seriously if it ever should work that way.
OK, then if you believe a market to exist for this (or intend to create one) then proceed. As for me, I will always prefer live vs digital. But for a software engineer with a musical background, I understand this could be a rewarding project, and I would be interested to see the results.
